Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump WATCHES Witnesses SCREW HIM at Trial

Episode Date: May 5, 2024

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for the Weekend edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On this episode, the anchors discuss and debate: (1) the impact on the jury of the live witness testimony for the prosecution in the NY criminal trial against Trump; and (2) the impact of the documentary evidence, including emails, checks, bank records, and audio and video recordings on the jury in the trial; and (3) what the SEC could do next against Trump Media now that its THIRD REPLACEMENT “independent” auditor required to be a public company, HAS BEEN CAUGHT IN A MASSIVE FRAUD SCHEME, and will be barred from the industry and can no longer certify Trump’s company’s financial statements, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Neo Plants: Go to https://neoplants.com/LEGALAF to get your 7th pouch of Power Drops free of charge at checkout (note: you must use this link for the discount to apply - look out for the free product that will be automatically added to your cart). Thanks to Neoplants for sponsoring today’s video! Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://RocketMoney.com/legalaf Lumen: Go to https://Lumen.me/legalAF and use promo code LEGALAF at checkout to get $100 off your Lumen 3 Day Blinds: For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to https://3DayBlinds.com/LEGALAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coalition-of-the-sane/id1741663279 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That's the sound of unaged whiskey, transforming into Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, nearest green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Three weeks are in the books

at the Donald Trump criminal trial in Manhattan. We've had three major witnesses testify thus far, a few other more minor witnesses but I think they've presented some incredibly powerful evidence the three major witnesses thus far we had David Pecker Keith Davidson and then on Friday Hope Hicks Karen Friedman Agnifilo who co-host Legal AF with us. She was in the courtroom at the trial on Friday. She described what she observed with the Hope Hicks testimony as a Perry Mason moment when Hope Hicks described this meeting she had with Donald

Trump, where Trump acknowledged that Cohen had made the payment to Stormy Daniels, and then Hope Hicks talked about how she did not believe that Cohen had made the payment to Stormy Daniels. And then Hope Hicks talked about how she did not believe that Cohen would just ever make a payment like that out of the goodness of his heart. And then she started breaking down in tears right before cross exam started. I wanna break that down and all of the key witness testimony. I wanna talk about all the key documentary evidence

that has come in, the checks, the audio files, the bank accounts, the C-SPAN videos and more. And then I wanna talk about where are we going next? What happens next? And then Popak, if we have some time, I think we should talk about how Trump media's independent auditor, you know, the new Trump company that was formed through that reverse merger with the SPAC. The auditor was called BF Borgers.

The actual accountant's name or the so-called accountant's name was Ben Borgers. That's their office right there. It looks like a restroom on one of those like rest stop exits off the highways, which was the first red flag when I read the first filing post-merger. I said, who's this auditor who signed off on it? Because I remembered that a bunch of the other auditors quit. So they needed somebody to sign off on Trump Media. And in the new SEC charges against BF Borgers, they refer to this company as an audit mill that would basically sign off on anything. And look, this is a repeated pattern that we've seen.

And then of course, when there was some reporting being done in the past few weeks about BF Borgers, Trump spokespeople all started saying, oh, this is a witch hunt. How dare they go after the auditor before they've even began work. And sure enough, the auditor has been engaged in some horrific, horrific conduct. We'll talk about that and more.

On the Legal AF, I'm Ben Mycelis, joined by Michael Popak. Popak, thanks for letting me fill in midweek. It's always a pleasure to be able to do that. I know you've been running around, you've been posting some photos of where you've been at as well. Thanks, Ben.

I took my wife to District of Columbia to DC. She'd never been, and we're trying to find ways to do some quick vacations while my wife is pregnant with our first child. So I do appreciate you stepping in for me. We do it for each other, very supportive network and group of colleagues here on Legal AF. I like the way we broke down

or are gonna break down the show today. Things we're gonna talk about are important both as a listening and watching guide for things that have already happened to put them in context and give our audience who's just got a voracious appetite for all things at the intersection of law and politics, particularly the Trump trial going on right as we expected. I know there was a lot of news reporting out there that said, oh, are people just, are they just tired of all this?

Does anybody care about the Trump trial? And by our viewership and by the various shows and pregame and postgame that you and Karen are doing and the fill in the backfill that you and I and others are doing about the case, the answer to that is a resounding yes, not only is our audience at rapt attention, but also the jury. And we have a lot of reporting, both from people like Karen who are in the room and others about how this information that's being presented by the prosecutor. And by my count, we're about a third to a halfway through their script, which

was outlined a year ago in their statement of facts that they presented as they had to as prosecutors to Donald Trump. They're about halfway or maybe a little bit more through that. They've done a remarkable job. I think if you were to poll the prosecutors and ask them, knowing how the … There's always two cases, right? There's the one in your mind that is the best presentation you possibly can make, and

then there's the one that actually happens in the courtroom. It's a pretty close correlation here. They gotta be happy from the prosecution. Sure, there was some interesting moments that the press ran with about some cross-examination of Keith Davis and the lawyer for Stormy Daniels and for Karen McDougall that we'll talk about trying to make him out to be a drive-by extortionist

and all of that. And it was, you know, and again, I was called a Melania, sorry, Hope Hicks, the Melania lookalike, breaking down in tears at a certain moment for reasons that you and I will have fun speculating about on this podcast. But that's not the nuts and bolts. That's not the wood chopping that's going on in the courtroom in front of the jury. It's interesting and we'll talk a lot about it, but what you and I are going to detail and you've done in a hot take, the checks, the emails, the audio, the video, the secret recordings, all evidence that is evaluated by the jury, but all has equal weight

in terms of its value, testimonial, evidentiary, recordings, audio, and all of that. They are doing, I'll just leave it on this, Ben, the prosecutors are doing a masterful job in the presentation of their case in chief because they're moving from inside witnesses to outside witnesses, inside, outside, as opposed to, just to make it clear for our audience, when you're a trial lawyer like you and me, Ben and Karen, you have to think about the organizing principles of your presentation. There has to be an internal logic to how you present your case to the jury. You can't just take, as I said on a hot take

recently, you can't just take a giant box of a puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle, and dump it out on the table and tell the jury you figured it out there in the course of the trial. You have to give them big pieces of whatever your puzzle is linked together and then attach it elegantly during the course of a trial. And what we've seen is every time there is an outside witness like David Pecker, it's matched with an inside witness like Ronna Graff. We're going inside, we're going outside. Outside witness in Keith Davidson,

lawyers for the two people part of the Catch and Kill program, the targets of the Catch and Kill program. Inside witness, Hope Hicks, as they make their way methodically through that script of the statement of facts that they gave us back in April, as they move into kind of the final moments when they're going to bring in some more boring inside witnesses like the accounts payable supervisor and the controller who already almost went to jail once already, and then eventually Michael Cohen. And so that's what we're going to outline today. And then, of course, at the end, we'll talk about this long series of Trump accountants and auditors

who either don't want anything to do with him and fire him or get caught in their own fraud. You know, there is this harmony, this kind of orchestral, uh, directorial aspect to being a prosecutor in presenting the evidence and how you started, you almost think about like a concert, right? You don't want to bore your audience when you begin the concert with like the worst song or a new song, right? You always say, when you go and you see when you go and you see a band that you love and they start off and they're like, all right, I'm gonna play you a new song off an album

that you haven't heard yet. You may like that, but you don't wanna hear that yet. You wanna start off strong. And that was the point that you made Popak that you thought they were gonna start up, right? So you go David Pecker, who tells the story. Then you start to your point. You then have witnesses who then just show,

here are the documents, here are text messages, here are business records, here are bank records. Then you go, here's Keith Davidson, another major player. Then you go, okay, here are more Trump texts, here are more Trump messages. And then you go Hope Hicks. And so it's been just a, from a, a, a professional perspective to watch this. It's just been very impressive to trial aficionados like you and I watching.

Exactly. It's been great. So let's just start in with the most recent witness though. Hope Hicks, it's on everybody's mind, just as a way of background for everybody. The background of Hope Hicks, she was a teenage model. She started working for the Trump organization shortly after she graduated from college.

When Donald Trump decided to run for office, she kind of then became this like press secretary of the nascent kind of campaign. And then she became the press secretary when Trump ultimately won and disgraced the office. She was the communications director from 27 to 2018. She stopped working there at 2018. Then she returned in 2020, 2021. She was there for the insurrection. She's testified before the January 6th committee, but she has not spoken with Donald Trump

or people in Trump's orbit for several years, was one of the first things that she had talked about. She's represented by an independent counsel, not like a Trump appointed lawyer. And Karen Friedman Agnifilo, our cohost on Legal AF, was in the courtroom. And just a reminder, Karen worked in the district attorney's office for nearly 30 years. She was the number two at that office.

And, and sometimes she served as the acting district attorney, like the top spot. So she was there, she observed it. And I just think it's so important, Popak in our reporting. Like when you go to the courthouse and you debunk Donald Trump saying that like, Oh, people can't go there and protest and that it's being blocked. I think it's so important that we have hosts like Karen Friedman, Agnifilo, Harry Litman and others who are actually in the courtroom telling us, so we're not just giving you like speculation.

So this is what Karen Friedman Agnifilo said. She left the courtroom. She was going to her next meeting. And so when Karen explained what happened with Hope Hicks, she was quite literally in like a hallway. And as you know, KFA Karen Freeman Agnifilo has been reporting with us from like buses and trains and taxi cabs because she wants to get us the information first.

So she leaves the courtroom and this is exactly what she told us about the Hope Hicks testimony. Let's play this clip. Prosecution started asking her about this payment that was made and she, I just, I'm trying to think of exactly what it was because it was so powerful. She basically said that later on, after he was already president, they had a conversation about the payment to Stormy Daniels.

And what he said to her was, it's a good thing the story didn't come out before the election. And as she was saying it, it felt like a Perry Mason moment, because she very much was saying, she very much was confirming what Donald, what the prosecution theory is, was that the whole reason they suppressed that was because of the election.

And at that moment she started to cry and her voice cracked. And then the defense attorney in Neil Boeve got up and asked her a question like, confirm what your job is, or something like that. And then she broke down crying. And, you know, as a defense attorney, you know, she just basically gave the prosecution what they needed. They tied the primary reason that Donald Trump wanted this story not to come out before

was because of the election. And I think the gravity of what she had just provided to the prosecution, she broke down front. So Michael Popok, you heard Karen Friedman-Egniffilo describe what she observed with Hope Hicks. Of course, we've gotten reporting, not just from KFA, but numerous others who are in the courthouse who we work with and just other great reporters who work for other outlets. So we've gotten a wide array of perspectives here to synthesize. Popak, what do you make of Hope Hicks' testimony on Friday? I like the way you started it, Ben, by make of Hope Hicks testimony on Friday? I like the way you started it, Ben, by describing who Hope Hicks is. She was very candid.

I did a hot take on Hope Hicks. I said she's going to be devastating for Donald Trump. She's going to destroy the Melania defense, which we'll talk about in detail here, which seems to be based on the opening statement made by the incredible shrinking Todd Blanch, who I haven't seen in the courtroom do anything substantively other than gag orders and the opening. He's turned it over to his colleague who works under him, Emile Beauvais, who's been doing the cross-examination of all the major witnesses.

I'm actually quite surprised by that. Indicates perhaps that Blanch, I mean, I'm the lead trial lawyer in my cases and yes, I have colleagues that have handled cases with me, but like the main witnesses of Hope Hicks and Keith Davidson turn it over to my junior colleague, I doubt I would do that. And I'm wondering what that signals. But back to Hope Hicks.

Hope Hicks is self-confessed to be inappropriate and inexperienced for the jobs that she held. In her testimony, she told the jury that she was shocked when Donald Trump offered a 28-year-old no-press secretary experience, Hope Hicks, the job of press secretary for his campaign. She thought he was kidding. She laughed. He said no. And then eventually she was off for the job. Hope Hicks is one in a series of Melania lookalikes that are in Trump's orbit. Here's a picture of them. Margot Martin is the new Hope Hicks. She's in the courtroom. She's 28 now. She's a deputy communications director for Donald Trump that she's on the left Melania there

Then you've got hope picks that's Christy known But I would put the fourth one in as Alina Haba if you line all these people up you think they were trying out for Fox News, but they're not they're all have leadership or communication roles for Donald Trump She also testified in Which I think completely destroys the Melania defense which is I didn't do it because I was trying to interfere with the election I was just trying to protect Melania well it's a number of flies in the ointment on that first of all where is Melania a powerful moment as a defense lawyer if I were

handling the case which of course I never would neither would Ben nor would Karen would be to have Melania in the courtroom during Hope Hicks' testimony. You want to see waterworks for Hope Hicks? Bring in Melania and have her sit behind Donald Trump in the gallery. That didn't happen because this story doesn't make any sense. And the jury are human beings. And to believe the story that he was doing this to protect Donald Trump, then what is to make of what Hope Hicks said, which is she did not believe Donald Trump than what is to make of what Hope Hicks said, which is she did not believe Donald Trump on a key point. She said that Donald Trump told her, isn't it great that Michael Cohen on his own selflessly gave Stormy Daniels $130,000 to try to act like he wasn't involved as the mastermind of the orchestrated conspiracy

between David Pecker, Michael Cohen, Allen Weisselberg, and with Donald Trump at the center to pay off women like Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal and others who had negative stories that would interfere with his election results as we moved into October and November of 2016. That is the story, okay? And that is the facts on the statement of facts

that the prosecutors are methodically making their way through, witness by witness, document by document. This Melania story is blown apart both by Hope Hicks testimony that when Donald Trump said, "'Oh yeah, it was a great Michael Cohen "'just selflessly made a payment.'"

She says, "'I didn't believe that.' "'. I didn't believe under cross-examination. I didn't believe that. Why not? Because I never saw Michael Cohen is doing anything selflessly or with charity. He's a person that takes, try to take credit for everything. I did not believe Donald Trump. So what do you have? You have the jury hearing that Hope Hicks who comes off very credible with her crying and all the rest of it and her demeanor that she thinks Donald Trump's a liar on a key point in this case. The other thing the jury has already heard before Hope Hicks gets there, remember somebody like Hope Hicks is a moment in time, but she follows a sequence of other events that have already happened that the jury has already heard and if they don't remember, they will

be reminded of come closing and other witnesses as we move through this case. They've already heard that Donald Trump wanted Michael Cohen to delay the payment to Stormy Daniels to see if he could avoid paying it outright and get elected without, and keep her story off the front page of having sex with Donald Trump outside the marriage while Melania was pregnant with one of her children, Barron. If he could get elected without having to pay her, that would be fine with him. Well, what happened to the Melania defense? I mean, how does Melania get less hurt or less embarrassed if he's president? So that is below, they've

already heard that. Now they've heard from Hope Hicks, this reluctant witness that, who Trump apparently did according to court reporters, including I guess Karen, didn't ever looked at her, kept his eyes shut during the whole thing as she testified. Did she give a couple little little, uh, uh, a little kernels to the defense on the Melania defense, if the jury even bought it, which they won't maybe said, well, he, he, he cared about Melania. All right. So a husband cares about a wife.

Uh, he valued her opinion. Okay. Same thing. Um, he, um, he was in control of his own PR. Well, that makes sense. He's in control of his own PR. Well, that makes sense. He's in control of his own defense strategy, pushing and shoving his lawyers to do his bidding. I mean, the jury hasn't heard one new bit of evidence in favor of the defense, my position,

from Hope Hicks. And yet on the very moment when she knew she was crushing Donald Trump's hopes and dreams of a defense, she burst into tears. And believe me, not only our KFA in the back stairwell of that dingy courthouse that she used to work in noticed that, but the prosecutors noticed that, and they are going to remind the jury of that in their closing when they get down to the closing argument. Last thing on Hope Hicks, who is basically done, and you made a good point about her not being, hasn't spoken to Trump in

two years, didn't take any new jobs with him. She doesn't really have to any longer. The reporting is that she's about to marry the number two guy at Goldman Sachs, the major investment firm, financial services firm in New York, who may at this moment have more money than Donald Trump. So she doesn't really have to kowtow to the Trump orbit and in her testimony. And I think as we expected that she was going to be,

I think the jury will find her very effective as a truth teller. And the few things that a meal, the lawyer for Donald Trump was able to be, I think the jury will find her very effective as a truth-teller and the few things that a meal the lawyer for Donald Trump was able to get out that they'll try to spin together as some sort of Melania defense will fall under the weight of the mountain of additional evidence and testimony that will be adduced during this trial by the prosecution. Andrew Weissman who was in the courtroom as well and who's been reporting on some of these developments says the following, this is why Hope Hicks is such a devastating witness against Donald Trump.

Hicks makes clear that Trump knew of the Cohen payoff scheme to Stormy Daniels. Two, even if you believe his statement to her that he only learned after the fact. Three, her testimony sinks Trump's defense since he is on record in a civil case admitting that he reimbursed Cohen the $130,000. And four, Hicks establishes that Trump knew that the money was for Daniel's silence, not for the claimed legal fees for ongoing legal work by Cohen. I think of all of those, number four is the most important part right there, that Trump was aware that this was hush money payments for silencing her.

If Trump's going to try to argue that the payments that he made and his signature is on to Michael Cohen are for other things. It's going to be clear that he specifically knew that Cohen had paid off Stormy Daniels. You know what proves that point Ben before you move on? The fact that they gave Michael Cohen what's called a true up payment and paid him $400,000 for $130,000 payment.

Let me just explain it quickly. If it were just a payment to Michael Cohen for his income, okay, then they would just pay him for his legal services, the 130,000 for whatever those legal services were on the fact that two days earlier, he set up a new sham company, went to his bank and took out a loan and then turned the money over to the lawyers for Stormy Daniels.

So that's a lot of things that the jury is going to have to disbelieve in order to believe Donald Trump. But then if it's just $130,000, let's take Trump at his word for once. It was $130,000 payment for legal expenses. I don't know how he paid his taxes. Then why is it for 400,000? And why does it include what Michael Cohen will ultimately testify as a true up payment, meaning he'd have to record that on some tax return for this company that he set up or for

himself as income. It's phantom income or income to him, meaning he'd have to pay taxes on it. He didn't want to pay taxes on it. Trump didn't want him to pay taxes on it. So he got a payment so that when he, and I'm sure Michael will testify, that when he put this, recorded it on his tax returns as quote unquote income, he had the money from Trump to pay the taxes. You don't do that when you, I'm a lawyer, I get a payment from a client, the client pays me. He doesn't pay me and then pay my taxes on the payment.

And so that whole thing, that whole structure of the true up payment and paying Michael Cohen $400,000 to cover the tracks of $130,000 payment in order so he didn't get screwed a tax time. What does that say? That says Michael Cohen is the conduit for Donald Trump and Donald, not the other way around. This other theory of the defense, the rogue Michael Cohen theory is also going out the window through Hope Hicks. That Michael Cohen, on his own, to kind of bully his way into the campaign at the Trump's Good Graces,

just decided he would kill the deal. We know that's not true because Pecker testified that the only reason he didn't make the payment directly to Stormy Daniels is because he got screwed by Trump on the payment to Karen McDougal for $150,000. And he's like, I'm out. I'm not spending more of my employer's money. I'm buying another story for Donald Trump and not getting reimbursed. Hence Michael Cohen.

And what's the common denominator for this episode so far? The jury is watching and listening. And you can't pull wool over their eyes and the prosecutors won't let the defense. I think this is the simplest argument to make to the jury too. If Michael Cohen went rogue and did things that he wasn't supposed to do at all, that weren't in a retainer, that Cohen went rogue. Assume that's the argument. Then why did Donald Trump pay him?

Right. And then why would Donald Trump pay him extra? Rogue payments. You are so rogue. You are acting so out of authority that I'm giving you a bonus. You're cutting your back out of guy. I am going to give you triple the money because you are a rogue, awful person. That's so good. That's the most obvious explanation, but there's more too.

There's lots of video of Donald Trump praising Michael Cohen in real time. Then let's talk about that and more. real time then. Let's talk about that and more. I also wanna talk about this civil lawsuit where some stipulations were made by Trump's legal team back in 2018 or so and confirmed by a judge in 2020 in a Stormy Daniels v Donald Trump civil case right out here in Los Angeles

that I think is gonna have major ramifications. And you and I will start talking about some of the documentary evidence as well. We'll talk about that and more. Let's take our first quick break. If you thought houseplants were just for decoration, think again. NeoPX from NeoPlants brings science and nature together

to create a living air purifying powerhouse for your home. NeoPX is the world's first plant microbiome system, bioengineered to purify the air in your home. Indoor air can be up to five times more polluted than outdoors, mainly due to harmful pollutants called VOCs, volatile organic compounds, that are constantly emitted indoors from thousands of common household products like furniture, paint, cosmetics, and more. NeopX was invented by PhD scientists to target three of the most

harmful VOCs found in your home and is up to 30 times better than a regular houseplant at fighting indoor air pollution. It's based on five years of research and development to enable NeopX to capture and recycle VOCs into useful matter like sugar and amino acids. Every month you just pour the bioengineered formula called power drops onto the plant soil to supercharge NeopX's air pollution capacity. NeopX comes with a self-watering planter called the Shell, so you only have to water it every two to three weeks. My existing air purifiers at home make up a fair amount of my electricity bill. But with NeoPx, I can get clean air

with just some sun and water and it looks great in my home. When you purchase NeoPx, you'll receive six power drop sachets. But to celebrate the launch on this podcast, Neoplanets is offering a seven sachet free of charge. That's one extra month of pure air. Go to neoplants.com slash legal AF and the code will be applied automatically at checkout. Drop shipping available within the US and soon to many more countries. With a grown family, I've been trying to save even more money,

but it seemed like my bank account was stuck. Thankfully, I heard about Rocket Money and gave it a try. It turns out I had a number of subscriptions I was paying for it that I'd forgotten about. Rocket Money helped me cancel some of them and now I have more money than before. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions,

monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. I can see all of my subscriptions in one place. And if I see something I don't want, Rocket Money can help me cancel it with a few taps. I love how the dashboard shows me this month's spending compared to last month, so I can clearly see my spending habits. Plus, they'll help me create a custom budget

and keep my spending on track. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate to lower your bills for you by up to 20%. Or they'll help me create a custom budget and keep my spending on track. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate to lower your bills for you by up to 20%. All you have to do is submit a picture of your bill and Rocket Money takes care of the rest. They'll deal with customer service for you. Rocket Money has over 5 million users

and has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the apps features. With Rocket Money, I have full control over my subscriptions and a clear view of my expenses. Stop wasting money on things you don't use.

Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. That's rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. That's rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. Rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. Michael Popok, I went so rogue during the break that you don't want to co-host the show with me. I was pesky rogue Ben decided and you said, hey, I still want to do this show with you.

I mean- No, no, no better. I'm giving you a bonus. I mean, it's, it's points like that though, where we shouldn't, um, you know, lose the overall forest for the trees here. We need to sometimes take a step back and say, you know, this doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense, this doesn't make sense. And the defenses are so foolish when you actually kind of talk about it like that.

And so I think it's important that we frame it that way. And the prosecution, of course, they're so in the weeds sometimes, it's important that they take a step back and go, look, for the jury, sometimes it's as simple points like that that will be kind of most effective here. I want to talk about this lawsuit very briefly, the Stephanie Clifford goes by the name Stormy Daniels, when she does what she does, versus Donald Trump. Here's a court order that court can take judicial notice of.

These were stipulations that were made by Trump in this civil lawsuit that I think are going to be pretty damaging to Donald Trump. As the court says, plaintiff has also submitted defendant referring to Trump and essential consulting that's when Trump and Cohen were working together, a joint opposition that they filed back on June 1, 2018 in the district court in which defendant, Trump and Cohen admit and confirm that defendant reimbursed EC, which was Cohen's shell company, $130,000 payment to plaintiff pursuant to the terms of the agreement.

Thus in their June 1st, 2018 opposition brief in this action, EC essential consulting, which is Cohen and defendant Trump admitted that defendant reimbursed Cohen $130,000 to plaintiff, which was paid in consideration for plaintiff's promises not to disclose information pertaining to David Dennison. And why they were stipulating to that in 2018 is they wanted to try to keep Stormy Daniels, you might be saying,

why would they even stipulate this? They wanted to keep her subject to the confidentiality and non-disclosure order. Right? So they wanted it to apply to David Dennison. At that point, they wanted Trump to be David Dennison so that Stormy Daniels would be bound by the agreement and that she could be sued for going public with it. So you have documents like that,

that the jury's going to see. They have not seen that one yet. They have not seen the checks yet, but here's a check that's signed by Donald Trump, being Donald Trump paying Michael Cohen right there. That's Donald Trump's signature. There are 11 total checks. I think eight of them or so have Donald Trump's signature on them.

The other ones have other people at the Trump organization. So the jury's going to actually then see that Trump paid Cohen after all of this. And my point earlier, well, if you claim that Cohen was rogue, why would you then pay him that? What the jury has seen though already through a C-SPAN archivist who had to fly in and testify because Trump wouldn't stipulate was Donald Trump praising Michael Cohen after Trump was elected, after Cohen made the payments to Stormy Daniels, after Donald Trump is on an audio recording acknowledging to Michael Cohen that he's aware of Cohen setting up all of these shell companies and accounts.

This is what Donald Trump had to say about Cohen in real time after Trump was aware that Cohen was making the payments to Stormy Daniels. Here play this clip. And by the way, we just found out I was coming down. Michael Cohen, I was being, Michael Cohen is a a very talented lawyer is a good lawyer in my firm. Let's just play that even one more time just so you can hear it. This is what Trump has to say about Michael Cohen after he's aware that Cohen made this. I missed the rogue comment.

Let's hear it again. And by the way, we just found out I was coming down Michael Cohen. I was being Michael Cohen is a very talented lawyer, he's a good lawyer in my firm. That was what he was saying in real time. Let me show you some other things that the jury has seen already too. The jury's seen messages like this one,

polls close, this is from October 16, 2016. Donald Trump wrote, polls close, but can you believe I lost large numbers of women voters based on made up events that never happened? Media rigging election. The jury saw October 11th, 2016. The very foul mouth John McCain begged for my support during his primary. I gave, he won, then dropped me over locker room remarks.

The jury saw this statement. Um, can't believe these totally phony stories, 100% made up by women, many already proven false and pushed big time by press have impact. The jury's seen this post by Donald Trump more recently. I did nothing wrong in the horse face case. Never had an affair with her just another false acquisition by a sleazebag. Witch hunt. The jury seen the bank account statements from First Republic Bank with Cohen opening up the bank account. The jury seen- Can you go back, Ben? Ben, go back to that last one.

Which one? The bank. Look at the Freudian typo. Never had an affair with her. Just another false acquisition by his sleazebag. He meant accusation. What he really did is he bought her silence. So it was acquisition sometimes.

And we know now from Hope Hicks, right? Only he and Dan Scavino ran his media and did tweeting. So that's his. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry. And then this is what Donald Trump was saying while he was campaigning in June of 2016. The jury saw this as well through the C-SPAN archivist who testified.

Play this clip. As you have seen, right now I am being viciously attacked with lies and smears. It's a phony deal. I have no idea who these women are. Have no idea. I have no idea. And I think you all know I have no idea because you understand me for a lot of years, okay? When you looked at that horrible woman last night, you said, I don't think so.

I don't think so. Whoever she is, wherever she comes from, the stories are total fiction. They're 100% made up. They never happened. They never would happen. I don't think that happened with very many people, but they certainly aren't going to happen with me.

So I wanted to show the evidence as well. Testimony is evidence, but I also wanted to show the evidence there, the documents, the text mess, the tweets. The jury has seen a lot of text messages in real time from David Pecker and Howard Dillon who run the National Enquirer, but the jury saw those videos. How powerful do you think that is? Let's talk about with the other witnesses who have testified, then the jury sees that. Take it away, Pope. I, thanks, Ben. I've said in the past and on with you and me and in hot takes that while

technically, technically all evidence is sort of created equally, Juries weigh it. Juries weighed witness credibility. But there is no, in the law, there is no difference between a piece of documentary evidence, inferential evidence, hearsay that's properly admitted evidence, testimonial evidence, audio, video. It all has the same potential weight depending upon how it's ultimately weighed by the juror. But one is not better than the other. The law doesn't say, well, if you have an audio clip, well, that's it. Well, do you have a video?

The video is better. It's not like there's a priority. Video is better than audio. Audio is better than documents. Documents are better than witnesses. Circumstantial evidence is, it's not like that. Everything has given equal merit under the law subject to weighing by the jury as the trier of fact. However, having said that, the reality for trial lawyers like you and me and jurors like this is that certain evidence

does blow their mind more and change the weather in the room more when played, as we talked about at the very beginning, in the right sequence at the right time with momentum, internal logic by a masterful presentation by the prosecutors or a defendant if we're talking about the defendants. And when you play a clip and then you put on evidence to show that clip is a lie. And by this time, frankly, the jury knows going in that Donald Trump lied to the American people about his extramarital sexual activity.

They already know about the Access Hollywood tape. They knew about it before they even got into the jury box, but they certainly know about it now. They know about the hot mic moment about attacking women. They know going in, even though they can be fair and impartial, that Donald Trump's already been a judge by another jury twice of being a rapist and a defamer and a punitive damage award-oer in the E. Jean Carroll matter. They know already that he paid off these people because it's not that big of a leap because he did it and he didn't want it to see the light of day. Hope Hicks gave them, gave credence to that,

that Donald Trump cared about what the voters thought about him when it came to these things. And we have the audio tapes that have already started to be played, including Michael Cohen's, and that has a powerful impact when you hear the participants in the conspiracy talking about the establishment of a phony shell company, that the payments have to be made with Donald Trump participating in the call and directing the call that have to be made not in cash, but in a way that there's a paper trail and talking about how much are we paying this time and where is it coming from Donald Trump following up with David Pecker the publisher of the National Enquirer about how's our girl Karen Karen McDougall who he paid off oh she's being quiet what do we do about

Karen after Karen and Hope Hicks testified about this after Karen and Hope Hicks testified about this, after Karen McDougal, you know, decided to go on on Anderson Cooper and, oh, we should pay her more money. How do we get her to stop talking? And the conversations that she had in damage control, Hope Hicks around that. They've heard all of this. I'm telling you, when a jury, when they dim the lights like we used to do, and they roll the tape of CNN, and then all of these disparate pieces, and then quickly, the prosecutors put these puzzle pieces together for the jury, right, in big pieces, as they knit this whole story together. It's just, it's just supremely powerful. And to my point, I want wanna just bring it up here again. They're following a script. I talk about it in a hot take, but in particular, a year ago,

a year ago, the prosecutors, as they're required to do, filed a statement of facts along with the indictment. And we are now, by my count, we're moving through the first two Roman numerals and all those paragraphs with the witnesses we identified in the first segment. Pecker, Rona Graf, Keith Davison, the guy over at First Republic Bank, Hope Hicks. And now we're moving quickly and rapidly. People want to know where we are in this four, five or six week trial. By my count, we're now into the section labeled under the statement of facts. Roman numeral two, the defendants falsified business records

and we've already made substantial progress there. I know two witnesses that they're definitely going to be bringing in because they mention them. The Trump Organization controller, Jeff McConney, who just avoided jail time the first time around and now has left the company, he's going to testify. And whoever the Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor, this is going to be some fascinating testimony, but important testimony to prove the case. That person's coming in. Remember, or to remind our audience, you know who knows the Trump organization and

the individual people's responsibilities for things like record keeping better than even Donald Trump? The Manhattan prosecutors, the DA's office, because they already tried a case two years ago as a dress rehearsal, getting a 17-count felony conviction against two of Donald Trump's major companies for falsification of business records and tax fraud. They know who these people are and what they're going to say and they've already interviewed them to prepare them for their testimony. They've interviewed all of these people before of their testimony. To anybody that thinks that they didn't talk to Hope Hicks through her counsel before she takes the stand, David Pecker before he took the stand,

Michael Cohen before he takes the stand, that the prosecutors aren't ready, that they're, I wonder what this witness is gonna say. That's not how this works. They know exactly what these people are going to say or they wouldn't put them on the stand. And just one last point on this, the confidence, and I wanted, that's another shout out to

the prosecutors, the confidence that the prosecutors have shown by cutting Allen Weisselberg loose and telling him, no, no, you're right, two time convicted felon related to false statements, you stay at Rikers Island. Even though you were the chief financial officer that worked on the bookkeeping and worked on how to get Michael Cohen paid, well, it went through you. We don't need you. We don't need you. We have enough. That showed me so much confidence in their case. If I was the defense, I'd be like, crap, they don't even want Weisselberg. He's staying in jail for

this. We're cooked. Which explains, just back to my original point, the 20-minute opening by Todd Blanche. Let me ask you something, Ben. Where do you think Todd Blanch is? Why is he not doing these key witnesses and we haven't really seen him except for the gag order arguments and at the opening statement time? I think when there was the initial contempt hearing and the judge said you're losing all credibility before me and Todd Blanch was caught flat-footed. He looked weak. He didn't have good answers. It was a very, very just overall weak presentation. I think that Trump basically tapped Emil Boeve, the other lawyer, who by the way, I'm told

is a very good lawyer, used to be a federal prosecutor with a very good reputation. And so I think they turned it over to Emil Boeve. Interestingly, Donald Trump has Todd Blanch just kind of at his side during those bizarre press conferences. And in a moment, I want to chat with you about one of those where Todd Blanch like has really been, has neutered the right word to use. He's lost all credibility, not just in the courtroom, but amongst other lawyers too. So any reputation that Todd Blanch was a good lawyer, he's destroyed his reputation.

I hope he's enjoying whatever checks that Donald Trump's political action committee is paying him because he's a joke right now. Like lawyers that I talked to who once respected him, like laugh at this guy behind his back, his reputation is in tatters. And just think about it, you know, you have Donald Trump at this press conference claiming that the gag order prevents him from testifying at trial, despite Donald Trump saying that he was going to testify at trial. Then he turns to Todd Blanche, looks at Todd Blanche and says, that's right.

Right? The gag order prevents me. And then Todd Blanche shakes his head. Yes. Like that's accurate. And everybody knows that's right, right? The gag order prevents me. And then Todd Blanche shakes his head yes, like that's accurate and everybody knows that's just false. You know, and so Todd Blanche became no better than Alina Haba almost the same way that Chris Keiss became no better than Alina Haba when they tried the case. Trump makes people worse.

He surrounds himself with already bad people. But if you are competent, you have to be, he makes you worse. You have to just listen to whatever he says. You can't have any modicum of independence. But that's what I think happened. That's what I think happened there, Pope. I think happened there Popeye. I think you're totally right. I think you're totally right about that. I mean, we said early on, but you know, that's the good thing about Legal AF. We, the continuity of our follow through,

and you and I can talk about things we talked about three months, six months, two years ago, three years ago with recall. You know, we said with him and Chris Keist, there was a reason that their big American lawyer 200 law firms kicked them out or they left those firms, set up their own shops by themselves as a captive law firm for one client. That's what happened.

Both Chris Keis and Todd Blanch left their law firms, set up their own separate shops of two and three persons total to represent one client and make millions of dollars. Chris Keiss has got like five and a half million. Alina Haab has gotten five and a half to 10 million. Todd Blanche has gotten five and a half to 10 million for these couple of guys that are running around here doing whatever they're trying to do here. And the rumor is in the reporting that Blanche wants to be like attorney general or white house counsel, if God forbid there's the restoration of the Trump presidency, we have to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen politically illegally, but, but that's why he's sacrificing his professional reputation

on the altar of Donald Trump's greed and lust for power. You know, I always tell my law students at USC, I teach law school and I teach undergrad at USC law, at the Gould School. And I always tell them, I'm like, look, if you want to be very wealthy and make huge amounts of money, do not go into law for that reason. Go into law because you love the practice of law and you want to do right and you care about law and order. And then perhaps the money will come. I mean, all these shows like Suits and others that even show lawyers being incredibly wealthy

and having mega mansions. I mean, there's a very small portion of lawyers that kind of do that money at the, at the highest of high levels. But that's actually not most lawyers. That's not to say that lawyers don't do well. You know, but what you see here is how easily enticed someone like a Blanche is and the point I want to make is doing it for money because Trump's political action committee is paying them more than they've ever seen in their life. And these are people who in their careers, for whatever reason, Alina Haba feeling that

her career, well, never having a real career to begin with and doing like parking garage law near Bedminster, someone like a Chris Keiss who just wants to be wildly wealthy, someone like a Todd Blanch, you know, wants to be wildly wealthy, leaving their firms which pay them good money, but not mega wealth, but sacrificing their reputation and their career for these million dollar checks that are paid for, not by Donald Trump, but by Mr. and Mrs. Magadonia, people who are out there complaining about all of the things that Donald Trump tries to gin up about the economy, but are so willing to give Donald Trump their life

savings so that a purported billionaire can go and pay Todd Blanch all of his money. Popeye, let's talk a little bit more about that. I wanna talk about where this trial is going. A lot still to discuss, but let's take our last ad break of the show. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism

through your breath. And on the app, it lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs and gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition, workout, sleep, and even stress management. All you have to do is breathe into your lumen first thing in the morning, and you'll know what's going on with your metabolism,

whether you're burning mostly fats or carbs. Then lumen gives you a personalized nutrition plan for that day based on your measurements. And you can also breathe into it before and after workouts and meals. So you know exactly what's going on in your body in real time. And Lumen will give you tips to keep you

on top of your health game. Your metabolism is your body's engine. It's how your body turns the foods you eat into fuel that keeps you going. Because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does, optimal metabolic health translates to a bunch of benefits including easier weight management, improved energy levels, better fitness results, better sleep, etc. Lumen gives you recommendations to improve your metabolic health. It can also track your cycle and for women,

the onset of menopause and adjust your recommendations to keep your metabolism healthy through hormonal shifts so you can keep up your energy and stave off cravings. The key to metabolic health is something called metabolic flexibility and that's where lumen really shines. It refers to your body's ability to efficiently switch between using different fuel sources like carbs and fats.

There are preferred times to use each, and how well you can switch places you on the metabolic flexibility spectrum. And after getting to know you through your breath, Lumen gives you a metabolic flex score that you can track and approve upon. So if you want to take the next step in improving your health, go to lumen.me and use LegalAF to get $100 off your Lumen. That's L-U-M-E-N dot M-E,

and use LegalAF at checkout for $100 off. Thank you, Lumenumen for sponsoring this episode. 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 3Day Blinds. They're the leading manufacturer of custom window treatments in the US. And right now they're running a buy one, get one, 50% off deal. We can shop for almost anything at home. Why not shop for blinds at home too?

Three Day Blinds has local professionally trained design consultants who have an average of 10 years or more of experience that provide expert guidance on the right blinds for you and the comfort of your home. Just set up an appointment and you'll get a free no obligation quote the same day. Not very handy, I'm not.

The expert team at 3Day Blinds handles all the heavy lifting. They design, measure and install. So you can sit back, relax and leave it to the pros. There's a better way to buy blinds and window treatments. It's called 3Day Blinds. They're the leading manufacturer of custom window treatments in the US.

3-Day Blinds has been in business for 45 years, and you may not hear it in the name, but they make an incredibly high quality product. That's why they are the highest rated blinds company on TrustPilot at 4.7 out of five stars. No matter your unique need from motorization to home automation to room darkening or child safety, with 3-day blinds you choose from thousands of options

that fit any budget or style and with actual samples, you won't be guessing about what your blinds will look like. Right now you can get 3-day blinds, buy one, get one 50% off deal on custom blinds, shades, shutters and drapery. For a free no charge, no obligation consultation, just head to 3dayblinds.com slash LegalAF. That's buy one, get one 50% off when you head to 3dayblinds.com slash LegalAF. One last time, that's the number three, d-a-y, blinds.com slash LegalAF. Thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors. The discount codes are in

the description below. It's really helpful to continue to grow this network. We're grateful for the support of those pro-democracy sponsors. Also, one of the ways we grow the show and grow the network is through our Patreon, p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com slash legal AF. We have two new videos that I gave. And now that my USC lectures are done for this semester, I'm up and running giving lectures on Patreon, Popok, you're giving a ton of lectures

on Patreon, so if people wanted to kind of just dig deeper into these topics and really geek out with us on the law and just see what it would be like to be in a law school class with Michael Popok or myself, that's the place to do it. Patreon.com slash Legal AF. Popok, during the ad break, I couldn't help but reflect as I was talking about lawyers and responding to your question, just seeing the dynamic of all different lawyers aiding and abetting certain types of conduct on full display in this criminal trial. I mean, you have Michael Cohen, who's going to be testifying soon, who's now a disbarred lawyer

who got disbarred essentially for doing work for Donald Trump that he shouldn't have done. And Cohen right now, quite literally has a podcast called Mea Culpa. And Cohen's been saying, I screwed up. I made mistakes. I'm warning you, don't make the mistakes that I made. Hey, I'm just giving you the red flag. This didn't have to happen to me. I screwed up, which I appreciate. People deserve second chances. And that's what Cohen's doing. Then you have in the courtroom though, people like Todd Blanch outside in the courtroom, you got people like Alina Haba, who are next iterations, if you will, of what we've seen before with Trump lawyers. Then in the courtroom also, you have the testimony of people like Keith Davidson, who's a lawyer, but he was doing these kind of strange settlement deals

where it's not really clear what the claim was, but they were treating them like legal settlements for hush money payments that were being done, like Davidson and Cohen and National Enquirer. So I just kept on thinking about the role of attorneys, the role of lawyers, and then you have the prosecution standing up for law and order and Trump attacking the prosecutors and attacking the judicial system. I don't know. I wanted to reflect on that.

You're totally right. And there's going to be more lawyers in this case that are going to be testifying, which is not just going to be the strange situation of Keith Davison, who a lot of commentators misinterpreted his demeanor. They were like, he seems uncomfortable talking about some of the deals he did for Tina Tequila and this one and that one. Yeah, he seemed to be the go-to lawyer when people had sex or some sort of interaction with a celebrity.

And then, you know, they were going to go public with it which they're allowed to do they want to write a book they want to go national inquire social media youtube they can and then he would just as a public service offer to not go public with if they were willing to get paid another way i mean these people are going to get paid one way or the other stormy daniels is either going to write a book or go on a circuit tour or whatever she was going to do and if donald trump didn't want that to happen and wanted to give her money another way, he'd have to pay for it. That's not the crime.

The crime and that the prosecutors are continuing to remind the jury, the crime is the coverup of the, on the business record fraud, right? Cause if you have nothing, if you have nothing to hide, then Donald Trump just goes deep into his pocket and he pays off Stormy Daniels and we have no trial to talk about. But the way through a Rube Goldberg contraption, he paid all of this. It's the coverup and the crime. And then of course, Michael Cohen. But to your point, not the only lawyer that's going to testify about, you know, he's got

clients so he's got to pick his way through the attorney-client privilege. I thought his answers were more, he was more pensive and reticent and more just the facts because he was worried about his attorney-client relationships and privilege and ethical issues. And that's why, what we were watching him, not that he was squirming and having to answer those questions. And like, who cares if that's how he made a living? They try to make, they try to make that day that Keith Davison is an extortionist day. Who cares? This is not a case about state versus Keith Davison. This is a case about Donald Trump willingly participating in this scheme in order to prevent himself from not getting elected or not losing the election. We know there's at least two more witnesses coming

up because back to my handy, trusty statement of facts by the prosecutor, remember every paragraph in this statement that they made a year ago and filed with the court and gave to Trump, they know they can prove multiple ways or they would not have written it at all. I mean, they wrote exactly what they can prove and no more. They got at least two more lawyers. They got mainly involved with Donald Trump trying to make back channel messaging to Michael Cohen to stay quiet and take one

for the team in going to prison, which Michael ultimately got convicted of doing. So there's two more lawyers, a lawyer C and a lawyer D that are going to end up having to testify to on paragraphs 38 and 39 back in the mid-April of 2018 period. We haven't even gotten that part of the trial, but we will and we'll see more lawyers that did not cover themselves in any glory in doing Donald Trump's bidding and or as we've said before, skirted with disaster, see Rudy Giuliani, you know, uh, uh, and all the other lawyers indicted or convicted in the various, uh, states along with Donald Trump who worked for Donald Trump at one time. Popak let's look ahead now, in addition to those lawyer witnesses,

to what else we expect to happen in this upcoming week? How long do we expect this trial to last? It does seem to be moving rather quickly. Um, uh, Justice Mershon has a firm grip on the courtroom, really has an iron fist on, you know, he, he has not yet fully dropped the hammer to incarcerate Donald Trump yet, but there's been already the contempt finding that was made regarding nine separate gag order violations. Earlier this week, there were four additional gag order violations that were

brought before Justice Mershon in a second contempt hearing. Mershon's yet to rule there. We expect him to rule soon as well. The Midas Touch Network and our editorial team has identified more gag order violations of Donald Trump. On Thursday night, he posted a video from a social media app called the Rumble from the Steve Bannon show. It was Andrew Giuliani and some other right-wing hosts who were attacking the judge's daughter.

And at the very beginning of the video, you hear them attack the judge's daughter and then attack the judge's gag order that's in place. And so it clearly seems intentional and willful right there. I'm looking to see if on Monday we're going to see the prosecution bring up those violations. But look, the case has been progressing rather quickly. It's possible we're going to have a verdict in the next four to six weeks. I want to get your take on that.

Yeah. When do you think Cohen's going to testify? But let me just read this to you from George Conway, what he had to say about Michael Cohen, he said that all of the testimony he's heard in court, Conway's been in court so far, corroborates everything that Cohen has said about the case. And every bit of testimony that has come out shows Cohen has come clean

and is telling the truth about that. Now they're going to go after him and say, well, you submitted this form to the Taxi Commission, you said this to this judge. They're going to go through all sorts of stuff. And it's like, so what? Tell me what is it that Michael Cohen is lying about on the witness stand as it relates to this case.

And they've got nothing because he's been corroborated by pecker. He's been corroborated by his banker. He's been corroborated by text messages. He's been corroborated by the tapes he recorded of Donald Trump. He's been corroborated by Pope Hicks So talk about Cohen talk about other witnesses the length of this Trial, what do you make of all of that Pope? if I'm going to use the where the

prosecutors think they need to be in terms of their statement of facts from a year ago and think they need to be in terms of their statement of facts from a year ago and the pace at which, the velocity at which they've been able to make the first half of their case, first two Roman numerals, if you will, now turning to business record fraud, more of that, some backfill on the other points with other witnesses that we know are coming and then some new issues that have not yet been presented to the jury but we know are coming because they're in that statement of facts about Michael Cohen and the attempt to silence Michael Cohen or have him take one for the team for Donald Trump that Donald Trump was also involved with. Right, because you're not doing anything wrong. You want to make

sure that Michael Cohen, who you are now claiming went rogue, takes one for the team by lying about your involvement and have people, lawyers approach Michael Cohen in order to silence him and or alter his testimony. That's what you do. That's what they're going to want the jury to believe is consistent. So based on the way they're going at the 11th day mark now, knowing that it's been about three and a half trial days a week, because there's been a couple of extra dark days in there to accommodate some jury issues and some court issues, I think that we're going to see another

three weeks if they can hang in their pace at four days a week. I think that I think the and then we have to add the defense case in there. So I think the prosecution case is going to take another 10 to 12 trial days ish and then they're going to rest. Then the case is going to turn to the defense. The defense is either is going to put on if they can their own witnesses. They're gonna have to make the decision about Donald Trump. They've already told the jury that he may but may not testify and so there'll be a defense case and then there's a rebuttal case by the prosecution. That's why even though they're moving at a fast clip, this still

make time out given the the fact that it's not a full work week during the week, it ends sort of on time at 4.30, which is great for the Midas Touch Legal AF show that you do with Karen. It's either not like going, I've been in trials where it starts at 8.30 in the morning, and it goes till six every day, five days a week. We're not doing that here.

It's a lighter load that way. Great for the lawyers because they can get prepared for the next day. This could really play out six or eight weeks, not additionally, like another four to five weeks. Then they're not done, the prosecution conditioning the jury for Michael Cohen's testimony, bolstering it, if you will, reinforcing it. So, he becomes having had every other witness corroborate and evidence having corroborated Michael Cohen. Michael Cohen does not become the wild card that the defense thinks he's going to be. Or we know he's gonna be a human piñata for Donald Trump,

whether it's Blanche or you're right, Emil Bove doing it. It's, yes, he's gonna put on your hard hat. Michael's gonna take some hits in terms of credibility. They'll spend the entire first half of the day talking about Michael's convictions. I don't mean that from a moral standpoint. I mean that from a prison standpoint and his involvement with all of this. Then they're going to have a hard day. I'm talking about the defense in cross-examination because Michael is not going to agree with them and he has the receipts to show

that he's right about that he went rogue and that this was his idea out of the selfless bottom of his heart to help out Donald Trump and do a solid. I mean, that's going to be a bad day in that section of the cross examination. But by the time Michael gets there between Pecker and Hope Hicks and Keith Davidson, we've already testified, these other lawyers that are going to come up there the people in the Trump Organization like Jeff McConney the controller ex-controller and some lower-level payment people and all of that Michael's just gonna be like you know just tying stuff together and putting a name with a face the people that they've already heard they will already have a view of Michael Cohen the the jury, before Michael Cohen gets there. And I don't think it's gonna be overly negative.

Everybody knows that this was sort of a cesspool environment and facts that make everybody a bit squeamish, at least on the majority side. And they're gonna have to hold their nose on some of these facts about the payoff of the women and Michael's role in it, along with his boss, Donald Donald Trump orchestrating it. But by the time Michael gets there, they'll be so properly conditioned and almost normalized about,

this is what Conway's saying, about things Michael Cohen, that he will not be the white knuckle moment that people thought it would be for the prosecution. Let's remember that Alvin Bragg it would be for the prosecution. Let's remember that Alvin Bragg rung his hands for a number of months, almost a year, about whether to do this case because he had to get comfortable with Michael Cohen. That's the reporting. I think Michael Cohen's own reporting is sort of like that. But it's certainly out of the New York Times reported that Alvin needed to get comfortable with Michael Cohen as a witness and more importantly, how the case would be presented with all the other corroborating witnesses and evidence to sort of take the sting away from the ultimate cross-examination one day of Michael Cohen and Alvin Bragg to his credit and as an against against tremendous I mean he was under so much pressure that I that few

people would have survived it from a career-wise between his special prosecutor Mark Pomerantz coming out right in a book about you know this case should have been brought and why it should have been brought, and commenting about the evidence, and commenting about Michael Cohen, and yet Alvin Bragg talking about prosecutors and quality lawyering on this show, stayed the course, got right with Michael Cohen,

but more importantly got right with his prosecution team and Josh Steinglass and Matt Colangelo about how they were going to insulate Michael before Michael even took the stand. So a long-winded way of saying, we're not ready for Michael yet. Michael's coming further down the road, the Sand, the classic sandwich witness. He's not the first, he's not the last. He's somewhere buried towards the back end. We're probably a week or two away from the back end. And then we'll see Michael Cohen.

And look, you and I will spend a considerable amount of time, as will Karen, about the Michael Cohen testimony. But we always have to remember what came before it as building blocks in front of this jury. And as this bell is constantly being rung by this prosecutors in front of this jury. Popak, two things I wanna touch upon briefly. We'd be remiss if we didn't mention

how while all of this is taking place in a Manhattan courtroom with this criminal trial, the Securities and Exchange Commission has officially charged Donald Trump's independent auditor, somebody by the name of BF Borgers, Ben Borgers is the head of this company, BF Borgers is based in Colorado. They've been charged with massive fraud, basically running an audit mill, signing off on audits for public companies and claiming that they're compliant with the PCAOB standards,

which is the kind of public accounting gold standard for public companies when they're actually not following those standards and they're just essentially being charged and accused of just signing off with anything that comes before it. And in some cases, even just using either manipulated numbers or like old numbers that come from a predecessor accounting firm. So one of the types of things that they're being accused of is, let's say a real serious, you know,

big four accounting firm or a firm in the periphery of the big four firm a firm that's adjacent to it, says, hey, we don't really feel comfortable being the ones to sign our names on this, because you could be held liable the same way those accountants were held liable in the Enron case. So when you sign these independent audits,

you're also subjecting yourself to liability. So if a company or an independent auditor said, we don't want to be a part of this, and they have their last work, one of the things that BF Borgers is basically being accused of is just not even doing their own work, just like taking the spreadsheets that they got and just signing off on it without really doing any significant diligence. Now we previously reported here both based on our independent reporting, as well as from the reporting by the Financial Times.

A few weeks back that this BF Borgers had got a 100% delinquency rate, like it failed 21 of 21 audits by the PCAOB when 21 files were audited, 100% effective. I mean, that's like pretty impressively defective that every single file had an issue. There were local issues. There were bans of BF Borgers in Canada. And Trump's prior accounting firms quit and they didn't feel comfortable working for Trump media.

And remember, Popak, what I think needs to be talked about here is the critical time that this BF Borger stepped in for Trump media and who's Trump media going to use now that it doesn't even have the audit mill people to sign off on it. Then it raises the broader issue of this is who Trump surrounds himself with people like Borgers and BF Borgers versus like real accounting firms, you know, that you would normally expect to see in situations like this. It was one of the first things I looked at when this merger was announced back in I think it was late March. Like who's the auditor? BF Borgers. Who the heck is BF Borgers? I looked at their office.

I saw this, you know, you know, you know, office that looked like a rest stop bathroom. And I saw Ben Borgers and I'm like, like this doesn't seem, I don't, I don't know much about Borgers. I've never heard of this guy before, but this doesn't seem legit to me. And I raised the red flag right away. Look at this guy, look at this guy, look at this.

It was the first thing I said. And if you all watch, you remember I said that. I looked at this guy. Look at this guy. Look at this. It was the first thing I said. And if you all watch, you remember I said that I looked at the office. I was like, what publicly traded, supported billion dollar company is being audited by something like this. It's not to say he may, you know, he may have been a good audit. I don't know. It just raised a ton of red flags and made me like instantly suspicious. But the SEC charged him. He's agreed to like a $14 million settlement

and a suspension from ever appearing before the SEC again. But I think that that's just a, it's a data point, Popak of like, really, really. And like, it's not a witch hunt. It's not a this. It's just really messed up people who this guy surrounds himself with. And I just want

competence. I just want normal people. I want skilled people. I want professionals. And that's what we talk about here a lot. Professionals normalcy. The maga may want diapers over Dems or whatever it's called right now to try to turn back the reporting about his gastrointestinal problems during trial. But we want, as you said, we want and demand competency. And the Borger's thing is just a long line and a series of professionals putting two kinds of spin on it. People that you're supposed to hire as independents in order to protect the investing community as a requirement of you to have a

corporate license to operate a certain state. And so, is anybody shocked on our side that Donald Trump having been fired by his and his company being fired by his longtime outside auditors, Mazers, who eventually became witness for the prosecution or witness for the attorney general in the civil fraud case, not only quit him after 10 years, but issued a statement that we reported on two years ago that became critical to the case against Donald Trump for civil fraud, which a judge has already found him to have committed with his family civil fraud in a crime spree that lasted over 10 years in his company's.

Anybody surprised that when they quit, they also said, and by the way, everything that we've told the outside world and counterparties about reliability of our financial statements that we certified is false. You can't rely on them because we can't rely on the client, which is Donald Trump. So that's Mazers.

Then when Donald Trump decided to use this SPAC to go public, the Special Purpose Acquisition Company, to go public, as you said, Ben, he had another auditor that was a decent auditor in all this, Witham, Smith, and Brown, which people in that sort of SPAC world knew. But after several months, Witham, Smith and Brown said, you're fired, to paraphrase the apprentice.

We don't wanna be a part of Trump world, even before they went, quote unquote, public. And then Donald Trump had a scramble, and who does he find? Ben Borgers, who you just found. I was involved years ago in suing a auditing firm for a client in Florida, a public client, not publicly traded, but a public client, a government client down in Florida.

And almost eerily the same kind of allegations that they were a mill that was churning audits and had missed key things in our clients' books and records that if the board had known about it, they would have made some other decisions and instead they lost millions of dollars. So that's what we were suing the auditor for. And that's what the SEC has claimed that that's why there's a 100% fail rate because they were cutting and pasting and they were churning audits, not doing the actual work. I can't even believe based on that rest stop photo of their office, there's enough people to do an audit that's required now

That would explain why I saw some weird you're talking about red flags I saw some weird reporting about a week or two ago That said that there were 13 spelling errors of the Trump name or Trump organization in the Borgers Workpapers or filings. I was like, well, how do you get the name of the client wrong? Right, because you're cutting and pasting from something else because you're not doing the work. You're just making documents. You're making audit files without really doing the audit work. But even that, Ben, talk about, you know you're, you know you're doing bad and fraudulent things with your Donald Trump, when even your phony auditor made a disclosure a month ago

that said this company, Trump Media, is on the verge and teetering on bankruptcy. You know when they, even that company, that you're paying to not really do an audit had to reveal that before they were caught by the SEC in other fraud. But what you don't have, and that's a very good point you made, Ben, to reinforce. You and I from our careers have worked with and will work with in all of the professional worlds that are adjacent to the law, auditing, accounting, forensic examination, and other things like other outside lawyers when I was an inside lawyer, hiring outside lawyers. We worked with people that were either

top five in their practice areas or top five firms as recognized by every credible list or on the American lawyer, which ranks the top 200 or 500 law firms, somewhere in the top 10, 20, or 30 of those lists, and then, or in best lawyers or chambers, all these other rating and review agencies that are out there that exist and those are the people that we work with I could never as the Deputy General Counsel and head of litigation

globally for a Wall Street firm financial services firm I could never bring in a Borgers to be the auditor my boss and the owner of the company would say, I'm sorry, excuse me, what is this? Because you need to be able to look a board, a public, a regulator in the eye with a straight face and say, these are the people that are protecting the people's money, that are protecting and making sure that the playing field is level and that they're independent. Especially when you have regulators, and you and I talked about this, even though it's making potentially, potentially, Donald Trump billions of dollars on paper, him going public

and being subject to the Securities and Exchange Commission, especially one where he doesn't get to a point ahead of it because he gets elected again, may be his worst nightmare and lead to his financial ruin. Because the Securities and Exchange Commission, led by proper people like we have right now under Gary Gensler and others, led by Joe Biden, they don't play. And they will bring down Donald Trump and this organization, even though they let them go public after there was an earlier fraud scandal and it delayed them for a year.

Even though, but this is the only way Donald Trump can get the massive amounts of money that he wants. Private investment was not gonna do it. He was not gonna get professional investors, even if he went to Dubai or Saudi Arabia, to give him the billions of dollars that he can get from a gullible public that is pumping up the stock for him because they believe in diapers over Democrats. So he had to go, but that is a dangerous and treacherous route for him because of the Department

of Justice, Civil Division, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. And I think this, so you like talking about red flags, I agree. This is maybe the first shoe to drop is this fraudulent auditor. They, the crosshairs are on there. And I'll just speak to you from one last thing about my career in representing financial services companies. When the SEC or another federal regulator gets it in their head that a company that they are regulating or auditing is a bad company culturally, they are on them,

the crosshairs almost never come off, and they will bring that company eventually down. And that's what I believe is, I think everyone on the regulator side believes that all Trump entities are a bad company, bad companies and bad culture, and they will not relent. Talk about it, I don't know, it's not a witch hunt. It's just regulatory focused when they think a company is bad and it's public

facing. Which is one of the reasons that Trump and others in MAGA want to remove all regulatory frameworks to allow the kind of deterioration of markets working efficiently and then they gaslight and claim it's in the interest of free markets when actually you have this manipulation taking place. And I think it's appropriate to conclude with this. Donald Trump's judgment, or I should say lack of judgment, or dangerous decision-making, made him say, you know who I'm going to take as this independent auditor, or after no one else wanted to work with him because of the conduct he was engaged in?

B.F. Borgers, an audit mill. Now, the same person who says, I want BF Borgers, was the person who made life or death decisions when COVID hit our shores. I want you to think about that. This is the person who made life or death decisions while he was in office. And that is why there was so many issues, so many systemic problems.

And when president Biden came into office, he had to deal with failed trade wars by Donald Trump, Trump's excessive borrowing, which is the cause of inflation when you borrow and print money as reckcklessly and carelessly as Donald Trump did I know the right wing wants to talk about debt and all of these things Well, Donald Trump added eight trillion dollars of debt more than 25 percent of all debt is by this person and You just have to take a look at just look at the SPAC. This is how he's run everything his entire life. I mean, look, even the disclosure form that he filed when the SPAC went public and it had the reverse merger, you know, the SEC requires you to disclose your bankruptcies. This is not a political thing. This is not, oh, you know, you're a lefty.

You're calling this out. No, I'm just letting you know, this is Donald Trump's own filing. A number of companies that were associated with President Trump, this is how he refers to himself, that's how you know it's him, have filed for bankruptcy. There can be no assurances that Trump media will not also become bankrupt. Entities associated with Trump have filed for bankruptcy protection. The Trump

Taj Mahal, which was built and owned by Trump, filed for Chapter 11 in 1991. The Trump Plaza, the Trump Castle, the Plaza Hotel, all owned by Trump at the time, also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992. THCR, which was founded by Trump in 1995, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004. Trump Entertainment Resorts, the new name given to Trump hotels and casinos after its 2004 bankruptcy, declared bankruptcy in 2009. Then they list others. A number of companies that had license agreements with Trump failed. There can be no assurance that TMTG will also not fail. Trump Shuttle launched by Trump in 89 defaulted on its loans in 1990 and ceased to exist by 1992. Trump University founded in 2005, ceased operations in 2011 amidst lawsuits and investigations. Trump Vodka, a brand of vodka, was introduced in 2005, discontinued in 2011. Trump Mortgages, a financial services company

founded by Trump in 2006, ceased in 2007. GoTrump.com, a travel site founded in 2006, had a business in 2007. Trump Stakes, founded in 2007, discontinued sales two months later. That's Trump's own disclosure right there. And then you look at how you got BF Borgers. And as you mentioned, Popak Mazers resigned Markham, another accounting firm

resigned, Will with them Smith Brown, with them, Smith Brown resigned, resigned, resigned, resigned. Then you look at Trump in office. He's not being supported by his former vice president. He's not being supported by his former defense secretary. He's not being supported by his former national security advisor. Think about it. These are interrelated concepts, and one of the points where we're at the intersection of law and politics that we always talk about is,

this is not, oh, y'all are coming from the left or this is a liberal person. It's really not, there's nothing left or liberal about any of this. These are just the facts and we need to live in an objective reality where we can look at this conduct and call out fraud, call out lies, call out failure.

And that's what we need to do. It is people who want to politicize objective reporting. That's the politicization in order to try to hoist up this loser, this failure, this fraud that is Donald Trump and that's not hyperbolic. It's just take a look at the filings. It's failure, it's fraud, and it's just continuing to lose over and over again. On that note, let me say Michael Popok,

thank you for everything that you do. Your breaking news updates are incredible, incredible. Professor Popok on Patreon.com slash legal AF, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash legal AF, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash legal AF. There is exclusive lectures. If you really wanna geek out on the law, see the type of lectures that I would give to my law students and undergrad students

that Professor Popak would give as well. It also helps build this network. People are really enjoying it. I think we have almost 3,000 patrons already. would give as well. It also helps build this network. People are really enjoying it. I think we have almost 3000 patrons already. Let's try to get that to 10,000. It's patreon.com slash legal AF. One more time, patreon.com slash legal AF.

We'll keep everybody updated as we go throughout the week on everything relating to this Trump criminal trial. Hit subscribe. Let's get to three million subscribers together and make sure you subscribe to Legal AF on audio podcasts as well. Thank you all so much. Popok, always a pleasure.

People get, people go, call him Michael Popok, but we both call each other by our last names. So don't, Popok's not offended when I call him by his last name. All my best friends have always called me Popok, but we both call each other by our last names. Popok's not offended when I call him by his last name. All my best friends have always called me Popok. My wife sometimes called me Popok, and she is a Popok. You see, that's an evidentiary admission right there. See you next time on Legal AF.

Have a great one. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.