Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump's Legal TRAIN WRECK Continues & Prosecutors are READY to DERAIL HIM
Episode Date: September 24, 2023Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back with a new episode of the weekend edition of LegalAF. On this episode, they discuss: Trump’s former main White House executive assistant during his cling to p...ower, who followed him to Mar a Lago, becoming a witness for the prosecution, as Judge Cannon continues to slow down the trial of the Mar a Lago case with foot dragging about the procedures to handle classified documents; developments in the Georgia Criminal Prosecution of Donald Trump and 18 others, including new filings by co-conspirators that harm Trump’s case, a federal judge’s jaundiced view of former DOJ attorney Jeff Clark’s arguments to drag his case over to federal court; a NY trial judge comments during a major hearing in the NY Attorney General’s fraud case against Trump indicating that he is ready to rule against Trump before the October 2, 2023 trial, Fox being sued by 2 groups of pension funds to recover billions of dollars mismanaged by the Murdoch family and board in losing control of how “Fox News” and its personalities defame people, and other breaking legal news from around the US. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSOR! MOINK: Keep American farming going by signing up at https://MoinkBox.com/LEGALAF RIGHT NOW and listeners of this show get FREE bacon in your first box EIGHT SLEEP: Go to https://eightsleep.com/legalaf and save $150 on the Pod Cover AG1: Go to https://drinkAG1.com/LEGALAF and get 5 free AG1 Travel Packs and a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D with your first purchase! 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 Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 MAGA Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
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The judge in New York presiding over the New York Attorney General's civil fraud lawsuit
against Donald Trump laughed Trump's lawyers out of court during a hearing on Friday and
threatened them with sanctions.
This hearing related to dueling summary judgment motions and folks, I'm not exaggerating. The judge
actually laughed a mad of court and said, I thought what you filed Trump's lawyers was a joke, was a
prank. The real question right now though is will trial start on October 2nd or will Donald Trump's mischief in the New York appellate department cause
a delay?
It's still scheduled, folks, for October 2nd.
And I think that the trial judge may even be ready to grant summary judgment for New
York attorney general, Latisha James, on some of her claims. As the judge said to Trump's lawyers, you can't
just lie on business records. You realize that, right? Next up, Jack Smith gets key smoking
gun evidence in the prosecution against Donald Trump in the Southern District of Florida
case for Trump's willful retention of national defense information and obstruction
of justice as Donald Trump's former assistant Molly Michael dropped a bombshell.
Ready for it?
Donald Trump would use classified documents as a notepad.
He used it as a notepad to send her notes.
And then when the Department of Justice sought the documents back from Trump, Trump told
her, according to sources, quote, you don't know anything about the boxes, Molly.
Also Donald Trump filed an unusual motion on Friday.
I guess unusual for mostly everyone other than Donald Trump
filed an unusual motion with Judge Eileen Cannon on Friday seeking to revise the schedule
of classified information protection act discovery, but really what he's after here is to delay
delay delay. He realizes how damning the evidence is against him. Then we go to Georgia where things are even more damning and heating up in both state and federal court in the Rico case filed by
Folk and County District Attorney, Bonnie Willis.
So here are the questions we're going to answer.
One, why did Donald Trump join in motions of co-defendants
that are actually incriminating him.
What?
And how did Donald Trump's co-defendant
just get so humiliated in federal court?
Perhaps the most humiliating federal court hearing,
I think I've ever seen a litigant be involved in
or at least one who purports to be a lawyer will discuss
Also a new billion dollar shareholder lawsuit or shall I say lawsuits against Fox have been unsealed and
They pose an existential threat
To the Murdock Empire and this says the billion dollar smartmatic
defamation lawsuit is chugging along, chugging along. Accountability season is also
chugging along. Accountability season is here. I'm Ben Myselis. This is legal AF a lot to discuss but never a dull moment Michael Bobock.
And we're chugging along.
Jugging. That's all that's all I can say.
A little train that could I think I can I think you know that's what I when I grew up that was
my favorite book the little train that could and when I would I took gymnastics when I was four
years old Pope, and I was on the balance beam, and I would get nervous.
And you know what they told me to say,
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I can, I can.
Did you?
Yeah.
And you did.
Unfortunately for Donald Trump,
the little engine that could or two giant locomotives
loaded with evidence and witnesses
and cooperating witnesses for the prosecution
barreling down on him in two or three separate prosecutions
I wouldn't want to be Donald Trump as he sees Fonney Willis or Jack Smith with a little engineers hat
Tuding away on that train that's that that he is now tied to the tracks on awaiting their arrival
It was a lot of fun having you on Wednesday
We normally have Karen on Wednesday. She was as we like to say away on assignment and I think It was a lot of fun having you on Wednesday. We normally have Karen on Wednesday. She was, as we like to say, a way on assignment. And I think people got a kick of you
and I doing Wednesdays together, at least once in a while, and that we were a little more interactive
on that one than usual. Sometimes it's just like, you know, you do your thing and I do my thing,
and then we do our thing together. But I think the back and forth was fun, and that there'll be a
segment or two in this episode. We'll be able to do that as well where where we where we have a conversation we're in front of you know two million people
We could be like two conductors talking about the next trains that what if we just kept on using
Train analogies because Donald Trump is certainly
Combusting in court as we look across the various cases.
So when I said in the intro that Donald Trump got laughed out of the court in the New York
Attorney General's civil fraud case, I'm not joking.
I mean, the judge judge in Goran in this hearing on the dueling summary judgment motions
actually said, when I first heard the arguments that you
filed, referring to Donald Trump's lawyers, I thought you were joking. I thought this was
all one big joke, Judge Arthur and Goran stated who also added that he had repeatedly ruled on the very same issues that were brought up by
Donald Trump's lawyers in their summary judgment motion.
So, Trump filed a summary judgment motion asking for the entire case to be dismissed, regurgitating
these rejected arguments saying that New York Attorney General does not have standing
to enforce the New York Attorney General Law, you know, also basically saying there's nobody who's injured here at all.
The banks were an injured to which the judge had repeatedly reminded Trump's lawyers.
The injury is to the fair market, the injuries to the people of New York.
So Trump regurgitated those arguments, whereas New York attorney general, the Tisha James put forward, I don't know, something called facts,
something called evidence, something that showed, for example, well,
Donald Trump, you claim that the apartment that you live in is 30,000 square
feet. It's 10,000 square feet, for example.
So if you just look at a calculation of the square footage and you have the multiple
of what that value is per square foot, even if we accept your fraudulent valuation methodology
by your experts, you're still lying because you're lying about the size of your properties.
And she went through methodically each and every one of the properties and says,
Donald Trump is just lying about these.
And here's his deposition.
And Donald Trump's deposition goes,
I treat my properties like I treat the Mona Lisa.
It's just something that's beautiful.
And I don't need appraisals.
And any event the Saudis would buy my Mona Lisa's for anything.
Is what Donald Trump said and
Judge and Goran was not buying it at moments during this hearing he was apparently slamming his fists
You know on the table before I mean he was saying look you can't lie on business records and say nobody was injured
You were warned before about sanctions and when you were warned what you're supposed
to do is not do the same thing over and over again.
And I kid you not.
This was Donald Trump's lawyer's argument, Pope, and then I'm going to toss it to you.
Donald Trump's lawyer Christopher Kice, who by all accounts, you know, was a smart lawyer.
He's got this guy
had a decent reputation, but he has to make arguments like this quote, this is why billionaires
are billionaires. These are his trophies. That's the argument that Trump's lawyer made,
Pope, that wasn't checking along. Trump's lawyers not checking along.
No, that train, the bridge is out in front of that train.
And Goron, the judge is trying to tell him, wave him off,
because they're heading over a cliff.
I don't think we have to worry about an October 2nd trial date,
even though there's going to be another hearing
in the first department, a pellet division,
the first, the pellet court above the court,
the judge and Goron is on, about whether the October 2nd trial date should be pushed or not. Because I don't
think that's, I think we're going to get a summary judgment in favor of the New York Attorney
General finding civil fraud against Donald Trump and his organizations and executives without the need for a trial.
And I think that's why he's never been that concerned
about either having more time to have this hearing
that you and I are now gonna describe on this segment,
which was the hearing, it was really a two-part hearing,
it was a hearing on summary judgments
both filed by the state, New York Attorney General,
and by Donald Trump's lawyers.
Donald Trump's lawyers are like, we don't even need a trial.
We agree.
They all agreed on one thing.
They had their own analogy.
It was Alice in Wonderland.
They both talked about through the looking glass, except it made more sense for the New
York Attorney General and the lawyer that was arguing there, Andrew Amor, than it did
for Chris Keiss's argument.
And then the second part of that
motion hearing with Judge Angoran was on sanctions against Trump for his continued and his
lawyers continued raising of, as you said, been frivolous arguments that have already
been rejected time and time again. And just because some of the earlier arguments were
made by a long departed Alina
Haba doesn't mean that Chris Kais gets to keep raising them in papers over and over again,
hoping he'll get a different result. I mean, this is how courts work. You make, you take
your best shot, you make your argument in paper early at a hearing, at a trial on paper,
the judge rules. You may disagree and you can ask for reconsideration or re-argument
on that issue. And once that is decided, finally, in Atlanta, the table and in the record books,
you're done. You don't bring up defenses long since dismissed by the judge or arguments long
since rejected, just because you got some time on the clock at another hearing. And that's why
and costing the New York Attorney General time and money and delay delay delay and so that was the second part of the hearing. But we
had a piss and vinegar judge and goron. This is the first time we've seen him. First of all it's
first time we've seen him in a hearing in a long time and it's the first time since he's been sued
by Donald Trump and his team suing him under what's called an article 78 proceeding,
but naming him specifically as official capacity as a judge to take a direct case to the
appellate court, not on appeal, but for the appellate court to order Judge Engoron to do something
which for Trump is stop the trial in October. That whole article 78 where Judge
Ingoron had to go out and get his own lawyers. I mean, the lawyers assigned him from the
court system anyway is going to have a hearing next week. Because as we said a couple of
weeks ago on legal AF, they did convince Trump did convince one of the justices of this
first level appellate court to stay the October 2nd trial date, nothing else
in the case, until a full five person panel of the first department could make a ruling.
That hearing is going to be next week, but they've already judged and go on now having
been sued, having told the parties, you are going to have plenty in time
to get ready for October 2nd.
I'm going to hold a hearing on summary judgment for both of you soon.
He did yesterday.
I'm going to tell you which of the 12 pieces of property that the New York and transactions
that the New York Attorney General is claiming there has been overinflation of asset value by Donald Trump in order to over borrow from banks
with assets that don't support the loans that amounts that don't support the value of the
true value of the property.
I'm going to tell you which properties are in the case that you need to argue for trial
in which case is because of a June ruling by the Appellate Division that Trump was partially successful
in, are outside the statute of limitations.
Because Latisha James, the New York Attorney General, does have a slight time problem because
she brought her case.
It took her so long to develop it, like five years, that some of the claims fell off the
continuum as being valid claims because they're time-bart,
meaning every cause of action, state or federal, has a statute of limitations that goes along with it.
No, no, I'm not talking criminal, I'm talking civil now.
And a number of these, a couple of these transactions and properties,
therefore that were at the heart of her case, fell off as being time-bart.
That's okay, because others didn't't like Mar-a-Lago, which was overestimated according to the
New York Attorney General by every year, by $250 million or more, or 40 Wall Street, which
is sort of a trophy property that Donald Trump considers about a half a block from the
Federal Reserve, downtown in New York.
That has been overestimated according to the New Yorker's General by $500 million every
year.
Let's use this as an example.
Suppose you only have a dollar in your bank account and you have the $500 million fake
valuation for your property.
Well then you really only have a dollar.
Because if you go to the bank and says,
I have 500 million and $1, and I'd like to borrow money, please.
And the bank says, well, let me take a look at that.
Do you have an appraisal?
Oh, yes, it's an appraisal from my mind.
It's an appraisal on what I think it's worth.
Because I'm a billionaire developer,
and anything I say is should be followed,
which is Chris Keiss' argument in the courtroom,
which led to a lot of laughter and banging on the bench by the judge, which was, I wouldn't
invest a dollar based on what the New York Attorney General has to say, because they are under
educated in the area of real estate.
I would follow Donald Trump and whatever he says is right, Judge.
To which the judge, by the way, the judge said at one point,
you understand that if you mistated the value of properties,
even though you claim there was no victim,
there could still be a fraud, right?
A fraud on the marketplace, on the fair operation
of the market because your guy's getting an advantage because he's lying to the banks about the value of his property.
They have limited money to lend because banks don't have unlimited money.
They have limited money both by regulation and their own balance sheet.
And they over lent to your guy so they couldn't lend the person right behind
him in line.
And the asset was not properly supporting a value the asset was not properly supporting a value
of asset was not properly supporting the loan at all.
So should there have been a collapse, the bank would have been not securedized.
But you understand all that, right?
And guys was like, but I would put my money wherever Donald Trump told me to put my money.
Okay, here's the result.
On the at least two of the of the 12 major properties, which is almost a billion dollars
in her case, Mar-a-Lago and Forty Wall Street.
I believe that a a very robust decision from Judge Angora on Tuesday, that's when it's coming
out, is going to rule in her favor on a number of these properties saying, we don't have
to worry about October 2nd for a trial because I'm finding as a matter of law on the
Undisputed record I don't need to hear any other testimony that she wins on her civil fraud case as to Donald Trump's
Motion to dismiss the entire case because no banks have been defrauded and everybody's any paid back all of his loans
I'm sorry. That's not a defense to the civil fraud case at all. And I deny your motion for some
judgments. And on your sanctions, yeah, you kept raising frivolous arguments.
I've already dismissed. And I'm going to find that their attorney general is
entitled to money as attorneys fees and reimbursement as a result of that.
That's why our first appearance for Engorun since he's been sued.
He's so sort of piss and vinegar, yet common is own approach because he doesn't care
about the October 2nd trial date.
The court next week is going to have to decide then whether October 2nd matters.
The only reason the Trump asked for it to be delayed was to give the judge more time to
rule on summary judgment.
Well, Tuesday, after the Jewish holiday, he's ruling on summary judgment and to allow
them to have more guidance on being prepared.
He is made it clear that he believes he's made the right decisions in the case that he's
not.
He's following the appellate court and their directions on how to separate the time barred claims from
the non-time barred claims that he's not trying this case in front of a jury.
It's going to be tried in front of a judge judge and Goran anyway.
He's the same guy deciding on these issues and everybody should remain ready on October
2nd for a trial.
I'd be shocked although it could happen.
If next week the appellate court says, yeah, so October
2nd doesn't work. Let's just push that off another time and then collide with all of
the cascade of other civil and criminal trials that are already booked on Donald Trump's
dance card.
Well, here's the thing. A train can only move forward if it's on the rails. And almost
no matter what the Appellate division does, this train's still going to be on the rails. And almost no matter what the appellate division does,
this train's still going to be on the rails
because it's a bench trial, right?
And the summary judgment from what we've heard
at oral argument is going,
I think, and I agree with you, Popock,
is gonna be dispositive on a lot of the claims
being brought by the New York Attorney General's Office to the tune of
at least tens of millions of dollars and likely hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
So the liability trial phase, if you will, I think is going to be decided on Tuesday when we get
this ruling. I would be surprised if the judge and Goran didn't grant summary judgment to any of
the things New York Attorney General brought. But we will see about that. But talking about what's
going on in the Appellate Division, there was a filing by New York Attorney General at Tisha
James Office and says, look, what the one Appellate judge did was nothing to do with the merits.
Just got a document and said, okay, it's an important case.
So let's bring it before a five judge panel.
But the New York Attorney General's Office points out like, even if summary judgment occurred,
you would not be entitled to an article 78 proceeding, even on a summary judgment.
So to try to usurp the power of a judge, a trial court judge, even before ruling on a summary
judgment, and by the way, the summary judgments about to be ruled on, that's not only unprecedented.
It just totally made up. It's not even a thing that exists
is what the New York Attorney General's Office
argued to that next year, a pellet department.
And so I'm not really worried
that that a pellet department's gonna do anything
to truly move the train off the tracks here.
And then I'll just make this one other kind of comment.
Donald Trump's lawyers' arguments would be like if Bernie
made off ran for president, basically use the office and the accoutrements of the office
to then basically say, you know what? Yeah, I may have defrauded everybody, but I'm able
to cover it now because the Saudis are going to pay me because of the proximity to power
and don't worry now, banks will lend me money because of my personality.
So even if I've screwed around for a decade, it's cool now because the people really were
an injured who I defrauded and stole their money.
I paid them back and you would still say, but you still committed fraud.
You can make it even simpler if I rob a bank in the morning, but you still committed fraud.
You can make it even simpler.
If I rob a bank in the morning, but in the night,
I have second thoughts and I put it back,
it doesn't mean you didn't commit a crime
or in this case, civil fraud.
And so that was, when the judge was reportedly
banging on his bench, which is never a great sign.
I've been an advocate in front of the New York State Supreme
Court. I just tried a case in front of another version of that court last week.
I've been in front of the first department of pellet division, which is what's going to
be ruling on this weirdo.
As you said, out of regularity motion or a petition to try to get the trial judge to do
something and advance of him doing something.
It's not a good day when you have a judge
pounding on the podium.
I once had a case where the judge got so frustrated
with my opponent, we had already dismissed the jury
on an argument about whether he have mistried the case
by introducing evidence he shouldn't have.
The judge picked up a giant binder clip
and just threw it into his bench. Never a great place to be when the judge gets so frustrated with you.
And I think what we saw here was a judge in full bloom with a lot of confidence in his first time
taking the bench since he's been sued saying, I am not worried about my bosses at the first department.
I've made the proper rulings. I understand Mr. Kaice what the appellate court ruled in June
about which of the transactions and people,
because that's how Ivanka Trump got out.
For those that, you know, again,
we try to make this both episodic,
so you can follow along and also a series
in terms of legal AF.
Ivanka Trump is not here because of the statute
of limitations ruling over the summer by
this same appellate court, although it'll be a different group of judges.
And she just sort of, well, I haven't been around since 2017.
And they were like, well, you're outside the statute of limitations.
But, you know, Angora and God is opportunity to talk as well.
There's different stakeholders and different audiences during a hearing like this.
The judge gets to be the judge.
Kice gets to trot out some old hackneyed arguments and defenses that make no sense at
all.
And we got to see the chief lawyers for Latisha James.
She didn't actually handle the hearing.
One of her assistant attorney generals did.
And he did a masterful job with his slideshow of talking about the fraudulent value, which they've now
estimated at a $3.7 billion hyperinflation, false inflation of financial statements for
Donald Trump.
And one of the pieces of evidence that they put up on the screen, Ben, I don't know if you
caught it, was Donald Trump himself signing a certificate, a testing that the financial statements were true and correct and consistent
with generally accepted accounting principles.
When we know now from his testimony that that was a lie, that he picked numbers out of his
backside based on how we woke up in the morning.
Oh, I looked over at my building.
I think my buildings were $300 million more today.
I think my apartment is
30 times bigger than it really is and they also put up a quote from Weiselberg, the disgrace CFO who just spent six months at Rikers Island for tax evasion and fraud in another case, in a criminal case where he
said they asked him to make like, well, the Trump apartment in Trump tower, it's what it is, is 10,000 square feet, not 30,000
square feet, right, sir? He said, uh, yeah, that was a mistake. And to which the lawyer for
the Judicial James says, we agree. It was a mistake. The only question that, that Angora
asked that was interesting was not that I think that there is, that these facts are present,
but he said, what if, what if the other side, Donald Trump at all made an honest mistake? Would that still be potentially fraud
under this unique statute and powers that the Attorney General's Office? And Andrew
Ware said, yes, he said that it could still be an honest mistake, but if it defrauds the
market, right? And it makes it unfair in the marketplace, which is what they're trying to regulate
That everybody has his plays on the same playing field not a tilted playing field of Donald Trump's making where he gets all the advantages
Because he's making up appraisals. He's over bar what I call over borrowing money
He's taking money away from the next borrower in line because banks have limited dollars
It's a zero sum game literally.
And so he said, yes, under the 63-12 executive law that the New York Attorney General is
under, it could still be.
And if that was the only question that frankly and Goron had in his mind, we're going to
see a new and I and maybe Karen are going to be talking about the ruling on Tuesday,
which will be in advance of the pellet division.
They're going to say, we think this hearing is mooted. We don't need to do anything. talking about the ruling on Tuesday, which will be in advance of the pellet division.
They're going to say, we think this hearing is mooted.
We don't need to do anything.
You can't in advance say that the judge is about to make an error.
You got to let the judge make an error.
And then it makes an error.
You take a normal appeal and you argue the judge was wrong, but you can't say we think
based on the fact that he doesn't like us.
And he makes comments and he bangs on his podium
and it's whatever, that you have to stop him from doing that. The trial judge has broad discretion
to run the trial, make the rulings on a bench trial certainly. And then if you don't like it and
you think there's reversible error, take it up on appeal. Big special counsel, Jack Smith updates
were learning that a key witness has told special counsel,
Jack Smith, that Donald Trump was using classified documents as his note pad.
We've got that and a lot more to discuss folks.
This episode is popping off.
Don't get sidetracked.
You got Ben, Popoq, and all the bells and whistles.
Choo-choo, we'll be right back up to this quick break.
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I've never experienced anything like it.
I'm just being as real with you as I could be anyway.
Let's get back to the one thing.
I got one thing I thought of though at the break
for it, because you brought up the,
we love this train analogy.
In the fact that we're now conductors,
I feel like you would go and do in the thing.
But for the audience that trends towards my age group, for me, it's the neighborhood
of Make Believe and the train set on Mr. Rogers.
And Trump has become for those shout out to King Friday the 13th because that is more
like Trump every day, a guy who lives in a fantasy world made up of his own reality
that has no place inside of a real courtroom.
Well, and he constantly sabotages himself.
You may not know this the word sabotage.
Popo comes from the practice of striking French railway workers of cutting the Sabbath,
the metal shoe that held it together.
So that's where you get the word.
Did you do that during the break?
I am an encyclopedia of train analogies.
Let's get right.
Let's get right.
I don't know where you were going to go with that.
Let's get into it.
Total train wreck again for Donald Trump this week with special counsel Jack Smith getting key
evidence from Trump's former assistant. She worked with Trump in the White House. She worked with
Trump at Mar-a-Lago. And according to sources, ABC first broke the news. And I think the sources
may be her, you know, or her lawyer, or people very close to her. She has told special counsel Jack Smith that Donald
Trump used the classified documents as a notepad. Interestingly, when the FBI executed the
search warrant back in August of 2022, they didn't find those documents. But when she returned
tomorrow, a lot ago, she saw those documents underneath her desk. So not sure if the FBI was kind
of testing them, leaving some documents or if the FBI just missed it. But apparently she reached out
to the FBI immediately and said, Hey, I've got these classified documents that Trump would write notes
on. So we learned that. And also according to sources, Donald Trump told her, you don't know anything about the boxes
and the ABC article, they're like,
we don't know what that means.
Okay, we all know what that means.
Let's be clear.
Popeye, how big is this?
Well, this could be the equivalent of
Cassidy Hutchinson blowing things wide open
about Jan 6th,
Oval Office, Mark Meadows, Secret Service, and Donald Trump.
It's that big.
She is in, Molly Michaels is unlike others,
is an unimpeachable witness.
She is, and I think it's not just Molly Michaels
about Mara Lago and the texting and the pictures exchange between her and
Walt Nauta, which I'll talk about next, and the note-taking that Donald Trump had and
then someone hid under her desk organizer that she then found and gave quickly to the FBI
after their summer execution of the search warrant. She is also the gatekeeper
in the White House when she was the executive assistant. She was the head secretary or executive
assistant that nobody was supposed to get by her to get to see the president. On Jan 6th,
she was out for the day. What a day for her to run personal errands.
And it was, as some of the reporting has said, shem balik and just a shit show in the White
House with Mark Meadows and others and people gaining access and Rudy Giuliani and all
of that.
And one of the reasons they've speculated is that Molly Michaels, who's identified in the Mar-a-Lago complaint as Trump
employee number two, and we now know as Molly Michaels, but she, and now that we know that she's
cooperating with Jack Smith, she ain't just cooperating in Mar-a-Lago. She's cooperating on all the run-up
to Jan 6, all the November and December major events that she was a witness for, that she'll
be a witness for the prosecution and a witness to history.
And she is, I mean, there's, Donald Trump can go attack Cassidy Hutchinson, a barely
newer, no, no, she is.
Molly Michael was his right hand assistant, both at the White House, who followed him to Mar-a-Lago,
and not coincidentally,
is no longer in the employment of one Donald Trump.
And so when we saw them listed in the indictment,
when you and I were unpacking the indictment in Mar-a-Lago,
and we saw what was Haley Harrison,
who was a Trump employee number one,
who currently still works for Melania,
and then we saw Molly Michael. We were
like, and you and I did a hot tick on it at one point. One of us did about, hmm, Molly
Michael, remember that name because she knows so much and has been a fly on so many walls
involving the things that matter to Jack Smith that if they get her to flip, look out and
the flipping is, I the flipping is about flipping.
I mean, she was never going to be entited.
It was just whether she was going to cooperate or not.
Now, let's before we even get to the note taking that he did on the back
of classified documents and then hid them under a note organizer,
apparently the FBI turned over everything, but didn't find this,
this set of documents.
Even before that, she, Molly Michael, toll,
and of course the government has these texts,
said that she was texting and speaking regularly
to Walt Nauta to both move boxes in around the White House,
I'm sorry, the Mar-a-Lago,
and get them up to the personal quarters
of Donald Trump for his personal review.
Remember, Jack Smith has to have evidence
that puts Donald Trump with his hands in the boxes,
the 90 or so boxes, and making decisions for himself
about which boxes and documents go to the National Archive,
which boxes and documents get reviewed
by his own lawyer, Evan Corcoran, and which don't.
And Molly, Molly Michaels does that for him because they never got the government, never
got Walton out to cooperate.
So not only is there's texting between the two of them, in which, and there's one text
in particular, I can't remember if it's reproduced in the indictment or not, but it's certainly
been a mention in reporting.
And there's a picture, a photograph that walked out a took of a spilled
out box of documents that needed a new lid. And you can see classified documents spilled
out on the floor. And he sends it to Molly Michael to about getting Donald new boxes and
everything. That's terrible for him. Because remember when they when the government had had
documents on the floor that they used and they took photographs
of to show what the execution of the search warrant looked like.
He said, well, that can't be mine because I keep my documents very neat and organized.
So that's wrong.
There's other photos of the boxes with things hanging out and people putting them back in
and stacking them up at Mar-a-Lago.
So you got Molly Michael Mar-a-Lago, key witness that Donald Trump will not be able,
in the Mar-a-Lago case, he's never testifying. So you're going to get, the jury is going to see
Molly Michael, not going to hear from Walton Adda, no way to see testify. Not going to hear from Donald Trump, but just a bunch of other maintenance workers and
Molly Michael and others.
And then these emails and texts and you seal to Varys, the IT worker, who's going to get
on the stand in front of a jury.
And look, if Donald Trump thinks, oh, I'm going to get a hung jury.
I don't know if you caught this, Ben. I'll turn it back to you.
There is a recent conviction in Atlanta yesterday
of a real estate developer for fraud.
And they ran into a problem with one or two jurors,
where one or two jurors refused to properly deliberate.
You could substitute trumpers in there.
One of them said it's because she was defending white people's rights.
And another, and she claimed that another person was only going to convict white people. The judge held a hearing,
interviewed the jurors, dismissed the jurors and the remaining jurors convicted that real estate developer.
So if Donald Trump thinks we'll have all only need one, if there's not an appropriate
deliberation over evidence that's presented at the Mar-a-Lago trial, whenever that is, let's
hope it's in May, there's ways around that. That's why you have alternate jurors. Molly
Michaels should now keep, if he's not already up at night, Donald Trump up at night because
he has no way to go after her other than through cross examination and she is about as big of a saint in his world as
possible. Donald Trump is hoping that Judge Eileen
Cannon's gonna help him out. That's what Donald Trump is hoping for and I know
everybody loves when I break down SEPA, the Classified Information Procedures Act,
but let me get into it because this is how I believe
Donald Trump thinks that Judge Cannon could help him.
So SEPA, Classified Information Procedures Act,
deals with how do you handle documents?
How do you handle classified documents
in cases where there's discovery obligations and
you're supposed to produce documents and records and cases are supposed to be open to
the public.
So, SEPA basically says, in addition to just regular confidential business records which
are often afforded confidential status in or handled a certain way classified documents which are
often the fruits of a crime in a case involving them have to be handled very sensitively.
And there's pretty much a standard procedure, hence the classified information procedures
act, a protective order pursuant to section three of SEPA, classified information procedures,
like which governs all of that. The appointment of somebody called a CISO, a
classified information security officer, literally someone who works as like
almost like an independent monitor or a like aid to the judge who has a security clearance who works and holds these documents throughout
the case and literally shuttles documents if they have to be filed in court to make sure
that they're protected.
The documents have to be viewed in skiffs.
Sensitive compartmental information facilities.
You all remember when Donald Trump wanted a skiff to be built at Mar-a-Lago?
Well, for now, at least Judge Cannon rejected that concept.
But Jack Smith asked for the SEPA procedures, the protective order that should be entered
forth with, to happen back in June.
Jack Smith's like, I'm ready to go.
And the first thing that had to happen
was Donald Trump's lawyers had to get a limited security
clearance for purposes of being able to even be on the case.
It took them a few weeks to even fill out the forms,
pretty basic forms for them to file.
And then Judge Cannon would like strike documents that Jack Smith
would file under seal. Judge Cannon also mistakenly scheduled the SEEPA hearing to take place
on August 25 in public. You can't hold classified information procedures act hearings in public.
She then realized the mistake had to continue it to happen under seal, which
is the processes and procedures under SEPA.
Then that hearing happened on September 12th.
And then last week, more in the past 10 days or so, on September 13th, she finally entered
the SEPA protective order.
So mind you, from June to September 13th, she did nothing. This was the easiest thing to enter. Compare
that to a judge, Chuck in the federal judge, presiding over the Washington DC case for Donald
Trump's attempt to overthrow the free and fair election of 2020. How she runs that courtroom
efficiently and things get filed right away and things get ruled on right away.
Judge Caden waited like months and months and months. So then here comes Donald Trump.
Files this motion on Friday refers to it as President Donald J. Trump's motion for a revised
schedule for motions to compel and SEPA section for litigation. Also, you're not the president anymore.
If you want to say former president, that's fine, but you are not the president anymore.
That's not a title that should be used on these cases.
You are a criminal defendant.
It should say defendant, Donald J. Trump's motion for a via scheduling order.
But in this motion, Donald Trump blames Jack Smith and says, Jack Smith said that he was ready to go
and that he would have these documents back in June.
But now we don't even have a lot of these documents.
And what is ignored, number one,
is that the reason this all happened
was because Judge Cannon didn't rule
on the seep of protective order.
So those classified documents could
not be turned over. Also, what Donald Trump saying in this motion is also false.
Jack Smith has turned over all of the classified documents. They have to be reviewed in a
skiff. Donald Trump doesn't just get to have them, but there are certain documents,
probably the ones, if I had to guess, I don't know because it's not in this motion, that relate to the nuclear secrets and the war plans that Jack Smith does
not want to turn over to Donald Trump's lawyers because Donald Trump will use them for bad
conduct is probably the fear.
But there is a process and procedure in classified information, procedure at cases
where the prosecutor's office,
when a situation like this emerges,
it's not improper to withhold the document.
You could petition the judge
on what's called an X-part-A basis.
So you go just to the judge on your own
without even the other side there. And
you say judge, here's the document. Here's our concern in even making this available
to the defendant in a skiff. We want to provide a summary under your guidance judge in
lieu of actually producing the document. And that's called a section 4, CEPA proceeding. I know you love getting into the weeds of CEPA.
So if you go to 18 AUS Code section 4 of CEPA,
discovery of classified information by defendants,
it sets forth this X part A procedure.
It says the court upon a sufficient show
and may authorize the United States
to delete specified items of classified information
from documents to be made available to the defendant to discovery under the normal federal
rules of criminal procedure to substitute in its place a summary of the information for such
classified documents or to substitute statements admitting relevant facts that the classified information
would tend to prove.
The court may in the form of a written statement to be inspected by the court in an ex-part
day hearing order this relief to take place.
So it contemplates an ex-part day hearing at all.
And because I guess Donald Trump's lawyers don't read the statute or expect Judge
Cannon to make more mistakes, they act like this ex-part day procedure under section 4 is somehow
novel and unique and they whine about Jack Smith. He's withholding documents. He's not turning it
over. First and foremost, Jack Smith couldn't do anything until September 13th. He was waiting on Judge Cannon.
And then in the intervening 11 or 12 days or so,
Jack Smith did make available certain documents.
And the other, Jack Smith's availing the normal procedure
under 18 A U S code section four of SEPA.
But at the heart of what Donald Trump is trying to do here
is delay, delay, delay.
Because as you look through the motion, Donald Trump wants all of this briefing now relating
to SEPA to take place through January 19th, 2024, instead of October 10th, I believe is
when the other date would be.
So Donald Trump doesn't ask for a delay of trial here, but by asking for a delay of briefing
on the issues of discovery and seep a related discovery to January of 2024, Trump is hoping
to push back the trial date.
That's this is the first step of trying to sneak in.
That's your in the weeds seep review right there.
That exhaustive description of seepA proves another point for me.
And Donald Trump has taken the bait.
Mar-a-Lago is not the case he should be worrying about.
And he continues to do battle with Jack Smith.
As Jack Smith takes Mar-a-Lago witnesses, like Molly Michaels,
and converts them into witnesses to help him in the main case
in front of Judge Chuckkin.
So it's almost like watching a boxer,
Muhammad Ali was famous for this.
He would let the boxer against him tire himself out
on the ropes for seven or eight rounds.
This is one of the reasons that unfortunately Muhammad Ali
also developed Alzheimer's because he got punch drunk
from doing this, but he was successful.
He would just lay on the ropes and let the other guy punch himself out.
And I see that as going on in Mar-a-Lago.
Donald Trump shouldn't worry about extending briefing schedule for documents that are going
to be produced.
Documents that he had illegal possession of.
That's what we're talking about.
It's not like he hasn't seen these.
He's seen all these documents. If Molly Michaels testimony is right, he's looked we're talking about. It's not like he hasn't seen these. He's seen all these documents if Molly Michaels
Testimony is right. He's looked through the 90 boxes in order to figure out which of the 12
He was going to deliver back to the national archive which of the subset of that he was going to let Evan Corcoran look at and which of the 38
He was going to allow Evan Corcoran to stick in an envelope, give it to the government like see we're done
So all of that is going on and this whole charade of let's get into the weeds about seep on do federal brief briefings while judge Chutkin
Chugs along and I was already established her seepapraseager for the bigger case is again
I just see them using this case the government government, as the stalking horse, tiring
out an under-resourced and under-mand and over-match legal team for Donald Trump. I can't
make this point any clearer than I have on this particular Pakistan or other ones. The
entire legal team for Donald Trump, the entire legal team for Donald Trump in Florida consists of four people plus a paralegal.
That's it.
Each firm, John Loro's firm is like two people
and the firm for, it's not even Kai's,
it's Todd Blanche is another couple of people.
That's it against the United States
of America Department of Justice. All right?
So they're outmatched.
And every moment that Jack Smith gets them tied up or they tie themselves up, which is
what they're doing in SEPA, and wasting time briefing and doing and appearing and arguing
is one last moment, one last lawyer hour that they can devote on the other cases, including
Fawney Willis's.
So again, this is like sending the rabbit out
and letting the dog chase it until it's exhausted.
And I see, that's exactly what I see here.
I see Jack Smith using Mar-a-Lago
to pick up key witnesses for his other case,
like Molly Michaels,
while exhausting Donald Trump
and an overmatched out-resourced trial team on that side.
In many ways, the fact that Judge Cannon Trump and an overmatched out-resourced trial team on that side.
In many ways, the fact that Judge Cannon is so incompetent actually helps Jack Smith
with that kind of smoke screen that's being created there, right?
Knowing that Donald Trump has tunnel vision and he is so focused on these proceedings and
he thinks he has a friendly judge in judge can in which he probably does,
but there's kind of, you know,
as you kind of put pressure on that flank
and that's where Trump is so focused on,
you're, you know, Jack Smith's team's getting ready
for the big one, the biggest one of them all
is the March 2024 trial for Trump's attempt
to overthrow the free and fair election. I think that's
a great point. Poe Pock. We've got a lot more show. We want to talk about everything that
happened in Georgia in the RICO case by Fulton County District Attorney. I'll tell you,
I knew Jack Smith was great because Karen Friedman and Nifola worked with Jack Smith. I had
heard Fulton County District Attorney Fony Willis was great by reputation, but didn't
know people who knew her other than just by reading things about her.
She and her team are some of the most impressive lawyers on par with and perhaps even some of
their briefings better than I see at the top department of justice.
I mean, some great lawyery.
And I'm talking about not just the briefing, not just the writing, but the cross examinations
that I'm seeing and like demolishing these co-defendants who take the stands, it is
a site to behold.
Also want to remind everybody, if you want to support the Midas Touch Network, don't forget
to check out patreon.com slash MidasTouch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash MidasTouch, M-E-I-D-A-S-T-O-U-C-H.
We don't have outside investors here on the Midas Touch Network.
So one of the ways to keep growing this network
is with your help.
We appreciate it so much.
We've got a lot more show.
Let's take a quick break.
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legal AF. Check it out. Welcome back, rely on legal AF. Let's go to Georgia, Trump codefendant,
Jeff Clark just getting demolished during a hearing
that took place in federal court
as he's trying to remove it.
And then we go to what's going on in a state court
where Donald Trump is joining motions
that would seem to incriminate and pop-up what's
going on.
Yeah, and I just did a hot take that's up and running right now on the Midas Touch YouTube
channel about what it means for, and you and I'll do this later, what it means for two
of a 19 party conspiracy going to trial early, what it means for Chessboro and Powell going to trial October the 23rd this
year, like a month from now, what that means for Fonney Willis, Donald Trump, and the others,
considering Donald Trump's trial is not going to be until 2024. But how do you put on a 19 person
co-conspiracy case against only two people? And what does it mean based on winning or losing
to the others? That's on a hot tick. But here we got Jeff Clark who you and I thought if anybody was going to
have a shot a shot at taking their case from their criminal prosecution into a different courthouse
to have it tried. In this case, a federal courthouse also in downtown Atlanta, that would be Jeff Clark.
Mark Meadows, we already saw had already failed with Judge Jones, who's the federal judge,
who's the gatekeeper to keep all of these crazies
away from the federal courthouse
and put them back with Judge McAfee
and Mark Meadows even testified and he lost
and is now up on appeal, which will probably be
not likely to prevail about whether he, as chief of staff, was within the scope
of his job responsibilities and duties when he interfered with the election and Georgia
and other places.
And Judge Jones said no, and the 11th Circuit, I'm sure, is going to, I'm reasonably
confident.
Confident is going to agree with them, especially now that we know who the three judge panel
is on the 11th Circuit, which is all Biden and Obama people, okay?
Same Judge Jones, next up up Jeff Clark, we said,
well, at least he's department of justice.
At least he's in the executive branch.
At least he's lawyers do certain things
like write letters and analyze things for their client.
And so maybe, but then in order to prevail
at a hearing like that, which turns the tables
on burden of proof.
In a criminal setting,
Jeff Clark doesn't have to do a darn thing.
Prosecution has the burden of proof
beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed a crime
and with Fifth Amendment privilege,
that's why most people don't take the stand
because it's the prosecutor's burden.
But when you're trying to take a case
to federal court, it's your burden.
And when it's your burden, you have to're trying to take a case to federal court, it's your burden.
And when it's your burden, you have to make out the burden of proof, which in this case
is clear in convincing evidence that what you did was within the coarseness scope of your
job responsibilities.
And in order to do that, you generally have to put on evidence.
And that's where Jeff Clark fell apart.
Because Jeff Clark didn't put on evidence, Jeff Clark sent in two affidavits,
which are sworn testimony on a piece of paper under oath,
but it doesn't allow the other side to cross-examine it
and is generally not accepted at an evidentiary hearing.
And he sent in one from what I assume
was some sort of expert on what his job
responsibilities were within the Department of Justice
and they went and yanked 91-year-old
at MIS, the disgraced former attorney general for Ronald Reagan of all things who got
who had more ethical problems than probably any attorney general not in prison to submit
an affidavit saying, oh, I'm an MIS and I took a look at all the facts here and I think
he was within the course of scope of his duties.
And the judge says, with all due respect, I'm not accepting affidavits.
If you want to testify live, you can.
There's no evidence.
Now you're left with a double talking stammering lawyer for Jeff Clark, who also doesn't
even understand his own case because he can't answer simple questions by Judge Jones
about the timing of a certain pieces of evidence and events.
That went terribly as instead,
Fawri well-assist team showed up,
loaded for bear as she always is,
even in federal court,
bringing witnesses, bringing receipts.
She brings in as a lead witness,
Jody Hunt, who not only has a day job as
Cassidy Hutchinson's lawyer,
but he served in the Trump administration
in the Department of Justice,
and he had the job just before Jeff Clark had the job as the head of the Civil Division of the
Department of Justice. And he testified quite credibly to Judge Jones that, that's not the job that
Jeff Clark had would not have been involved with election interference or election issues. That's the criminal division or the civil rights division of the Department of Justice,
but not the job that he had.
And so that came from the guy that held the job under Trump right before that powerful testimony.
We're waiting on the decision by Judge Jones, but I would be shocked if he's found that
Jeff Clark had met the standard to take his case to federal court.
Everybody, here's an announcement.
Here's a public service announcement.
All 19 of the Kochan Spirators, you are going to be with Judge McAfee.
Get used to that idea.
You're going to be tried in two or three groups, two or three batches of Kochan Spirators
in 2024.
Hopefully Donald Trump in the first batch in 2024, and you
get to watch, like the rest of us, what's going to happen to your two other Kochan Spirators
in just a month as a dress rehearsal.
And if they go down in flames, which, basically, evidence that she has, I would, in front
of a Fulton County Atlanta, Georgia jury, I would not be shocked, then listen for all the
Kochan Spirators who have not yet been indicted, or even ones that have been indicted to run Atlanta, Georgia, Jury, I would not be shocked. Then listen for all the Coke and
Spiritures who have not yet been indicted or even ones that have been indicted to
run for the exits and try to get to Fonnie Willis and cut a deal and then
testify against Donald Trump and others as quickly as possible. That's that's my
take on that. One last thing Ben, Ken Chesboro is the gift that keeps on giving. He keeps filing things in court and putting in your mind, Karen's hands pieces of evidence
from the case for Fawty Wells.
We didn't even know existed.
Last week, he filed a motion and he attached a transcript because the fake electors had
a court reporter present because they were so proud of what they were doing, inciting their name to the conspiracy, inciting these fake electors had a court reporter present because they were so proud of what they were doing
in signing their name to the conspiracy and signing these fake electors certificates that
they not only had a lawyer for Donald Trump's campaign in the room indicted Ray Smith,
but they also had a court reporter taking a transcript down.
So he attached the transcript like see this clears me and I was like wow they had a transcript
you know at a bank robbery,
the robbers don't usually have a court reporter there,
writing down everything that just happened.
That's usually a video of that.
And then we said, great, we love to catch us, bro.
And then he does it again.
He just, we knew there was a search warrant
for his emails to MSN, Microsoft.
We didn't know what the contents of the affidavid
and the testimony that the
judge took in order to issue the search warrant to get his email. And so we get, and I did
a hot take on it yesterday, we get like a 30 page affidavid from the investigator for
Fony Willis, which lays out the entire case. Again, Ken Chesboro, Rudy Giuliani, Sydney
Powell, you know, David Schaefer,
the former head of the of the GOP, all the other indicted conspirators, all in a neat
package in an affidavit that you and I get to comment on.
I love Ken Chesboro.
He's not only going to get convicted, but he keeps telling us what the evidence is against
him.
And Donald Trump though, is he has got a good lawyer out there and Steve Seidau.
By all accounts, Seidau's, again,
competent lawyers represented a lot of people in big cases
and has done a good job.
But why then is Seidau, on behalf of Trump, joining,
a lot of these motions of co-defendants,
like Trump's not filing his own motions.
You know, one of the reasons I think I'll get your take on it is, Trump still has this idea
that he may want to remove the case to federal court, and perhaps if he brought affirmative
relief, they would feel that that constitutes a waiver more than joining, even though I think the same
issues that we're seeing when these other people are trying to remove would present itself
if Trump ever tried to remove this case to federal court. Maybe that's why Trump's
joining, but he's joining motions that are basically trying to create distance between the various
co-defendants and him by saying,
hey, we were doing this because we were basically told
to do it by him and we were just performing our functions
whether that was as a lawyers or fake electors
or whatever it is, but then he joins that.
And that's just very odd to me
because it would seem to be incriminating to him.
What do you think?
Yeah, I don't know why he's doing what he's doing.
I know you and I have this working theory about he's still holding out hopes and watching
meadows and Clark to see whether he can drag himself to federal court.
But watching Steve Jones in action, the judge, I don't know why he'd want to be in front
of federal judge Jones, other than the delay part.
And he's already gotten the delay part because Judge McAfee has said, I can't
logistically try 19 people at one table and I'm not going to do it. So, uh, Fanny Willis, you come
back to me with a more sensible and reasonable proposal for trying these in batches in 2024.
And I'm sure I'll agree to it. So he's already gotten the delay part. He sees Jones is not going to be yes
It's a federal jury that he would be on track for so there's that theory that he thinks he's waving
But I think if he's already waved. I don't get he's he's dipped his toe in the water anyway
He hasn't he there is a clock that's running on removal. I thought he had already blown through it say now so far
He's either he's either crazy as a fox in just saying,
me too, to these motions filed by Chesboro and Powell
to see if he can get some mileage.
I mean, one, he was successful on.
Chesboro, the one to sever away from Speedy Trial,
he adopted Rudy Giuliani's and that got granted.
But I don't really understand how it helps you.
In fact, I think it hurts you to continue to pin yourself
to co-conspirators, lawyers who led you down the wrong path
and including ones like Chessboro, who said,
I never told Donald Trump and the others
to use the contingent electors if there wasn't
a valid legal challenge present.
And we know there wasn't a valid legal challenge present at that time.
And therefore, these even under his own chess, prozone, crazy, crackpot theories that fake
electors should never have been sent to the national archives or to Mike Pence and used
in a pressure campaign.
Of course, he says that, but when you look at the evidence
that's in like the search warrant,
that was just affidavit, that was just filed by Chess Burrow,
you see there's even more evidence against them.
So I'm not impressed yet by say now,
maybe he'll pull a rabbit out of the hat
with some amazing blockbuster omnipost motion
of some sort that dismissed the indictment at,
I don't know when, but we've already got,
you know, in stark contrast to the judge canon some sort that dismissed the indictment at, I don't know when, but we've already got,
in stark contrast to the judge canon
that we spent a lot of time on today,
about how she's kind of exhausting and screwing things up.
We've got McAfee that is in firm control of his docket,
his court procedures, his rules.
You know, there's only two people that know it as well,
as well as
know it as well as in that room. It's Fonney Willis and Scott McAfee. And he said, for instance, on the upcoming trial, he granted Chesbro and Powell the ability to ask the former grandjuries if
they voluntarily want to talk to the defense team and the prosecution team about their deliberations.
Given the fact a special purpose grand jury was doxed and is basically looking
over their shoulder to see if anybody's gonna do some harm to them. I'd be
shocked if any of the grand jury wants to sit down and talk to the defense team.
But the judge says if you reach out to them without harassing them and they
volunteer to do it, we'll do it in my courtroom.
I'll see the questions in advance under my supervision, but he would not allow them to
get access to any part of the special purpose grand juries, notes, notepads, documents
around that other than witness transcripts from testimony, because he said, I got to protect
the security and the sanctity of the special purpose grand jury as you said last
On Wednesday
Every decision that this guy has made so far has been spot on and it's almost one with which we can't debate
That's how well he procedurally
Logistically he is running his courtroom and that's why he's got a trial that starts in a month on
The major Fonney Willis Rico
case.
And then, of course, he'll handle the other cases.
But like I said, Donald Trump and others, they can try to get out from under this and
get to federal court.
I just don't see the advantage to it at this moment.
You know, and accountability is coming on all fronts as well.
And I want to talk briefly about Fox.
And if they thought that their $787.5 million settlement
dominion was the end of it, well,
they got about the same caliber legal advice
that brought them down the path in the dominion case
in the first place.
There was reports today that Murdoch believed,
based on conversations with his general counsel,
former general counsel.
Now, Viet Din, who by the way was a law professor of mine for a short period of time at Georgetown law before I recognized why in the world am I taking a class with Viet Din and Paul Clement, the former solicitor general in the George W Bush administration, but Viet Dins no longer there at Fox, but there's a lot of
other lawsuits, existential threats. Of course, we know about smartmatic, that defamation case,
where smartmatic seeking $2 plus billion dollars there. And this past week, the pension fund derivative shareholder lawsuits were unsealed.
We had known that these were filed the week before.
We're not able to read their contents.
Now we're able to see how powerful these allegations are filed by the New York and Oregon
pension funds that represent police officers, and firefighters, and teachers, and other groups that rely on them
to make smart investments.
And when they're investing in entities,
like Fox that double triple quadruple
or rather make their entire business model
spreading mal and disinformation and defamation,
and then settling these cases as part of that business model
for hundreds of millions of dollars
and soon potentially billions of dollars.
Well, that hurts the investors.
You have to remember how this is all tied together
and it has real world impact on people
who invest in companies and expect board of directors
to act as fiduciary.
So Rupert Murdoch left his role as chairman, says he's going to have this
emeritus role this week, claiming it has nothing to do with the unsealing of these pension
fund, derivative lawsuits. Just so you know, a derivative lawsuits, what a shareholder of
the company, sues its own company for the damage and loss of suffered by the shareholder,
by the breaches of these fiduciary obligations, by the board. So,
people who are named in this lawsuit, in addition to the company, are Rupert Murdoch and
Locklin Murdoch. Locklin's now taken over the company as well. So, it seems like Rupert Murdoch's
basically saying, by leaving, hey, I built this good luck Locklin. You know, you'd take it over.
But there's multiple of these pension fund lawsuits.
There's the New York Pension Fund and Oregon Fund.
There's some other funds and other pension funds
and other standalone cases that are all gonna be consolidated
in the Delaware Chanceree Court.
That's where it's been filed.
There's already been a lot of discovery
under the Delaware rules that allow for discovery
pre-filing in these derivative shareholder lawsuits.
And now there's going to be a leadership fight over which lawyers and which groups and which
funds are going to be leading the litigation because there's a big group of various plaintiffs
who are bringing this represented by the top law firms in the country. So again, I think this is existential to Fox's existence.
And one of the things we know too is how much Fox wants
to avoid going to a trial.
They know that if Rupert or Lachlan
or any of their executives are called to the witness stand
in addition to the monetary payout,
they were all just so complicit in this,
and not just complicit, but also would refer to their own viewers
as idiots, and they hate their viewers.
That's one of the most interesting things to come out of the Dominion discovery
is how much the various hosts know they're engaged in
the scam, like they're not true believers in what they're saying.
They know they're lying.
They hate their viewers, but they are also afraid of losing the viewers because they're
placing their lucrative careers over our democracy, Popak.
Yeah, it's interesting. I've been in this courtroom. I've been before this judge. I've defended cases in class action, like just like this one. Judge Travis
Laster is a bad pick for Fox News, the chance to record judge to sign to this. He
doesn't suffer fools. He has a very specific way that he wants these cases tried.
He has a very good relationship
and trust the plaintiffs law firms
that have brought these cases.
There's actually three types of cases
all in one that are being proposed.
You've got the case of the New York controller
and pension funds joined with Oregon in one, what's called
a derivative action, which means they're seeking to have the money that is obtained from the
directors, from the officers, from the company itself, well, from the directors and officers,
repaid back to the treasury of the company, to the coffers of the company because all these
settlements, the $800 million or so for Dominion, the $2.6 billion case that's sitting
in New York State Supreme Court waiting to be tried by smartmatic and all the others
and the legal fees related to that.
So let's just round it off to an even $3 billion.
That's money that should not have been spent by the company.
If it wasn't for the poor stewardship, breach of fiduciary duty and bad management by the
board of directors and the operational executives like Rupert Murdoch, his son, the head of the
news division, and the rest, and the board is sued as well.
When you sue a company for derivative action or even for what's called a direct action,
it triggers all the insurance.
There's huge stacks of insurance
and reinsurance that cover directors and officers.
So we're probably talking about
two or three billion dollars worth of insurance,
plus money that these people are gonna have to come out
of pocket because they're all wealthy
to put on the table as well.
And there's actually the New York Oregon case.
Then there's another case of another set of pension funds.
And there's gonna be a fight in front of Judge Laster
to see which of the plaintiffs law firms,
because it's very lucrative.
They could get fees up to a couple of hundred million dollars
for their lawyers and their law firm
just for representing these cases, which almost always settle.
And so there's a fight that's going to be banged out by the 20, I think it's a 23rd of
September in front of Judge Laster, where he picks the lead or coley plaintiffs lawyers
from, as you said, Ben, some of the finest law firms in the country that practice in
that area.
And they're also bringing class action or direct suits to get class action people,
the people who invested in the company
that are harmed by the misuse of the money,
because they're fundamental argument in both the cases.
Whether it's the 120 page lawsuit filed
by the New York and Oregon pension funds
or the 170 page with footnotes
complaint that's been filed by the other pension funds, you put it all together
based on the evidence that was obtained already in the Dominion case and obtained through the
books and records process down in Delaware. The case that's being made is that there is a fraudulent
business model at Fox News that Fox Corp has lost control of the content at Fox News
completely.
They've advocated their responsibility to manage it, and it is just a house of cards based
on a defaming machine that does not look into whether anything they're saying on television
is true or false, leading them to be exposed to liability for defamation
against whether it's the Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss
election workers of the world
or it's the smart mannequin's amignions of the world
because they bought into this fake lie.
And so there's a whole challenge
to the underlying business model.
That's that existential threat that you talked about.
And then the money, I mean, as much money as Fox has
or had any company, even after it burns
through all of its insurance, if it's hit
with billions of dollars of settlements,
and they got to settle this case.
If they thought it was bad to go in front of Judge Eric Davis
in the court across the street, which is the superior court
of Delaware, where
they lost horribly, got in terms of decision making by him and had a settle the case for
$787 million with dominion.
Wait till they see Judge Laster, Chancellor Laster.
I've been in front of him.
I've had him, including some of the same law firms that are buying to be the plaintiff's
counsel, reject a settlement that we proposed to be the plaintiff's counsel, reject
a settlement that we proposed as the company that I worked for.
Along with these, we were, it was the only time we were ever in harmony together.
I was standing shoulder to shoulder with the plaintiff's lawyers saying, Judge, this is
the proposed settlement of the case.
And he said, No, I don't like that one.
Go back to the drawing board, come up with more money.
I think the lawyers are getting too much.
I think the company's not paying enough.
And then, you know, that's Travis Laster.
He has always been a wild card.
You know, one of the reasons that companies like to be in Delaware, because some people
might be thinking around the globe, why don't we keep talking about Delaware?
It's because Delaware law is so well established and the courts are so well
set up and the judges to handle business disputes that companies incorporate there in order
to get the benefit of Delaware law.
But of the chancellors on the Delaware Chance Record, Travis Laster is the wild card.
And he's the one, if you're in the position of the Murdock family, you did not want to
see pulled and assigned to this case.
And he's assigned to all of the cases involving Fox.
You and I will report on what happens on the 23rd when the plaintiffs' class gets, when
the plaintiffs' lawyers get picked, they have to settle this case.
They're going to.
It's going to come out of the insurance money and the pockets of Rupert and and and and
Locklin and all the other little Mur bird ox as well as people like Paul Ryan
Who used to be the speaker of the house, you know who spends time being on boards
He's he's named as a defendant as well in one of these cases
Big big news there and look you have to remember Fox was built over generations and
Remember Fox was built over generations. And the plan to build Fox comes from a memorandum sent
by Roger L's back in 1970, okay?
And it was developed this plan to have a Republican propaganda
network that was like the title of the memo is in the 70s.
I'm not sure if it was in 1970 itself,
but it was building a right-wing media echo chamber was basically the title of this and Roger Al's developed it
eventually with Rupert Murdoch and they were able to
generationally build this machine that has caused a great deal of harm to our democracy.
So as I think of the state of the union of our pro-democracy network here at Midas Touch,
it's strong, with shows like Legal AF, the Midas Touch podcast, and with all of our hosts
and contributors here who I'm so proud to share with you each and every day.
We have to remember that it's both a short term. Objectives need to be achieved,
but also generational objectives need to be achieved. And that's how I view the growth of this
network. I think of what can I do every day to make sure we give you the best content
here and working with the best in the business, whether it's Michael Popak, Karen Friedman,
DiFlo, or my brothers or all the others on a day-to-day basis. That's great, but behind
the scenes, Popak, myself and our great team of contributors are also thinking ahead
two years, five years, ten years, fifteen years, and longer to build
something foundationally where you can have a force for truth, a force of facts, a force
of evidence, a force for compassion, and that's why I so appreciate everybody in this audience
to have a movement built on intelligence, compassion, and being unapologetically pro-democracy.
So thank you all.
We don't have outside investors here at the Midas Touch Network.
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You can already see the fruits of that at work with the launch of MidasTouch.com, our
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We have all of the details that's listed there,
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