Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump’s OWN BOOKS Become DAMNING Trial Evidence

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

The prosecutors are taking special delight in using TRUMP’S own quotes from his books about KNOWING EVERY DETAIL ABOUT HIS COMPANY down to his penny-pinching, & paper clip counting, to prove that Michael Cohen got fraudulently repaid for paying Stormy Daniels WITH TRUMP’s KNOWLEGE and CONSENT. Michael Popok breaks down the testimony to the jury of Random House executive managing editor Sally Franklin in front of an increasingly frustrated Trump. Americans United will keep fighting for freedom without favor - equality without exception. Keep up with this issue at Https://au.org/legalaf Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So Michael Popak, Legal AF, the prosecution against Donald Trump is having some fun today. Not only will Stormy Daniels testify, but they put on an executive for Random House, Sally Franklin-Asta, who's been there for about 11 or 12 years as a senior executive managing editor, to put on books written by Donald Trump and passages from those books, including quotes attributed to his mother and his father to show that Donald Trump has his mind on his money and his money on his mind. And that he alone decides about what checks

are gonna be written. He looks at invoices himself. And how do you know it? It's from his own words, from his own books. Oh, I'm sure the prosecution took special delight. I kind of felt sorry a little bit for Sally Franklin Asta being put on by the prosecution today until I went over to her LinkedIn

and she had pinned up on her LinkedIn. She said a couple of months ago, I just took this how to have a good day quiz and I'm already feeling better about tomorrow. But I first read that I thought, is she like having a little bit of fun? Is she about her testimony that obviously she knew about but Donald Trump didn't yesterday,

but no, she posted that earlier. So why Random House? Because Random House published all of Donald Trump's books, How to Get Rich, How to Think Like a Billionaire, you know, all those books. She also introduced somebody I think is going to be a witness for the prosecution because of how much time they spent on her, Meredith McIver. Keep your eyes on Meredith McIver. Longtime executive assistant for Donald Trump who according to a passage in one of his books about her, who she also participated as a ghost writer for Donald Trump, knows everything, sits in front of Donald Trump's door, knows every movement of every piece of paper, all goes through Meredith McIver as a gatekeeper. Would anybody be shocked if Meredith MacGyver

now having been introduced to the jury by this Random House publisher is one day soon takes the stand against Donald Trump, even if it's against her will. But let's go back to the quotes, Donald Trump's own quotes being used against him. What is the prosecution trying to do before I get to that? Prosecution's trying to undermine in the jury's mind

Donald Trump's argument that Michael Cohen was rogue, Michael Cohen didn't have his permission, Michael Cohen went and signed the agreement, formed a new company a day after a conversation with Donald Trump and Allen Weisselberg and David Pecker and the rest in the conspiracy, set up a new company, went to his bank, took out a home equity loan,

paid off Stormy Daniels, all entered into a nondisclosure agreement, all just to curry favor with Donald Trump and Donald Trump didn't know anything about it. Now the jury has already seen the checks, right? That the checks written by Donald Trump in Donald Trump's hand or one of his kid's hand written out to Michael Cohen,

payment after payment after payment, including a true-up payment, doubling, tripling the amount of the, he paid out to Stormy Daniels to pay the income tax because the repayment would look like it was coming for legal services and he didn't really perform legal services so he didn't want to pay the tax on it and all those checks also signed by Donald Trump. So you have all of that and all the checks and receipts. Now you've got Random House saying Donald Trump in his own words,

minds his P's and Q's, looks at every document, got mad at Jeff McConney, the controller who took the stand the other day because Jeff was just paying bills without being mindful. He didn't try to negotiate everything. So listen to some of these passages that Sally Franklin asked to how to read aloud today. In a chapter called, How to Pinch Pennies, Donald Trump said, I received a check for 50 cents and we at the Trump Organization deposited it.

They may call that cheap. I called it watching the bottom line, penny pinching. You bet I'm all for it. Donald Trump has his mind on his money and his money on his mind. As I said before, another passage that was read aloud for the court, I always sign my checks so I know where my money's going. In the same spirit, I also always try to read my bills

to make sure I'm not being overcharged, like the bills and invoices that were fake submitted by Michael Cohen for fake legal services in order to be repaid for this Stormy Daniels payment that he made. Okay, like that. In an excerpt from the chapter, How to Decide How to Decide How Much Risk to Assume When Investing, Donald Trump wrote, Pay attention to the small numbers in your finances, such as percentages and cents. Numbers that seem trivial add up and have enormous implications. My parents hammered frugality into me at an early age. Call it penny pinching if

you want to. I call it financial smarts. But the books continue. They also quote from, we get a couple of more of these here, from Trump, How to Get Rich, all the books have like the same title. I'm a billionaire, you're not. How to Get Rich, I've Got More Money Than You Do, here's how, you know, of course, no chapters on I committed fraud.

I committed fraud for over 10 years in New York and borrowed money I wasn't entitled to at rates I wasn't entitled to pay. There's no, where's that chapter? That's like a pocket part should have been inserted later. I committed tax fraud through my companies and got convicted. Where's that chapter? Well, in any event, they're reading from the book as it exists, not the one in the fantasy in my mind. We want to share an important message from our sponsor, Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Oklahoma recently approved the nation's first religious public school. Justice Sotomayor warned in her Carson vs. Macon dissent that this Supreme Court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between

church and state that the framers fought to build. We've documented that assault here on the Legal AF Pod. This religious public school in Oklahoma is the latest Christian nationalist test case. They convinced a handful of political appointees to create the nation's first religious public charter school, a blueprint for other conservative states to follow. Americans United for Separation of Church and State recognized the danger and promptly filed a lawsuit to stop St. Isadore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in Oklahoma. AU says that this is the latest effort to blur the lines between church and state. AU believes taking tax money and directing it to a religious school that will indoctrinate students

in one particular faith and plans to discriminate against students, families, and staff who don't adhere to its beliefs goes against the founding principles of our country. Americans United will keep fighting for freedom without favor, equality without exception. Keep up with this issue at au.org slash legal AF. That's au.org slash legal AF. So the other chapters here are, on Trump how to get rich, I am the chairman and president of the Trump Organization. I like saying that because it means a great deal to me.

If you don't know every aspect of what you're doing down to the paper clips, you're setting yourself up for some unwelcome surprises. This counters the argument that he had no idea that some people in his organization were paying Michael Cohen four times the amount that he was entitled to without his approval. And then we have other excerpts from How to Get Rich.

Franklin also read out loud, or Sally Franklin asked to read out loud, for many years I've said that if someone screws you, screw them back. And then we have a little bit of a sexual charge to some of these that are coming in here because we've got to remember what the payoff is to Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougall, and the others that will testify. Here's the portion from a book. All the women on the apprentice flirted with me and claimed, and he also claimed that, quote, a sexual dynamic is always present between two people unless one is asexual. Now, the jury is going to have to square that

with Donald Trump saying or the defense suggesting through cross-examination because Donald Trump saying, or the defense suggesting through cross-examination, because Donald Trump is likely not to testify. That's why he's not being made to read these passages out loud. If he does take the stand, they may have him read some of these passages out loud, by the way. But the defense's argument is, oh, you have no idea.

You know, these checks were so small, he's running a multi-billion dollar company, not according to Donald Trump on Donald Trump. So the only thing they're left with in cross-examination is try to argue the ghost writers wrote it. But the executive was ready for that, the publisher, Random House, was ready for that. And she said, yeah, it's unlikely that that particular type of quote, especially what he referred to as family members, it was written by the ghost writer. It would be odd. She said, I don't know what percentage he wrote the book, but those kind of quotes are coming directly from Trump.

And that's why they also mentioned Meredith MacGyver, his longtime assistant and ghostwriter, because she's not gonna write something that he doesn't approve. You know, he acts like, oh, they're like, like Kristi Noem. Oh, I didn't know that the thing about me shooting the dog was in the book.

It happened, but I didn't know it was in the book. What's he gonna claim? He didn't see the galleys for the book? He didn't read it in draft before it was published? Come on. Missed your attention to detail? Missed your count the paper clips? You see where this is going?

All right. So you then have, I think I got one more quote for you about from Fred Trump, his dad, his daddy. And he likes, he likes, he likes quoting his father and his mother. So here's the quote from Think Like a Billionaire, "'Know everything you can about what you're doing.'" Hyphen, my father, Fred Trump.

Exactly. So now putting aside the fun that I'm sure that this was maybe not for Sally Franklin, the publisher, the random house, but for the people there. If the jury even was entertaining some sort of doubt about the prosecution's case, about Donald Trump's signing these checks or his children signing these checks.

There's no argument that Michael Cohen, broken in the middle of the night, grabbed the checkbook and wrote himself his own checks, or that he's submitting invoices that get repaid four times the amount to cover the taxes because the Trump organization didn't know what was going on. Mr. Paperclip, Mr. Think Like a Billionaire,

Mr. Trump on Trump, Mr. I Got Money on My Mind, on My Mind, on My Money, come on. That's effective in front of a jury, by the way. I'm speaking to you now as a trial lawyer. And the way that this trial is going, from the inside to the outside, from the outside to the inside, inside people, insiders in the Trump organization,

Jeff McConney, the controller, Rona Graf, Rona Graf, longtime assistant, maintains the databases, you know, the accounts payable person about how things get paid, right, those are the inside people. More to come, including I would believe Meredith MacGyver, the executive assistant slash ghostwriter who's now been socialized as a concept

in front of Donald Trump and in front of the jury for Donald Trump. Then you've got the outside people, inside, outside. David Pecker, National Enquirer, publisher. Sally Franklin, Random House, outside. David Pecker, National Enquirer, publisher. Sally Franklin, Random House, publisher. Stormy McDaniels, right? Target of the Catch and Kill program. Karen McDougall, Target of the Catch and Kill program.

Michael Cohen, insider. See, inside and outside. Boring, boring levels of check detail combined with sensational books, right? The momentum of the trial being put on by the prosecution masterful. We'll continue to follow it here on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network. Join us Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern Time,

where we put together the top five stories of the intersection of law and politics and bring it to you right here, only on the Midas Touch Network at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Then on audio podcast platforms of your choice. You like what I'm doing, leave me a comment. Give me a thumbs up, helps with the ratings. You can follow everything I do over on

the Midas Touch YouTube, look under contributors and playlists, look for Michael Popak and all my body of work is there. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Hear, hear, Legal AF Law Breakdown is now in session. Go beyond the headlines and get a deep dive into the important legal concepts you need to know and we discuss every day on Legal AF. Exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, all for the price

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