What In God's Name Is Happening In Georgia

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:52 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1005. Take two, Matt. Take two. We're gonna need to say, yeah, yeah. Rookie mistake by both of us. We thought, yeah, we can record Friday's episode on Wednesday, you know, that Trump, yeah.

0:01:02 Matt: 24 hours, Thomas. Surely the news hose will stop at some point.

0:01:13 Thomas: Trump's not in office anymore, you know. We didn't, we couldn't get away with that crap back when Trump was in in office, but you know, now that he's gone, surely the news is somewhat slow. Nope, did a whole recording and then all hell broke loose in Georgia with this stuff, with Fonny Willis and with Wade and wow, a lot going on. So we're here in the intro part, take two to tell you all that still most of what we recorded applies and I'm cutting out anything that doesn't. So don't don't worry. You're not getting stale old pod here. I'm keeping all the stuff that is still relevant. And then we will, we're hard work. We're going to redo the parts that we need to redo. And you got yourself kind of a Frankenstein episode because

0:01:27 Matt: Yeah, that's we want the freshest news here, straight from the newshose. Just going to say it, that we did predict this was exactly what was going to happen in this trial, in this hearing. I'm not really proud of that. I mean, I predicted that the weather was going to be very cold in Boston this morning, And that was also correct. I mean, it's about that level of prediction, because we said last week this was going to be a circus, and that's what it has turned into, because both Wade and Willis had to take the stand today, and

0:02:16 Thomas: Had, you recall Paul, Fonny Willis coming in kind of dramatically being like, going to take the stand by choice here. I'm kind of withdrawing the objections I had or something, right?

0:02:16 Matt: Oh, right. Yeah. True. Got to talk. Yeah. No, it's true, she felt like she had to, but

0:02:31 Thomas: But we're still going to throw to lots of Trump news. So many Trump cases. Indeed, I can't keep them all straight. But the end of the show, we're going to get to Fannie Willis a And there's so much, so much that there may be some overflow pod. So I'm excited for that.

0:02:45 Matt: NEED TO FOLLOW UP FROM OUR LAST EPISODE, THE BONUS EPISODE ABOUT the Mayorkas impeachment. Maybe we should just start in right there.

0:02:51 Thomas: You might have heard everybody the extra episode Matt was kind enough to do, just out of the kindness of his own heart. Update, are these people still clowns? Are they still unserious, or did they become serious all of a sudden? Is this the day that Donald Trump became president?

0:03:05 Matt: No, they didn't actually go and find actual articles of impeachment. So as long as they don't have those, is this still the same junk. Play that Mike Johnson clip.

0:03:10 Thomas: Sure

0:03:14 Clip: Taking action to hold Biden accountable. Last night, the House voted to approve articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We had to do that. He has abdicated his responsibility. He's breached the public trust, and he's disregarded the laws Congress has passed. But much more has to be done, of course, to secure the border, and

0:03:33 Matt: Look what you made me do.

0:03:34 Thomas: Love that because it's like desperate times and the desperation is we aren't doing anything like it's

0:03:38 Matt: No. Articles are desperate. I give him that. He's right. This is a desperate act. And we already covered it in the last episode, but I mean, just unbelievable. I still can't believe it. I will say though, I got my wish. Everybody seems to have noticed how bad this is. I'm seeing takes all over the place and people actually understand that this is really stupid. Did want to explain very quickly though, I didn't do a good job last time of explaining about why Al Green actually made the difference and it came up this time. You know what happens when the house has a tie? I hadn't thought about it either.

0:03:54 Thomas: Oh, good.

0:04:08 Thomas: Shoot. Now that I think about it, I guess I don't. Yeah. Okay. Yeah,

0:04:14 Matt: So House Rule 20.1c means that the question shall be lost. They lose the question.

0:04:21 Thomas: I, really?

0:04:23 Matt: You lose.

0:04:24 Thomas: Heads I win, tie you lose. What, does that do exactly? Like you lose it. Okay, okay, can you find it again? How quickly findable is it? I mean, I feel like they've got it typed out. It's not like it's going to disappear like the back to the future photo, you know, in the articles of impeachment. They were never born. Like, oh no.

0:04:41 Matt: Be clear, when the question is lost, the way they talk about a question being lost, same thing with the bill, they can't bring it back until the next session, which doesn't start till 2025. So,

0:04:47 Thomas: Yeah. Come if the house is tied, then you lose, but if you lose, then then you tie, then you essentially win. I don't know. It's weird.

0:04:58 Matt: Don't think you're going to like the answer. I really don't.

0:05:02 Thomas: No way.

0:05:02 Matt: I don't like the answer.

0:05:03 Thomas: Arcane rules of our stupid government won't be satisfying.

0:05:03 Matt: No, think this was something they might have just come up with, I don't know, last year. This rule goes back to the Constitution, the actual year of the Constitution. The very first Congress introduced this rule, and that's the way it's always been. That's the answer?

0:05:09 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, wow. Now, but is this a house rule that they could change? Or is this one of those ones that's like, no, this one's actually in the constitution. So this is bedrock.

0:05:19 Matt: Yep. No. That's just a rule that they've always had. And I guess they just don't want to change it. They certainly could. But, you know, I guess that they figured that the Senate has its fancy thing with the tie and they've got their own weird rule.

0:05:31 Thomas: This Wow. The thing, though, thinking in about this, that's not the mystery then. So way it works, you have legislation, you have a vote. If it passes, it passes. Any other result, nope, you lose it and then you can't bring it up until next session. The part where it's a tie, that makes sense. Until you talk about, well, the part where they're losing, that's where the gimmick actually is. It's not really about the tie. The gimmick that I don't understand is if pass, there's some weird thing in the rules where they are allowed to put it away for later. Do you know what that is?

0:06:06 Matt: Don't exactly, but I do know that they can bring it back after some time. I don't know why the tie should do that, why it just kills the deal. And of course, what happened in this case is what's going to happen is you're just going to throw the fight and you're just going have one of your guys stand up and vote against it so you can come back another day. And that's what happened.

0:06:21 Thomas: This is extremely stupid. Like as a, programmer you that if you tie that somehow an end result that you can't bring back, but if you lose, it's not that, that is just okay.

0:06:32 Matt: It does seem like a bug, I got to tell you. Now, if there are any parliamentarians listening that can fill us in on this, we'd love to know. I'm always happy to talk to parliamentarians.

0:06:34 Thomas: Yeah. Any parliament, how many parliamentarians are there? They're like millions. It's like a society of them. If there are any of you.

0:06:48 Matt: Not working much, so I'm sure Sorry, parliamentarians.

0:06:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. If a parliamentarians or if a parliament of owls is listening, maybe they could help us too. I don't know. There's only two groups of people I could think of. Understand what this could be. Okay. Well, I guess I'll just live with this, Matt. Thank you.

0:07:07 Matt: With uncertainty, it's very healthy. It's a good thing to do.

0:07:08 Thomas: Yeah. Okay, so everyone else and Matt can move on with the show. You know where I'll be. Go ahead.

0:07:14 Matt: Right. So these desperate times, I just want to talk about for a second what happens next, because in a couple of weeks, these impeachment articles will be sent on to the Senate and the Senate will decide what to do with them. And I was thinking about what happens next because the trial on this thing, just think about, as we talked about last time, these are all political points. These are Fox News points. There's really not any legal thing being done on here. It's just, we don't like your policies. We don't like the way you're doing things. That's not a reason to impeach somebody. So they have to get a team of managers together to actually defend this thing and act like it's real. So, you know, they'll be the dog that caught the car here. And I don't know, it's, I don'T think they actually want a full trial.

0:07:15 Thomas: Oh, God. Yeah, I

0:07:51 Matt: That's, I WOULDN'T.

0:07:51 Thomas: Was going to say, I seem to remember this from the Trump stuff that there didn't seem to be the option that the Senate could just ignore it.

0:07:58 Matt: So I looked into this, and there's no reason they couldn't, actually. Nixon v. U.S. in 1993 basically said that the judiciary can't review impeachments. So there's absolutely no review. Basically try, that they spend pages and pages in Nixon v. U.S. explaining what try means in the impeachment clause. And the best they can come up with is that it's basically a trial, however the Senate wants to do it. Could include dismissal. Think they could file a motion dismiss, and they could just see if there's enough people. And I think there are enough Republicans who are fed up with this that don't want to have to do a trial too. It probably will fail pretty badly. I said, there's no judicial review. There's nobody to tell them they they can't. And there is sort of a prevailing idea that this is possible, that they could just toss it. There's just never been one that's so frivolous that they do that.

0:08:00 Thomas: Okay. Huh. Yeah.

0:08:39 Matt: But this would be it. If there's going to be one, let's have it be this one.

0:08:40 Thomas: Okay. If there's going to be one. Yeah, that's

0:08:44 Matt: Is so frivolous. See what happens in the next couple of weeks. But that's my prediction, is that they'll find a way to kick this thing. If they don't, then they'll have a very short trial. Because again, there's just not much in here anyway.

0:08:45 Thomas: Wow.

0:08:55 Thomas: It? Pause all other business. Don't they have have to like, maybe that's what it was.

0:08:57 Matt: Yes. So what They've done for presidents is they have used the entire Senate as the jury, but Nixon v. U.S., they confirmed that they can actually just do a committee. So for judges and for cabinet officials, they can send it out to a smaller committee because there was a period there where they were impeaching so many judges that Senate got tied up all the time.

0:08:59 Thomas: Okay. Oh, wow.

0:09:16 Matt: And one of the things that Nixon was challenging was that this rule looked like it should have a committee, but they actually used the whole Senate in his case because he actually was pretty corrupt and been convicted of crimes. All completely made up. It's really whatever they want to do. Like everything else.

0:09:29 Thomas: Yeah. Well, that's, okay. That's the main takeaway. This is all made up, everybody. Don't think there's some holy sacred handed down by God process here.

0:09:34 Matt: Yes. The Constitution says that they have to try the case, it's really just however they want it to define it. There's no trial procedure. Chief justice has to oversee it, and you have to have two-thirds to convict, and that's about all we know.

0:09:46 Thomas: You missed that bonus episode, make sure to go check it out because Matt took us through all of the possibly AI generated word vomit that was the articles of impeachment against against Mayorkas, yeah, oh

0:09:56 Matt: I really don't want to do it again. So you're just going to have to listen to that one. Moving on to the Herr report. I think you've got some opinions about this.

0:10:10 Thomas: I will be putting the Arrested Development clip in there, it's impossible not to, one of my favorite shows, yeah, this is incredibly frustrating, but I, you know, it is, I am not the expert, why don't you start us off, and then I will see if it is worth me complaining, oh, God, this

0:10:24 Matt: You know who is an expert is Alan Dershowitz, our good buddy. And he actually said that Herr was wrong for going into kind of a medical diagnosis that will have a political impact. So when Alan Dershowitz is finding that this incredibly anti -Biden thing may not be so good, I think that's a good place to start. Critics across the board, pretty much everybody is agreeing. Eric Holder, former spokesman for DOJ. We've got Andrew Weissman, very talented former prosecutor, had a very long analysis of this.

Obviously, Facts News and other right-wing sources love this, that we've found that the president might not have the brain to be able to commit a crime. That's basically what they concluded, right? There's a Trump appointee who worked closely with Rod Rosenstein. Think we know by now, but just to say it very clearly, he found in explicit detail that the president is basically a kind elderly man who who doesn't know where he is or what he's doing. And it's a Comey. He's pulling a Comey, right?

Because he's got to find a way to say that he's not going to charge the president with a crime in an extremely politicized situation. And so the way he does it is by saying that he is non -campus mentis, basically.

0:11:22 Thomas: Make sure we set this up, I don't know. I don't know what everybody knows. I And think we should cover our bases. Is this her guy? Why is he there? Those facts, if you don' mind.

0:11:32 Matt: Appointee from Maryland who was appointed in this case to review Biden's mishandling, allegedly, allegedly, of classified documents. Of course, this is very much like a finger-pointing Spider-Man, right, back at the saying, no, you also mishandled classified documents that came out after, you know, these allegations after

0:11:46 Thomas: I'm going to stop you right there, Matt, because, no, because in the finger-pointing Spider-Man, which I do know well, we're getting to my area of expertise, I've seen that meme, there are, in fact, three Spider-Men there. And so that makes sense because they're like, hey, you're Spider-Man, I'm Spider-Man. This one would be one guy's a Spider-Man who's like stealing documents and hiding it, and the other is a Spider-Man who found one, like, random document and was like, "Teacher, here's the document, I accidentally had." That's a totally different thing.

0:11:57 Matt: That's true. That'S true. Right.

0:12:17 Matt: Right. No, you're not wrong. In this case, he has duty, a duty, just as James Comey did when he was appointed to take a look at Hillary Clinton's emails. Knows this is political. He knows that everybody's watching. He knows this report is going to be very closely scrutinized. And he's choosing not to charge the president with a crime or to say that he committed a crime. And the way that he does that is by going through and explaining all the different ways that he doesn't have what we call the mens rea, right, the mental state to actually commit a crime, that he didn't mean to do any of this. And if he did, that it was just kind of a clumsy old Mr. Magoo situation.

0:12:47 Thomas: Absolutely.

0:12:48 Matt: Stumbling around in your garage with boxes of documents, um, the big top line that everybody was going with was this thing about him being sort of a kind elderly man who's not really capable of remembering things, allegedly, things including when he was vice president and the year of his son's death. In response, he says that he was having this interview when he's really tired after October 7th and the attacks in Israel. And I can see how that might build a draining, um,

0:12:48 Thomas: Ridiculous. I don't know what year it is now, I'll be honest, I don't know what your it is today. I'm just faking that I know, with virtually every year, time, date. I mean, I guess in fairness, Biden is actually the kind of guy who used to remember all the names and stuff, that the thing that I can't do on a good day.

0:13:24 Matt: To lie. I wrote 2023 in a document today. It happens.

0:13:27 Thomas: Yep, it happens.

0:13:28 Matt: But yeah, no, I mean, he's supposed to know these things and he's opposed to know things like when he was vice president, but he could have been very tired. He doesn't sleep very much. I'm sure he's 81 years old. So,

0:13:36 Thomas: Not the expert of the show, Matt, but I would like to get your opinion, this seems unbelievably, obviously, a partisan hack job. I mean, you said Comey. This makes Comey look like, well, shoot, I was going to say Mueller, but I think Mueller is actually a good reference for that. This makes Coming look like Mueller, and neither of them are good. It's just two different forms of bad. But frustrates me so much is, let doesn't seem like the memory part is necessary at all. That seems entirely not necessary. It seems like a calculated hit. The The difference in the crimes, and let me out, maybe I'm wrong. The difference in the offenses is one person accidentally had some documents. So did, by Mike Pence, he ended up with documents somewhere, right?

This is not a question of like, well, the reason he had documents somewhere is because he's a doddering old man who's losing his mind. That's why he had, no, this just happens. Like, this is a normal thing that happens a lot because we government classifies every single piece of paper. And then sometimes, you know, you step on some toilet paper on your way out of the bathroom and then they're like, oh, that toilet paper, that was classified. You were not allowed to do that.

And then it's like, okay, well, if I turn in the toilet paper is it fine? Yes, it's fine. And that's the reason he shouldn't be charged with a crime, right?

0:13:52 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, right.

0:14:52 Matt: And because he didn't, There's lots of reason in these cases to think that maybe you are supposed to have these documents. You can't keep track of every single classification of everything. You could think you could permissibly be holding on to some of these things, and that's one of the things that the report found. I think that's a much more important finding than finding that he was having a bad memory day.

0:14:59 Thomas: Right.

0:15:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Has no, like, on it. So it's obviously a political hitch up. And I got so mad at the Daily Podcast today because their framing of this whole thing, their title of their podcast, this is the most popular podcast on television or whatever, is the Biden problem Democrats can no longer ignore. What do you think about that framing, Matt? Does that seem fair as coverage for this specific story that we are also covering?

0:15:33 Matt: Mean, did Biden say that Trump was going to get us into World War II? Because Trump said that recently, right? I mean Trump's been saying this kind of stuff for months. He's clearly also got some memory issues and some brain problems. He's never had a great brain, but it seems to be going bad. But that's not the problem that we can no longer ignore, right? That's just Trump.

0:15:51 Thomas: Ignoring this problem also, like, yes, and. There's a thousand reasons this is ignoring it. I hear about this every day. I Wake up and someone opens my front door and yells, "Did you know Biden's old?" And I'm like, yeah, I know. I know he's old. None of us want to be here. We don't want, there's nobody who, there'S no other camp. There's no camp of people who's like, we are so glad that Biden is old. Like it's awesome. We, we love that he can't remember anything. We're super thrilled. No, we're all hostage to the same system that all of you are.

0:15:54 Matt: Right. Right. Yeah.

0:16:22 Matt: Hope when old, I don't want to do a job where I'm constantly on call. I just can't even imagine being 81 and thinking you want to go to college. You want to take four more years of this? I understand it. I respect it, that you want to keep in public service the way you always have. But at some point, just retire. Better for everybody and your brain.

0:16:30 Thomas: Yeah and here's the other thing it suggests it suggests this report which is complete nonsense nonsense is like a decisive factor. So it sets up that framing of legitimizing what is absolutely a political hit job and not real. Like this is some asshole wrote something. This is no different than an opinion columnist writing that Biden has a bad memory. If that a Wall Street Journal opinion writer said it, now Democrats can't ignore it. The New York Times wouldn't do that. But because this person had a job title that is anything, it's this legitimization of what's obviously a politicized hack job that makes me so frustrated because it's so like and so obvious to me. But I just wonder if I'm, am I missing something?

0:17:21 Matt: I think this not Dr. Robert Herr. He doesn't have, I mean, that's really, it does seem like these are medical observations to me. Dershowitz isn't wrong about that at all.

0:17:25 Thomas: Yeah, all We could find someone else to reference though.

0:17:29 Matt: Stop clock. I'm just saying, got to give him credit for stuff like this because if, yeah, strike

0:17:33 Thomas: I don't. I, I, for, let's, let, he's no longer exists. Let's find anyone else.

0:17:37 Matt: That. I didn't give him creditorial. I didn't give him any credit for anything. Thing. I'm just saying, at this point is passing on an opportunity to attack Biden, that has to mean something. Let's go to DC. Have some Trump cases to get through. We'll see how many of them we can actually do. Some general Trump updates here, because a lot has been happening in the past week in these cases, including some things we need to update from our last Georgia episode. DC, in the Trump team just filed an interlocutory appeal to the the DC Circuit, which generated a 59-page order last week. And that order essentially found that the president, it turns out, is not actually immune from everything he could possibly do

0:17:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, Okay. This.

0:18:12 Matt: While he's president. So

0:18:13 Thomas: Is the immunity one, gotcha.

0:18:15 Matt: That's what we're up to. We've got to talk about this because Trump has filed a stay for the Supreme Court, asking him to hold things until he has a chance to file for cert to try to get this D.C. Circuit decision appealed because he's saying it's so important. There are going to be so many consequences if they don't do it. And one thing I like to do when I'm looking at briefs is just look at the table of contents and just enjoy the headers because you can learn a lot from headers. Is a stay. So remember that you have to be able to show a few things. I've filed plenty of stays myself, but this is the state of the Supreme Court, which I haven't had the pleasure of doing. So the first thing you have to show in a state of Supreme Court is that there's a likelihood you're actually going to to get the case taken up on certiorari by the Supreme Court. So he has to frame it and show how important this is.

0:18:51 Thomas: So This chapter was just like, guys, come on, like, yeah, yeah, Come On, Yeah, And then they're like, yep, no, that's that's a good Argument, come on, I, I am, Alito looks in the mirror, Thomas looks in the mirror, yep, no, he went, yeah, it's one of those where it's just like a little shiny part of the paper that they can see their reflection in, yeah.

0:18:54 Matt: You know you're going to do it. Sure.

0:19:08 Matt: Times Man of the Year in 1999 or whatever that was. Yeah. Just you. You Know You Want to Do It is that argument, basically. Thing you have to show in a stay, which is always the most difficult part, is that there's actually a likelihood of success on the merits that it could be reversed. First. Is where we have some fun because they take you through what they consider to be the merits of this case. And okay. Familiar with the idea of the impeachment double jeopardy thing? The idea that somehow because he's already been impeached, even though he wasn't convicted, that covers everything. That because the house impeached him, he can't be charged with crimes for some reason. It becomes double jeopardy, which is, I don't even know what to say about I think it's pretty obvious that's not true, because as we talked about in the impeachment episode, it's a political process. It's not a criminal process.

0:19:10 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

0:19:34 Thomas: He wasn't convicted.

0:19:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:51 Matt: Maybe a process a court can review, somehow he's arguing that this keeps him from being able to, like, he's basically, he's paid the cost by having to go through the Senate impeachment. He's also arguing essentially that we've never done this before, and maybe we should have. And honestly, I don't totally disagree with somebody is what he's saying. He's making the point that some have said that previous presidents have also done crimes. I've said this. He mentions the fact that Barack Obama murdered a U.S. citizen because he did that by drone strike. Open to the idea of Barack Obama being prosecuted for that because I thought that was pretty bad, personally.

0:20:12 Thomas: Right.

0:20:21 Thomas: However, can you remind me what the quote crimes in question are here that he's trying to get full immunity from?

0:20:27 Matt: Of course, well, of one of them being inciting an insurrection. That's the main thing. But sort of this, you know, this election fraud conspiracy that the D.C. Circuit is taking up and that this D.C. Circuit's result revolves around. But it is mostly around January 6th stuff and everything leading up to that. So in terms of presidential crimes, potentially trying to overthrow the government seems like, I don't know, it's up there. It

0:20:29 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm.

0:20:50 Thomas: Yeah, it seems less in line. Now, look, not going to defend like, yeah, I am with you, actually, that I think we should be moving toward more accountability to these kinds of things with presidents and anyone in government, like the broad immunity. By the would way, I want to start with police first and foremost, like we're going to prioritize people the government or of the state that can get away with seemingly anything kind of first in my mind is the police, because it seems as though it's impossible to ever get any like action on them, except for in the worst facts, you

0:21:19 Matt: Well, the police get qualified immunity. So there's at least like you can look at it. There's a possibility that you can sue them. But, you know, in this case, he's saying he can literally get away with murder and that that should be allowed that came up at the uh the arguments in this case like could he just kill somebody and you know he's always maintained that he could shoot somebody and it'd be fine he's

0:21:21 Thomas: Yeah, right. Yeah, it doesn't seem right to me. Yeah. Is, I imagine there being things that you and I would think, well, that's really bad and maybe even criminal, but it's at least in the realm of possibility that you were doing it as a president, that you're, you know, that You're doing it with the idea that you were like doing it for the country or as a part of your job, trying to steal an election, I think definitionally shouldn't be allowed to count as that. I

0:21:45 Matt: Yeah no that's mentions around contra right so So that's another kind of example of something where Reagan could say he was doing president stuff. Everybody knew that he wasn't supposed to do it. They were purposely running this whole scheme in a way that wouldn't get caught until it did. But some people went to jail that didn't include Reagan. Nobody charged Reagan for anything. So that is more borderline.

0:21:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:12 Thomas: We should have. Yeah.

0:22:13 Matt: But no, I think we should have absolutely, among other things. I don't think that the president should have complete immunity for anything he does in office. But at the same time, there is, as you said, something a little bit more about trying to overthrow an election and trying to actually have somebody storm the Capitol.

0:22:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:27 Thomas: Want to make sure that I have everything accurately stated and don't want to accidentally turn this into a better argument for Trump than it is. Because I is just making the argument of blanket immunity no matter what versus if I'm over here thinking like, well, if it's, you to the job, then it might be. And it's like, no, that doesn't matter. I think for his argument, it's just no, I could literally rob a casino as president and then blanket immunity. Right.

0:22:52 Matt: Yeah? That's why I think qualified immunity might actually be, I'm not a big fan of it for cops, but I think at least for this, rather than full immunity, I think there should be something where if you violate a clearly established statutory or constitutional right, then at some point you got to pay for it that and you should be able to be held accountable later. Makes another point that there have just been way too many impeachments recently, and there's something gone wrong here, which I think is pretty funny, just as a side note.

0:22:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:23:16 Matt: He's like, what's with all these impeachments, starting with Clinton and then... So what'S with all this impeachment?

0:23:21 Thomas: That header in the... In the brief? Chapter eight. What's with all this, huh?

0:23:27 Matt: Yeah, pretty much. But then we get to my favorite section about irreparable harm, because that's the other thing you have to show to get a stay, is you have show that you're going to actually suffer for irreparable harm if the court doesn't allow this thing to stop, whatever it is. Me just read you this one. I love this. Absent a stay, President Trump will immediately be required to bear the burdens of prosecution and trial.

0:23:28 Thomas: And

0:23:50 Matt: I wish I could put that in a stay for my clients that they're going to have to be prosecuted. You guys understand what that means? I don't know. I just thought that was funny.

0:23:59 Thomas: That's Uh, Doesn't That apply to nearly every single thing? Like, wouldn't that always be like... If that was a good argument, I feel like that barely ever have to even argue this, right? Like, that's always going to be true.

0:24:10 Matt: My experience, most people would prefer not to be prosecuted. I'm coming on here as an expert to tell you that.

0:24:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Now, if you are about to be executed, that feels like irreparable harm. And often the Supreme Court is like, nah, whatever. That's not worth the wait, though. Like, how are we to weigh the irreparable arm of you dying against us waiting a little longer for something that hasn't happened for 32 years, probably?

0:24:34 Matt: Harms do get stupider. Not even ready for this one. Conducting the criminal trial of President Trump will inflict grave First Amendment injuries on American voters. First Amendment amendment injuries.

0:24:36 Thomas: Okay.

0:24:47 Thomas: Injuries. Wow. I've never injured my First Amendment before. Does it, what's the outlook on that?

0:24:50 Matt: You want to go straight to the ER

0:24:52 Thomas: How many weeks am I out, you know, from sports?

0:24:52 Matt: With that. Yeah. Do you get worker's comp for, yeah, no, I don't know.

0:24:57 Thomas: They They used to say that you should alternate you, ice and heat. Matt, did you still do that for First Amendment injuries, or now is it just... Some I've heard some people are like, no, it doesn't even do anything, don't bother icing your First Amendment injury because like it doesn's nothing.

0:25:09 Matt: Well, we better figure this out because according to this brief, there's going to be millions of people suffering these injuries. So

0:25:13 Thomas: We're We're all going to be in the same boat. You're right, like so many of us, you're going to check into the doctor's office. Yeah, another... Okay, it's another one, obviously we need to form a different office for this.

0:25:14 Matt: Yeah, we're going to just around

0:25:22 Thomas: Everybody

0:25:23 Matt: The block. Yeah, No. So, yeah. The idea being that... But there's both the First Amendment rights to President Trump, because he's not going to be able to say all the great stuff that he gets to say on the campaign trail because he's in the middle of a criminal trial. Love to hear him talk. And... And then there's going to be the other injury that's going to be suffered by all of the people that would really love to hear him talk. And de facto restriction on President Trump's campaign speech inflicts a reciprocal injury on hundreds of millions of Americans who listen to him.

0:25:23 Thomas: Yeah, wow.

0:25:41 Thomas: Double

0:25:51 Matt: Know if hundreds of millions of... Okay, literally hundreds of millions of Americans do listen to him, that is true, I'll have to... Not injured if I don't hear him speak. It's kind of the other direction. Yeah.

0:25:59 Thomas: Maybe The court can be like, tell you what, um, there's a lot of footage, just go ahead and play some repeats, you know, if you haven't seen it's new to you. There's more than Doctor Who, like, you're never ending footage forever on that, so you're in luck.

0:26:06 Matt: Yeah, He's nine years worth coming up here, so So, yeah, YouTube is right there for you. Yeah. Also, this injury. So he's saying that absolute immunity doesn't just keep you from having to pay money, doesn't just keep me from having a job, doesn' t just keep from having to go to trial, but includes the general costs of subjecting officials to the risks of trial, distraction of officials from their government duties, inhibitions of discretionary action, neither of which you'll notice he can do because he's not actually a government official. Special, but this one, deterrence of able people from public service. I can't even say that without laughing.

0:26:15 Thomas: Yeah. Oh. God.

0:26:42 Matt: Deterrence of abled people from pubic service. So here's this wonderful able person who's stepping up to service, and he's going to be First Amendment injured.

0:26:48 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, if, if president can't murder someone, how are we gonna find if candidates for the job, I think, is the argument there, right? Like yeah, feel like you're telling on yourself a little with that.

0:26:56 Matt: People not going to want to do it if they don't get to kill. That's pretty obvious. But so this is the stay application. I don't know. I mean, honestly, they'll probably take it, but I'd rather they didn't. Votes are required to stay, four votes would be required to grant certs. So there's a possibility that it could actually be stayed and then they don't take it. Reasonable possibility, I think.

0:27:21 Thomas: There's a bit of procedural nuance that I heard, and let me know if I've got out a lot of incorrect here, Matt. Believe that the next thing he would normally be able to do is to appeal this circuit court decision on box. That means everybody, everybody gets on the bunk and they all come and party and make a decision. And I think like that would stay the proceedings because you're getting that appeal on bunk. So you're saying, hey, I didn't like what your three judge panel said or whatever. Now I want to hear everybody. Everybody needs to evaluate this. It's such a great case. And I think the way the panel ruled, if I have this right, was that they were like, hey, we're not staying this even if you appeal en banc. We're just not doing that. And so I think that's why he's now just going straight to the horse's mouth. He's just going to the Supreme Court because he's not even going to waste time with that, is what it seems like to me.

0:27:55 Matt: Right, right. He's also seeking en banc rehearing. So that, yeah. So,

0:28:05 Thomas: Oh, he's doing both. Okay. Is oh, that makes sense actually, because that would provide him more delay. It's like another step. Yep.

0:28:09 Matt: So you could have the Supreme court stay this while you do the en banc ruling. And then Of course, you can also say, "I'm going to file for cert no matter what, what happens." So, you, he's got plenty of ways to delay. That's what this is all about. Just, we know this, this is not a new observation, but that's the entire point of everything he's doing is just to stretch this out to as close to November as we can possibly get in every one of these cases. And it might work. I mean, the way things are going, none of these trials seem to be going anywhere right now. So

0:28:14 Thomas: Right.

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0:30:08 Matt: Of that brings us to Florida, which I'm not going to go too deep on right now, Now, I think Florida really deserves a lot more time, but So we're in Florida now. We're in front of Eileen Cannon, and we're looking at the classified documents case. And of course, the major issue in the classified arguments case is that the documents are, in fact, classified. So we have to keep them out of court. We have to keeps them out to the public.

0:30:23 Thomas: Yep. Oh, gotcha. Sure.

0:30:27 Matt: And the government gets to kind of argue back and forth about what it wants to do with these documents. A separate hearing today yesterday for the co-defendants who are not Trump, and de la Vera, because those two defendants presumably, I they obviously don't know what's actually in those documents, whereas the president at one point did know what was in those documents, or at least had the right to. So she's holding a separate proceeding for them. Guys who are moving the boxes around and, you know, basically just carrying out the goons. You got to have goons with something like this, a lot of boxes. I you was looking back at the docket on this case, and it's just been pre-hearing after pre-hearing after hearing on things that, and again, I don't litigate SIPA cases, but my understanding is this is not a complex issue. It's not a matter that really needs to be litigated all that much because it's basically the government going in without defense counsel and saying, here's the stuff we got. Here's what we want to exclude.

Here is what shouldn't come into the case. And by definition, when you're dealing with defendants like de Oliveira and Naoto that don't have access to those things, you don't have defense counsel involved. So it shouldn't be that complicated. But she's had a number of hearings, including this one the other day, that nobody really seems to understand why it's taking this long or what she's doing. And the only reason really is that she wants to delay it. That's the way it seems to be at this point.

0:30:48 Thomas: Them. Yeah Yeah, Yeah. Right.

0:31:39 Thomas: So, critical fact again for those who maybe, um, listened for a year, Eileen Cannon, I believe, if memory serves, sucks, and most Trumpiest of Trump trump judges, right? I mean, so this is, clearly, she wants a hearing, she's gonna cross every I and dot every T, and then redo it and do more hearings because she messed that up. No

0:31:46 Matt: That seems to be the sum of it. Yeah. Every step of the way, to the point that the prosecution is, it looks like, actively strategizing to get this somehow remanded back to a different judge. And that's something else to get into another time, but it seems like they're actually trying to do that to get it out, because she has been so partisan about this, and frankly, so unreasonable in all of these decisions.

0:32:07 Thomas: Kidding. What You get a bad judge in general, like, you're pretty stuck, right? I

0:32:21 Matt: Unless you can conflict flick them out or have them somehow, one way or another, recuse themselves, you're stuck with them until you appeal it. And we don't have time for that in a case like this. And

0:32:31 Thomas: An idea, what if Biden nominated her to to like a higher position somehow? Couldn't hurt, get her on the Supreme Court right now, yeah.

0:32:36 Matt: Court at this point. Just tie her up in nomination hearings for the next three months. And then just drop her. It'd be great. Just a little Lucy with the football action. Order the other day, don't I know what to make of it. Again, I'm not a SIPA expert, but nobody seems to really know what To make of It.

0:32:44 Thomas: Yeah. What Is SIPA okay?

0:32:55 Matt: The Classified Information Procedures Act, and again, Section 4 specifically, which allows the government to bring things to the judge that should be excluded from trial. And she issued this order, which I'm not going to read out the whole thing, but it's clarifying SIPAs Section 4. So a hearing to to clarify the law, I guess, or how it applies in this case.

0:33:12 Thomas: God. God. She's doing like a book club at this point. Like, yeah, but

0:33:16 Matt: Let's talk. Yeah. I can see here is delay because this whole thing was briefed and basically set at the end of December. And then she set it out for now when this could have been dealt with weeks. In So same just going going to keep seeing this thing string along and I wouldn't expect it to go anywhere anytime soon.

0:33:31 Thomas: This is outrageous, right?

0:33:33 Matt: It seems to be. Yeah. I No, mean, I'm not saying I'm a SIPA expert, but I see a lot of people who are and everybody seems to agree that's where we're at. So I

0:33:40 Thomas: I tell your voice, Matt. This is an outrage. Yeah. No, I think it seems to be an outrage word on

0:33:47 Matt: I thought I sounded angry. I got to learn how to be angry. Angry.

0:33:51 Thomas: You need need anger lessons. Okay. Who wants to teach Matt? Okay. Patreon goal. Matt gets anger lessons Oh, that'd be hilarious. We'll find a really celebrity teacher who's famously mad. If Yeah. Anyone knows Louis black, really

0:34:02 Matt: We're going to need a pro. That would be quite an evolution within a year if you can get me to Louis Black levels of ranting. Don't I know if anybody wants that. I just allowed myself to get angry at any point during my day, I think I'd never stop. I think that's part of the problem.

0:34:19 Thomas: You know what? That's a good point. Okay, never mind. Call it off, everybody. Sorry, Mr. Black.

0:34:24 Matt: I'd stroke out. I would have an aneurysm at some point because I got a lot of things to be angry about that I see every day, to be honest.

0:34:25 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Anything more that we should be angry about?

0:34:33 Matt: Actually.

0:34:33 Thomas: Transition.

0:34:34 Matt: Go back to Georgia, because there's a lot to be angry about down here. Now, of course, we covered this at length last week. We talked about what's going on with Bonnie Willis and the entire situation, got some updates, and I don't think that we've been proven wrong yet. We still might be. But of the things we said when we were talking about this before is that there would have to be an evidentiary hearing, because you've got competing statements at this point, right?

You've got, just to remind everybody, Nathan Wade, in an affidavit, the special prosecutor, said in this response that Fannie Willis filed to the original motion to dismiss and to disqualify her, said that they had never had a relationship relationship before he was appointed. And he said that he had never given spent her a dollar.

Now, they had gone on vacation, but he was saying they'd split the expenses, that he might have paid for some flights or whatever, but that they managed everything essentially as a professional couple. So he signed that under pains and penalties of perjury. And unfortunately, we might be getting to perjure levels here pretty soon, as we'll see. Yeah, not good. Not good. There's some, you might remember our conclusion at the end of the last episode when we talked about this, was that Willis should get out of this.

0:35:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:32 Matt: And I am doubling down on that because,

0:35:32 Thomas: Just get out of it And I remember making the point that, like, well, if he's saying this and there's a bunch of evidence that could come out, I feel like that'd be a bold move, so that would lead me to, like, take his word for it a little more, because that'd a hell of a risk, but shit is it just that that was a really, really bold move, well?

0:35:46 Matt: Know, well, I mean, it's also that they're facing down the prospect of both having to testify, which would be, frankly, humiliating, potentially.

0:35:57 Thomas: But I want to get an answer to that. Are you, is there reason to suspect, do you think that he's lying, do you thing that he is going to, to be, or do you know that he's lying? Yeah.

0:36:04 Matt: They seem to have caught him lying somewhere else in a way that does not bode well for this case. So we'll talk about that. But I just wanted to say that I'm concerned about Fannie Willis actually testifying about Nathan Wade having to justify and what this does to the, the case. I mean, just like the complete derailment, just totally off the rails. It's not where we're supposed to be right now with this case. But the judge agreed that he would not put Willis or Wade or anyone from their office on the stand until after they have this initial hearing, which I think is happening tomorrow. And they're going to have Fonny Willis's dad come in to testify. Testify. Going to testify that they

0:36:39 Thomas: Him making out in the car, he's actually for the other side? Geez, aren't they just?

0:36:45 Matt: Never cohabitated, which you might remember we had some back and forth about what cohabitation means and about the four days that they spent in a bed somewhere In Aruba.

0:36:53 Thomas: Literally. Like, do you need, like, a parent's note that we didn't get appetite? They're like, yes, weirdly, I guess that works. I don't know.

0:36:57 Matt: You didn't Associate of Wade's is going to, to testify, to deny with his own knowledge that Wade and Willis stayed in an apartment together, because there's a lot of talk about how they had like a safe house that they were hanging out in, of these allegations that they want to try to dispute. And the judge is saying, basically, I'll check this out. We'll see how it sounds about this relationship. And maybe we go forward with some more witnesses, and maybe we don't.

But things have heated up for Nathan Wade, especially because David Schaefer, one of the co-defendants, he's actually the former Coffee County Republican committee chair who's in this case, uh, jumped into this now with an additional filing, and he's indicated that, uh, good reason to believe that Wade has already perjured himself in his divorce action, uh, yeah, this is, this is not great, but we got to run it down, uh, were interrogatories in his divorced, of course, the questions that lawyers get to ask in writing that you have to respond to, and honestly these are kind of of ridiculous questions.

One of them is basically, identify any and all occasions in which you entertained a member of the opposite sex, which I don't know. I feel like I'm always entertaining members of the opposition. I don't know. It's a good question. I think it's a great question. But that's

0:37:59 Matt: What every man wants to think, right? But yeah, someone who's not related to you by blood or marriage, and they're literally asking things like, did you go out dining and or drinking at any restaurant, bar, pub, hotel, or person's home from date of marriage to the present? More specifically, they're asking about sexual relations, as you would expect in a separate question. To both questions, Wade answered none. He literally said that he had not had...

0:37:59 Thomas: I was gonna, going to say.

0:38:21 Thomas: Oh, what?

0:38:22 Matt: Yeah, this was a while back.

0:38:23 Thomas: He didn't do a I don't recall or something, some wiggly thing, but

0:38:27 Matt: Well, this was way before he thought there was going to be anything like what's happening right now. On May 30th, 2023, during his divorce, he answered explicitly that he had had sexual relations with anybody else outside the marriage. So that's perjury, right? Right. There, yeah.

0:38:40 Thomas: Not even entertained. Not even like, yeah, I might've had someone over, you know?

0:38:44 Matt: I made up laugh You know, but

0:38:45 Thomas: Yeah. I played Scott Joplin's The Entertainer on the piano. I definitely did that one. You know, like it's weird that he left no wiggle room.

0:38:45 Matt: Yeah, uh, love it Yeah, just none, um, know, I don't know if that was just lazy answer or whatever, but he's had to update it since then, and I wanted to talk about what he got to update to, because there's a kind of a weird rule, that I've never seen anything like this before, this is a civil rule, obviously this applies in divorce court, but changed his answer from none to "the plaintiff declines to respond to this interrogatory and and asserts his privilege pursuant to OCGA section 224 .5 .505 .1, which reads, "party or witness shall be required to testify as to any matter which may incriminate," all right, Fifth Amendment, "or tend to incriminate such party or witnesses, or which shall tend to bring infamy, disgrace, or public contempt upon such party or witness, or any member of such party or witness's family." So

0:38:56 Thomas: Yikes. Could be.

0:39:37 Thomas: Hmm.

0:39:37 Matt: Basically, if it's going to make people mad, I don't have to say anything. Thing.

0:39:41 Thomas: But you're in a divorce proceeding, right? I mean, I like if that worked, then there wouldn't be divorce proceeding. Like, everything makes everyone mad in a divorced proceeding.

0:39:43 Matt: Yeah. Right. Yeah, Infamy, disgrace, or public contempt. So, he's saying, I'm going to raise my privilege. Now, you know, he could be the Fifth Amendment privilege, maybe he thinks it's a criminal issue here, but he's say that this would tend to bring infamy, disgrace, or public contempt upon him if he were to tell the truth about it, apparently. Not a great update that he had to make here.

0:40:07 Matt: Yeah so, the point, and I think there's a real incoming train wreck here. Make the point in this supplemental filed by Mr. Schaefer that the affirmations and the facts sworn by an officer of the court that were made are categorically true. They're 100% true. That's something that counsel for the prosecution said in front of the Court. Wade himself, of course, signed a statement under pains and penalties of perjury. And now they're saying there might be all kinds of issues about the duties of truthfulness and candor to the Court, that there might be other issues that have come up having to do with what he was or wasn't doing, where the money was or wasn't going. And they're that it might rise to the level of forensic misconduct, which is a little new to me. I think that has something to do with CSI, but it's very much a Georgia thing. I'm a little unclear on this, but it is when it's different from a regular conflict of interest. It's when you've established a personal or financial in the defendant's conviction specifically.

0:40:07 Thomas: Yikes, Okay.

0:40:52 Matt: So at this point, he's saying that they're running out the clock, they have been embarrassed in this way, that they feel like they have a personal interest in the conviction. And Ashley Merchant, the defense attorney for Mike Roman that we've talked about before, said that in other words, the more work that is done on the case, the more they get paid. The more they fight Mr. Roman's motions, the More they get paid. The more they refuse to dismiss defendants who should not be indicted, the more money they make. And of course, the more money the special prosecutor makes, the more the district attorney gets to reap the financial benefits. Now, she can say that. Yeah, that's fair to say at this point with the way the thing is stretching out.

0:41:21 Thomas: But again, I mean we covered this before. I thought the logic was like, well, that's going to be applicable anytime anyone's getting paid to do this job. Yeah.

0:41:24 Matt: Right, But it's looking worse and worse for them. And judge specifically said that he's going to hold this open and allow this testimony because he thinks that it's possible they could establish a conflict. And he's open to the idea. I think he might just be keeping an open mind to make sure that if there's an appeal, that he's heard everything. But it does seem like he's indicating that there's at least a possibility that he could hear something that is disqualifying. So that is concerning.

0:41:44 Thomas: Yeah. My question is, did this forensic blah, blah, blah, did they find another way to complain about this that changed the calculation? Cause again, I know, with Casey, it was like, yeah, this doesn't really make sense. Like you always have a financial interest to be working, you kind of anybody who's paid at all. Do think that they found an effective way to reframe this? That's like, no, actually somehow it's more than that. Or it's different than that. Okay.

0:42:13 Matt: They're throwing out the other one. So essentially there's, we talked about the other conflicts in the last one, but this is the other sort of way that a prosecutor can be disqualified is through forensic misconduct. And it seems to be kind of a catch-all for anything where it's just like so bad that it seems clear that you have some kind of stake in their conviction.

0:42:29 Thomas: Okay.

0:42:30 Matt: Yeah. It's just like a, it's a big category.

0:42:32 Thomas: But. So it's a kind of a catch-all type thing. Well, Right, that makes me feel a little better, maybe, because that just sounds like their making the same argument, but they're calling it a different thing to try to like just see if it sticks. Yeah.

0:42:35 Matt: That's my understanding.

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But, wow, we've seen testimony and surprise witness after surprise witness, each more surprising than the last. And that's not all. It's going to go on to tomorrow. There's more tomorrow. The thing, you already teased it, but her dad, I guess, is testifying.

0:42:43 Matt: Just

0:44:23 Thomas: Tomorrow? Is she done? Is Fonny done?

0:44:24 Matt: That's the plan to rebut some of this. Think she's done. She certainly went out with a bang. Got to tell you, the flashback I was having today as I was watching this, and I've never seen anything like this. I don't know. Maybe this is common somehow in Georgia, but having the district attorney take the stand, having the special district attorney takes the stand in the middle of a case to talk about their sex lives. I still can't believe I watched that. But I was having flashbacks to September 1998. I was 18 years old, and I rolled out of bed early, this is true, to watch the videotape that they released online of President Clinton testifying in the Linsky deposition.

And that was shocking. Yeah, that was one of the first things. I remember it was like one of the first sort of streaming video events in 1998. to Congress. I mean, they actually released the because they thought it was of public interest and it was of a public interest, but at the time that was shocking to hear the president talking about oral sex, about what the meaning of is is, about and what he thought the meaning of sexual relations was, about whether he touched her during all of this. I mean, I was 18 years old. It blew my mind. And I wanted to be a lawyer, right? I'd never seen a deposition before.

0:44:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:44:57 Thomas: Online?

0:45:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:45:24 Matt: That was my first deposition. Blew that away, I have to say. I can't say that we've made progress in the last 25, 26 years, but

0:45:24 Thomas: Yeah, yeah! This is crazy. Sitting here in 2024, I'm so shocked, not by any of the sex stuff that Clinton, whatever, don't care about that. I'm shocked by the technology. I did not even know there was such a thing as streaming internet video in 19, I was there. I was, I wrote, I wasn't there, but I, maybe it was because I lived in the sticks. We didn't have internet capable of that. That is, that is something I don't remember being around. So maybe that's, oh, colleges.

0:45:52 Matt: I was in my freshman year dorm, and we had an amazing connection. And of course, We had Napster going at all times, of course.

0:45:56 Thomas: Yeah. Oh yes. Okay. Okay. I do remember that. All right.

0:45:59 Matt: Probably had Napstra going in the background while I was watching this video.

0:46:01 Thomas: That's awesome. First all off, this was so crazy and interesting to think. I'm pretty sure we're going to be able to do a a bonus on this, because this is just courtroom drama of the highest order. Like, I've never, it's truly amazing. I have so many questions for you. I was just texting you like, right, who's this? Why are they asking that? What is this? What happens when this happens? And I think it'll be so fun to do some bonus on this, because one thing that I imagine you might not realize as an expert is just a court thingy like this in itself is something your average person never sees.

0:46:32 Matt: Yeah.

0:46:33 Thomas: See this rarely enough to where it's like the OJ trial and then like a couple other things, to where there's all this theater and crap and technique and rules that we just never come across, that to you probably read as normal.

0:46:45 Matt: Can thank the pandemic for this one because we were watching his Zoom, the judge's Zoom live, right? And this is a pandemic innovation that we can just tune into Zoom and watch the whole thing. It's one of the strangest things I've seen happen in any courtroom, so I think we got to talk about it.

0:46:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:46:58 Thomas: Can't wait. So, and I, I hear that we may even get Casey on to talk about this, which would be an absolute thrill. So look for that everybody. I Can't Wait.

0:47:04 Matt: Hope so. So we've got to

0:47:07 Thomas: Like I'm really excited to do that. That, that will be incredible. So I bring it up now because we're not going to get into all that now. There's too much, there's way too much. There was something I noticed about the 24 -hour bill that it seemed like Wade had a pretty good excuse for that. And I know that's something that talked about in one the first of these we did. So you want to clarify that?

0:47:07 Matt: Do it. Got to do it.

0:47:26 Matt: Sent you a picture of the bill actually Did you get a look at that?

0:47:28 Thomas: Did. Got I to be honest, I too hostile of a witness here, Matt, but I kind of think he has a point. I kind to think the date, it says completed when the work was completed. All right, here we go. We're going to argue about this. So are you sticking to your guns?

0:47:42 Matt: I was, we haven't had a real argument yet. I really, okay, look at this. I mean, date completed. And I know he testified on the stand. He said, look, well, it says I completed the work, 24 hours worth of work on that date. But I'm sorry, I don't bill my hours. It's just not a thing immigration lawyers do. But you got to say when you worked. All of these other items are like eight hours on November 3rd. We've got four hours of November 12th. There's no suggestion that's over a span of days. You got this one that's on the 5th. I don't know. I know what he's saying, but.

0:48:09 Thomas: I hear you, except here's you look at the item, so the sucks. It looks like the invoice was made from one of those. You know, when you go to like a car mechanic and their computer system is still the green text on the black and you're like, how in the world is this how you still do stuff? It looks Like this was made From that. That. And so while I hear you and I get it, I kind of think that this, if you look at the items, okay, read and review case summaries completed on 11 -19. Do you really think he did that? That's eight hours. His point was he didn't bill for the thing until the day. Andso he'd do the work, whatever the task was.

And then he'd say, well, on this date, I completed that task. And I just billed for all the hours at that time. Now, maybe that's a weird way to do things. But when you look look at the items, like say meeting with potential witnesses, does it make sense that he would have done that for six hours on one day? It doesn't really make sense. Like you would think is that you probably met with them multiple times over the, like you'd have to schedule with people. You'd haveと do different stuff, right?

0:48:20 Matt: Yeah, totally. Yeah, sure.

0:49:10 Matt: Well, in the four -hour meeting with you, and I see what you're saying, but I don't know. Again, I don't' t bill my hours, but it just seems strange that you don't have some kind of discrete billing. I hope that there's something a little more detailed than this somewhere that he kept record of, because it doesn' t seem like great billing. He did say, I believe the testimony was that they changed the billing system at some point after this. So good on them, I guess. So see how a bunch of people saw this. This was attached to the original motion to dismiss. I can understand. I certainly saw it that way. It's 24 hours on November 5th. That's how it looked. At all clear that that was a range of dates necessarily.

0:49:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So is exactly the kind of thing that I love having OA for, because on one hand, And when you said that, oh, that sounded bad. And then he says his version, which I'm like, oh. That seems like a pretty good explanation. And then I'm wondering, like, well, why didn't anybody at least think of that as an explanation? Like, I don't think there was any analyst. And he even said this on the stand. He's like, boy, I sure wish somebody would have either called me or made this point. Which is that, like yeah, these items, they obviously aren't things that you would do in one day. So like it's one thing to say, way oh, he's billing sucks or there's not enough detail. Sure. All a separate point. What I think people are really concerned with when they see something like this is, hey, it looks like he billed 24 hours in a day. What's his excuse? What's the answer?

And what they want to know is, is he bullshitting us or not? I think it's my as not the lawyer is just for taking the information is he's got a bad billing system. And I'm glad they changed, but it doesn't seem like he's bullshitting because the rest of the invoice is pretty consistent his story.

0:49:58 Matt: Yeah, sure.

0:50:34 Matt: Yeah. But it also, I mean, you can say how it was misread because it looks like all of these other things could be done in one day, potentially, even if you don't think you want to do them in one day. Have a four -hour meeting with your unit in one day. I mean, nobody wants to sit through that meeting. I hope you brought coffee. But I will Say, though, this is a good little lesson. And I say this as a defense attorney. Do not get your facts, at least your initial facts, from the defense motion. I think that's probably part of the problem here.

0:50:45 Thomas: Yeah, that's true.

0:50:58 Matt: They highlighted this, right? This was in the evidence. They highlighted it and made a big thing about the 24 hours thing. So I think that people generally picked up on their reading, which, you know, again, that's the defense reading. And I say, this is somebody who's coming from the defense side. Doesn't mean it's the facts.

0:50:57 Thomas: Yeah. That is an important thing. Read it as though someone is just telling you the facts. I've actually learned that too in my time reading legal briefs. And it's hard. That's why we need expertise because oftentimes there are things that you don't know as a non -lawyer. And you may not even know as a lawyer if it's like fact -specific stuff that you don't have the underlying facts of. But yeah, no, I'm glad we brought that up. There are so many more things to talk about like this and more and weirder and Crazier and less crazy. I can't wait wait to do this bonus with Casey. I cannot wait. I'm so excited to do that. Um, so we will get that out to you as soon as we can. So that said, why do you think, if you could give us some predictions that are bound to make you look foolish, where do you think this is going, because it's so unpredictable? Hmm.

0:51:16 Matt: Yeah, it is.

0:51:28 Matt: Yeah. Oh yeah. So many, a mean I don't even need to see tomorrow's testimony to be honest because it's Just going to be the DA, their office, bringing in her father and somebody else who's going to confirm their version of what the relationship was. Nobody really cares that much. I mean, there were a lot of questions today about the relationship and about their sex life.

I mean I never thought, even for as much of a circus as I thought this was going to be, I did not think I'd end the day after hearing, "Are you asking if I had intercourse with the district attorney?" That was a question that was asked on the stand.

That point, I've just got to tell you, I think that your case, your participation in this case has ended at the point at which that much personal stuff has come out, in which you become such a complete distraction. And Fannie Willis put up a fight. She did a good job in a lot of these places. She also showed, I think, a real lack of judgment in other places. She made the point that, "What are we doing sitting around talking about all this when we're talking about people who tried to steal an election?"

0:51:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yep.

0:52:39 Matt: She's right. If she wants us to focus on the people who are trying to steal an election. What she needs to do, I did some looking to think about this, is she needs to follow Georgia Code 151815. Now, Georgia law professor Clark Cunningham brought this up last week. He's the only person I've seen saying it. And I got to say, after looking over the Georgia Code, not just that section, but the other parts that control this, I have to agree with him.

I have to think the best thing for this case is in this code right right here. If the district attorney will be temporarily absent from the judicial circuit, such that he or she is not able to perform the duties of his or her office, the district attorney may authorize in writing the chief district attorney to exercise any of the powers, duties, responsibilities, etc. So all she has to do is take a leave, just take a break.

And at this point, I think she needs a break, I'm sure, after everything she's been through. And this way, it's not kicked out to some other DA's office, because if she were to do it a different way, Even if she were to recuse herself, that's what I was looking into, to try to figure

0:52:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

0:53:38 Matt: Out what if she just voluntarily says, okay, you can't fire me, I quit, right? Just recuse. She'd still be considered to be disqualified, and they'd have to go through Georgia Code 1518 -5. That's how it looks to me. Point, when a district attorney's office is disqualified, that's when, as we've discussed before, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council has three choices. Director either gets to request the services of and appoint a district attorney, any district attorney from the state. Can designate one of the attorneys from the Prosecuting Attorneys Council, or he can, this is my favorite option, a competent attorney to act as district attorney pro tem. So any attorney in Georgia could be appointed to act as DA at this point. And it pays $70 an hour.

0:53:42 Thomas: Yeah. Geez.

0:54:17 Matt: I just think that's funny. When Wade was getting $250 an hour, that he would be getting that much more than the DA. But I again, after looking over the Georgia Code and thinking about all of the possible options, don't think it's that likely, this has been my position from the beginning, that she's actually going to be disqualified. But the judge has indicated that it's possible based on the facts he's looking at, based on what the testimony is coming out. And if it's even possible at this point, no matter what happens, even if they appoint a DA who is completely on board and wants to do this case as much as she did, still talking about a lot of delay, a lot to catch up, just exactly what Trump wants in all of this. So far, Trump has had a great week, especially in

0:54:17 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Is.

0:54:48 Thomas: Yeah.

0:54:49 Matt: This case.

0:54:49 Thomas: Yeah. Best solution is go on vacation and all. It sounds like by the wording of the law, it sounds like she makes that determination, I guess that like, Hey, I'm not able to, perform you this duty. So it almost sounds like you don't even need to go go anywhere. It just sounds like as long as she says, oh, I got, I'm too busy or I'm whatever, I'm going to put so-and-so on it. That at least keeps it in her office or whatever.

0:54:57 Matt: Right. No, no.

0:55:12 Matt: Right, because the best thing she can do is keep it in her office. They've been doing this case all this time. They know what to do. All she had to do last week was just give a press conference and say a lot of the stuff she said today, but not in this hostile, adversarial way. She could have run the show, and she could have actually had a press conference and said, I've become too much of a distraction. Obviously, these allegations are false. I never shared money with this man. There was nothing inappropriate going on, but I don't want to have to prolong this. We need to get back on track. And I think that would have been the best thing for the case.

0:55:25 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, I don't think she's going to do that. I don'T think she'S going to DO that. Yeah, that's too bad. Now,

0:55:41 Matt: That's not where we're at. No, we're way past that. Imagine either of these people participating in the trial that's to come after this testimony. It's too strange. Just too much of an appearance of impropriety. There's too much going on here. It clouded up. Not to say that the case won't ultimately work out. I'm sure that they have what they need to prosecute it. I don't think this is actually going to permanently derail this case. I sure hope not. But it certainly provides all kinds of reasons for delay. And, you is the possibility as well that if she actually is disqualified, she could take up an appeal from that. And then we've got that going on, on top of everything else.

0:56:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:56:17 Matt: So, you now, just, I need a merciful end to this, because as much fun as, and I shouldn't say fun, I mean, this is painful. We're watching real people talking about real stuff, real relationships, real things they've been through. She's been under tremendous amounts of stress. I'm very sympathetic to her and no doubt is being treated differently as a black woman in this position. We have to acknowledge that. And I think we saw it even a little in the hearing today, for sure. But with all of that,

0:56:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you mean when the white questioners couldn't get either of their names right ever? There was no you don't think there was any thing going on there? Who knows?

0:56:47 Matt: The attorneys attorneys kept asking about Nathan Wade's contract being re -upped, and he had to actually correct him and say, I'm not going to use that word. It's like how you talk about a drug deal. Don't know, the whole thing. Came out of this hearing looking good.

0:56:53 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. No, the AV people, you was a little hiccup. They were so quick. Let me tell you, not I'm even joking about this. They're actually really good. They were so quickly to fix it. They switched to a different camera and audio source for like three seconds. It was instant. And then they got it back working again. And there we were back on the main camera, main mic. That is so much better than so many other stupid things that happen that have a higher budget, I'll just say. So anyway, we've gone on way too long, but we're going to go on even more when we get to that bonus. But yeah, that's what you think should it happen. Are you predicting that's not happening? Because I'm going to predict that's not going to happen.

0:57:02 Matt: Yeah.

0:57:31 Matt: We're past that point. That'S not going going to happen. And we're going to hear much more testimony. And again, I do want to mention the judge at the beginning of this hearing could have just said, I'm interested in the financial aspect of this case. I just want to see if there was a real exchange of money and what happened between these two people. But instead, he allowed all of this testimony, all of these really kind of gross, tawdry, salacious stuff that we're gonna have to talk about, obviously, in the bonus episode. But I don't want to make it the focus because I just, I don't know. It's too much of of a circus.

0:57:32 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yep. I think I've been a little confused. Was this the evidentuary hearing? Or is there more to come? Because I got a little wasn't wasn't sure after the it if there was like going to be another thing.

0:58:09 Matt: Is about as evidentary as it gets. I have to say too, there was some evidence that was... There was some evidence introduced that appears like a lot of evidence, like hundreds of pages potentially, that wasn't run by opposing counsel before this hearing that just got to come in for some reason.

0:58:11 Thomas: Evidently. Yeah.

0:58:21 Matt: I don't know what that was about.

0:58:21 Thomas: There was books that people were like, I don't, I haven't seen that. You haven't seeing that. I haven' seen it. It did. Okay. I can't wait to go through this whole thing.

0:58:27 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Again, it was a circus, and I have a lot to say about it, but we can't make it the whole episode.

0:58:32 Thomas: So then let me ask you that tomorrow as people are listening and again, knowing we're going to go the whole thing, but forgetting the actual content of the entire thing tomorrow, the hearing, let's assume it ends like they've, they've interviewed her dad and any other family members that they feel is necessary. It ends. What's the next step? Is the judge then making a ruling on her disqualification, or is there some other circus that we have to do? As you said, there's other circus hoops and

0:58:45 Matt: Let's hope.

0:58:56 Matt: Now, I imagine the parties will make their closing and the judge will take it under advisement. I'd be surprised if we get a decision tomorrow, but it could be. He really might have already decided what his factors are after hearing everything today. We'll find out.

0:59:05 Thomas: That's the decision of whether or not she's disqualified or whether the case is dismissed because of the motion to dismiss.

0:59:12 Matt: He's specifically looking at disqualification here. The motion, obviously, was to also dismiss me in the indictment, but I haven't heard any argument actually made about that. Maybe they'll get to it tomorrow, but I don't think they're going to bother.

0:59:14 Thomas: Okay. Gotcha. So So that's another thing in that it will be in the judge's ruling, but it'll be like, well, that's obviously dumb, but that kind of thing. Okay. Wow.

0:59:28 Matt: Yeah, pretty much.

0:59:29 Thomas: Crazy. So it's, so it's entirely possible. We'll have, it could all be over tomorrow. Like it's not out of the realm of possibility that he's made up his mind.

0:59:35 Matt: It could be.

0:59:36 Thomas: He rules. Hey, no, we're not disqualified. Actually best case just for fun. She's not stepping aside, best case would be the judge is like, all right, I'm sorry. I let the circus go. There might be more there. There wasn't, there's no need to disqualify. The case isn't dismissed. Carrying on. And then are we just good? Like it's just onward?

0:59:52 Matt: Yeah. Would say we're back to normal, but I don't think anybody involved can be back to normal at this point.

1:00:00 Thomas: Like legally, you're just moving on.

1:00:01 Matt: Yes. I think.

1:00:03 Thomas: Okay. So there's something to root for. Actually, I'm glad I asked you that because I thought there'd be more BS, but maybe there's a possibility could be over. All right.

1:00:09 Matt: Let's hope.

1:00:10 Thomas: Well, So much more on that, and I'll be watching tomorrow, and we'll be doing that bonus as as soon as we can get over it to you.

1:00:18 Matt: So we can move on to New York, I think, very quickly, um.

1:00:20 Thomas: Right, so New York is, this is the one where they did the, you know, I think we talked about this on SIO maybe, is this the one, the first one that happened, where it was like the person just trying to break the ice. Like, and it was a unique theory of law, if I remember correctly.

1:00:30 Matt: Yep. Some hush money, uh, that's Stormy Daniel's payments, and some check fraud around campaign finance issues.

1:00:40 Thomas: And memory of it is that like, normally not that serious of, of an offense. Like if you just filled out a form wrong in a campaign thingy, but I remember the New York kind of unique theory, unique New York theory was, ah, but because they, it was sort of in a bit furtherance of like, like a felony or something, they, it, something was like something that so that it raised the stakes on

1:00:45 Matt: Yeah.

1:01:00 Matt: It raised it to a felony, that business records can be charged as a misdemeanor, but they elevate it to a felony by saying that he had this intent to defraud in service of a second crime. Which is, is essentially, a campaign finance violation. And so there's some kind of a conspiracy to promote the election of a person to public office by unlawful means. So this is a little convoluted. The clearest case is by far the Florida case, the documents case. But as we've just discussed, it's right now the messiest, because it's being run by somebody who doesn't want it to happen. This case is very much being pursued by somebody wants to happen, it is moving forward. But Trump's lawyers have asked to have the whole thing dismissed. And they're claiming prosecutorial...

1:01:08 Thomas: Right, there, we go, yeah, They're like, it's because Fonny Willis and... It's actually the same reason. All my cases should be dismissed because of what's going on in Georgia. I'm just saying.

1:01:35 Matt: Yeah, right. And as they told the Supreme Court, it's just such a lot of work to be on trial. So that was part of it too. The main thing they were claiming was selective prosecution and of other things. I'll go through very quickly. The court this morning dropped a 30-page decision the motion to miss. It was the one we expected, obviously. They're not dismissing the case. I got to say, absolute kudos to Judge Marchand. I know this is stupid. This is small. This matters a lot to me. He put the decision in Garamond, and I don't see enough Garamond in legal filings.

1:01:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:02:09 Thomas: What?

1:02:09 Matt: All of my legal filings are in Garamond, to be clear.

1:02:11 Thomas: I don't know what this font is. Font?

1:02:14 Matt: It's the most beautiful main body font that you can use. It's gorgeous. And it's very practical. Cool. It's very readable and it's a nice looking font. I do not know why Times New Roman is the default for everything. And God forbid why Courier is the default for Massachusetts courts. That is disgusting. Whoever came up with that should be disbarred.

1:02:16 Thomas: Oh, wow. Okay.

1:02:32 Thomas: You've talked about, you people's family members getting deported. And I don't think you were as angry about that as you are about this. I'm just saying. I said, I hear an additional level.

1:02:43 Matt: Have you seen Courier New? It's a typewriter.

1:02:46 Thomas: Yeah, I talked, I joked about getting your anger lessons. I guess I just have to show you a really shitty font before every episode, that'll get you going, all new plan. Matt, our show notes are, whatever we're doing is going to be in a terrible font, and you're just going to hear Matt on edge. You'll just be like, oh, god, okay, here's what happened? Oh, that's

1:02:51 Matt: Yes. I have very strong opinions about fonts, Thomas.

1:03:03 Matt: Just raging. I superstitious, but I'm convinced that there are cases I have won because I filed everything in Garamond. It's nice to look at. It really is. I was a publishing minor in college. These things matter. It is nice to take a look at documents.

1:03:17 Thomas: Right. You mentioned you wanted to be a writer. Okay.

1:03:19 Matt: Very important. So, seriously, the actual decision. One of the things the Trump team was arguing was that the checks in this case that were used, obviously, as the instrument of the financial deal here, were not business records. And of course, that is ridiculous because they were kept and maintained by the Trump Organization, and they reflected payments that were through a scheme that was discussed with Michael Cohen, who's obviously a representative of the Trump Organization, etc., etc. So the judge just kicks that out pretty quickly. Next argued that there's not another crime involved, as needs to be in this. The prosecution had been raising several different possible other crimes, and the judge found that at least three out of the four of them could go forward. One I don't have time to get into, but the judge said you can't proceed with that theory, but you can look at election violations, campaign finance violations, and tax violations. Judge has made it very clear that these three theories of the case, these three legal theories can go forward. Enough.

1:04:10 Thomas: Were those the crimes that, like, because again, it had to be done, the falsification of business records had to be done in furtherance of another crime. And the judge is saying, yeah, could be any number of these. Could be these three are good. Okay, not that one, but these three. One or more of those means we're good to go.

1:04:19 Matt: Right, right, exactly. And that's, took all was one, and so now they can present those three to the jury. Also intent to defraud, and the judge wasn't very happy about this one. The court finds that legally sufficient evidence was presented to the grand jury to meet this element of the crimes charged. It carries a broad meaning. It's not limited to the causing of financial harm or the deprivation of money or property. So the people do not need to demonstrate intent to cause financial harm, basically just to defRAWD, to generally defraud the public about what's going on, which is what was happening here. So that was a question we had a while back about what this That's actually sort of the scope of the defrauding. Finally, we've got selective prosecution, which, of course, is one of Trump's favorite arguments of all time. He's making this in every case that, you know, you're just prosecuting me because I'm Donald Trump.

1:04:27 Thomas: Okay, Okay, cool. Yeah. Hmm.

1:05:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Everyone tries to steal elections, but when I do it.

1:05:11 Matt: Right. The court found that this strains credulity and that the people have shown that there's thorough investigation, that all of this was very public. It was something they couldn't ignore, essentially. Essentially. And yeah, right. He actually did it. And there's make the point that Michael Cohen already pled guilty to several crimes connected to this.

1:05:23 Thomas: Well, Well, well done, people. Ooh,

1:05:30 Matt: So again, it's not as if this came out of nowhere. Yeah, this is a pretty clean, straight up and down, Garamond-rendered, 30-page decision. Good job, Judge Martian.

1:05:31 Thomas: Yeah. That seems, And that's the most important thing.

1:05:40 Matt: It was very nice on the eyes, Yes, yes. Know, I read a lot of documents.

1:05:42 Thomas: I love it. Official font of opening arguments now. I

1:05:46 Matt: Happy to promote the Garamond. Most importantly, of course, out of all of this, nobody thought this motion was going to be granted. That was not going to happen. But Judge Marchand did trial set date of March 25th. Really hoping that that happens. But if that were to happen, that would make this the first Trump case to actually go forward. Everything else is being held up by all kinds of different ways, but this judge is intent on getting this defendant in front of him.

1:06:09 Thomas: Wow.

1:06:09 Matt: So we'll see. We will see. And unfortunately, it's the out of all of these allegations that is the smallest potatoes. It's unfortunate it's going to be the first one. It was the first one to drop. It is going to the first to be tried.

1:06:11 Thomas: Okay. Maybe that's good, though. I don't know.

1:06:20 Matt: Yeah. A little warm -up.

1:06:21 Thomas: It's just a little warm up. Yeah. And if something goes wrong, we can be like, well, we still got those other potatoes.

1:06:22 Matt: Yeah, sure. The whole overthrowing the government thing. Yeah go into that.

1:06:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. That potato. You know what I'm thinking, Matt? We're going to have a lot of work this year, I think.

1:06:36 Matt: Yeah. Of course, when we say Trump's New York cases, we have to separate out Trump's criminal cases and his civil case, because there's a lot of New York case involving Donald Trump.

1:06:44 Thomas: Yeah there are a lot of because there's also the charity ones that I guess I think those those are like kind of done, right? It's just like, Hey, no, no person named Trump or named anything like Trump. Actually, like if it's like tramp or trim, like you also just for in case you can't run a charity in New York. Cause uh, that's probably not that. Are you talking about Eugene Carroll?

1:06:58 Matt: Right, right. I'm talking about the business fraud that he committed. So we've got that decision coming. Coming.

1:07:10 Thomas: See, there you go. There's so many different cases. So now we're on business fraud. Okay.

1:07:12 Matt: Yeah. The Trump Organization. Yeah, yeah. So this is all about the Trump Organization and the way that they had misstated all kinds of financial records. And it was pretty clear from the testimony that this was bad. John John Goran found up front that it was fraud. He was just going to find out how much it was.

1:07:27 Thomas: Oh, so this is the like, hey, um, when I want to get a loan, man, my, my crap's worth so much money. It is. Oh, I have a cardboard box on 11th Street that's worth 10 million billion dollars. And then when he was paying taxes, he's like, please, I'm a child. I'm so poor. I don't even know. I mean, rags. And it's that kind of thing, which is misstating it for his own ends either way.

1:07:32 Matt: Oh, yeah, right, right. Yeah? Yeah.

1:07:52 Thomas: Wantonly. Yeah, that's a good word for it.

1:07:51 Matt: Wantonly. Yeah some some really extreme stuff to the point that there's $370 million in damages potentially coming. And with a 9 % interest, that's $400 million in damages, to the point that Alan Weisselberg, ex his ex -finance chiefs, already went into Rikers for 100 days for this guy. And

1:07:58 Thomas: Jeez. Right. Oh. And the question there There was like, we thought maybe he was going to give Trump up, but he kind of didn't, right? Didn't he?

1:08:12 Matt: He's standing tall. And he might actually be going down for perjury again. He might have a second charge here. We don't know all the details yet, but during this trial, yet proven. But though, because it's been a mysterious delay on Judge Angoran's decision. It was originally supposed to be out January 31st, and you might notice it's now, as of today, it's February decision is supposed to come out Friday, but we'll see. There's some thought that it might've been delayed because of this issue with Weisselberg and the perjury. This is going to be big. I'm sure we'll talk about it when it happens, but this is something that we've been waiting on for a while.

1:08:13 Thomas: Man, geez. He in a relationship with that guy too? And George, they dating, those two guys.

1:08:34 Thomas: Not that. Yeah.

1:08:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Are the potential penalties here? It's just the money. It's just the bazillions and bazillions of dollars. Or is there any like drill time type possibility here, which

1:08:52 Matt: Yeah. It's well, it's like corporate jail because the Trump Organization is basically going to be shut down and unable to do business

1:08:58 Thomas: Is team building exercises. Now I've already used those jokes too much, but that is kind of corporate jail, to be honest with you.

1:08:59 Matt: Yeah. Right. Yeah, we're yeah. Um, already reached the point where the Trump administration has to be dissolved, and now we're just kind of cleaning up the mess. This is like corporate death penalty stuff, uh, of course, is much worse than the actual death penalty, to be clear, right?

1:09:11 Thomas: Okay. Hope they're getting to the point where they're like, we need to do more than dissolve. Like we need a harsher method of execution.

1:09:21 Matt: Well, uh, been funneling, we also learned, a lethal injection of cash from his uh Save America Pack. I don't know, that is that a transition? I don' t know if that works.

1:09:29 Thomas: Sure. So at this point, I feel like you've gone through all the ones I vaguely remember. And is this one? I don't, I

1:09:34 Matt: This is. Oh, isn't even the case, I'm just saying, he's, this is how he's paying his lawyers. It's just by injecting money from his Pack, yeah, just throwing that out out there. It's just an interesting fact.

1:09:37 Thomas: Oh, oh it's not even, oh okay. So this is not, is the kind of thing that maybe someday will be a case, or yeah,

1:09:47 Matt: I would hope. $27 million in the last six months of 2023 allegedly were funneled through the Save America PAC. I've you're going to save America by electing Donald Trump, apparently.

1:09:57 Thomas: Never back down was a better name, even Super Bag of Ron DeSantis who, the checks notes, Back Down, like, definitely for sure, even that super Packs name is like Save America, wow, okay, yeah.

1:10:00 Matt: That's right. Right. A lot. Yeah, all the way down. Yeah fact, actually, I'm on Donald Trump campaign email list. I'm on that actual email list I just I like to see you know, it comes in and it's terrifying.

1:10:14 Thomas: Oh, cool. That's always fun. Yeah.

1:10:18 Matt: It's actually pretty scary to see what they're sending people and the things they're saying. You know, I got to keep up his latest email actually at 9:28 p.m. was entitled "Pretty please... dot dot dot oh."

1:10:30 Thomas: Those I've seen a lot of those and they are truly just horror. And Like knowing that those work work on people. And you're just like, what is the split piece soup that is inside those people's brains that make these work? And he sends them out five a day, you know, this like last chance. Hey, this here, is unless you act now. And it's like, boy, they didn't learn the first 87 ,000 times that you did that. It's horrifying. So

1:10:33 Matt: Yeah. No.

1:10:43 Matt: Let could read you a couple of others, headlines just from the last couple of days. Biden just spit in your face, exclamation point. Yep, I deport, deport, deport, exclamation point.

1:10:53 Thomas: Oh, please. Yeah. Get my wallet out. Joke's on you. I'm into that. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, god. Uh, these work. Everybody, these work. That's the sad part. Got

1:11:07 Matt: Yep. Yep. Yeah. No. No. Um, returned to humiliate MAGA and will make, make your blood boil, please, exclamation point. Just on and on and on. And I really should unsubscribe because every time, this is actually something that is capable of making me mad. Maybe if I just read these.

1:11:24 Thomas: No. Maybe this is part of your anger lessons,

1:11:26 Matt: That's right.

1:11:26 Thomas: Matt. Yeah.

1:11:27 Matt: That's great. Stay on it.

1:11:27 Thomas: You got it. No, new, new, okay, everybody, new job requirement for Matt. You need to read 10 of these a day, Matt.

1:11:36 Matt: The wall, deport them all. That makes me pretty mad. I'm angry. But this is how he's been raising money and funneling it off to his lawyers, $27 million worth, allegedly. I'm concerned about the people who are giving this money and, you know, how much they might actually have to give. But

1:11:40 Thomas: Yeah.

1:11:49 Thomas: I'm concerned only in so far as there's probably some like liberal kids, grandkids, that I would rather their inheritance go to when they die. But other than that, I don't know. F them. Okay.

1:11:57 Matt: Yeah. But otherwise, sure, sure. Sure. We got Elise Stefanik has filed a complaint seeking the disbarment of Letitia James, the New York attorney general who prosecuted the civil trial, to the New York Committee on Professional Standards. Saying that Letitian James should be disbarred because she conducted a biased investigation and prosecution of President Trump and attacked President Trump through extraditional statements during a trial. I don't think that's really anything to disbar somebody over, but I guess we can let the Newark Committee sort that one out.

1:12:25 Thomas: Yeah. Is the one who when Trump said, and know, Nikki Haley was in charge of security at Jan 6 or whatever, clearly meaning Nancy Pelosi and not, you know. Know, like when Trump made that mistake, Stefanik, if I'm remembering right, was like, yeah, meant to. That was just right. Why? Hey, where was Nikki Haley? Why didn't she call in the National Guard or whatever in the world? Yeah.

1:12:32 Matt: Yeah.

1:12:49 Matt: Sense to me. Yeah.

1:12:51 Thomas: Yeah. Aren't asking that question enough. She is just true. Oh boy.

1:12:54 Matt: Had a journey.

1:12:55 Thomas: I don't think she's a true believer, I think she is just cynically that, playing the game that she needs to to play. Cause seems like she knows what she's doing. I guess she doesn't seem like one one of these people that's just like believes it and is actually saying things they believe. She's just willing to say whatever she was.

1:12:59 Matt: Oh, absolutely. No, she's had a real journey.

1:13:10 Matt: Paul Ryan kind of person before. And then, you comes along and you ride that train.

1:13:15 Thomas: It's sad.

1:13:16 Matt: Is. Hard to watch. And if you're listening, stop it.

1:13:19 Thomas: She, does listen. I should have mentioned. Yeah. Big fan of my stuff. She actually, she came over from Dear Old Dads.

1:13:28 Matt: That's our messy grab bag, our big bag of Scrabble pieces that we're pulling from today and going to have plenty more updates as things go, I'm sure.

1:13:30 Thomas: Holy moly. That's good. I needed a refresher on all those. And thank you for those updates and I, um, gotta say I'm, for I'm you seven to eight dozen prosecutors involved in all these cases that are going against Trump, here. It Is get through all of them, or are there even more that we don't have time for?

1:13:48 Matt: Everything. That's what's open right now. Yeah. As long as those prosecutors can remain celibate, I think we'll be fine. Apparently.

1:13:48 Thomas: Oh, okay. Wow. That's all of it. Oh God. All right. Well, thanks so much for listening, everybody. Thanks Matt, as always for the breakdown. Please support the show at patreon.com/law. you there are so many questions for Matt. Are going to do a Q &A of course, but we're also thinking why not find another way to thank our amazing patrons. And we might just do maybe pull one question at a time and do in the like bonus area here. I'll make a little bit of an extra cut for patrons only. And so, Matt, if you could tease what question we're going to answer for patrons.

1:14:24 Matt: You could make any past or present Supreme Court justices life into a movie, who would it be? Asks Audrey Arnett. That's a great question, Audrey. I'm excited to answer this one.

1:14:31 Thomas: Well, answer that for patrons only. But thanks so much for listening, everybody. And again, patreon.com/law if you wanna hear no ads and if you wanna hear yes questions, because Matt's gonna answer that question after this. That was a great week of the regular schedule, and we will be back next week with the regular schedule. Can't wait.

1:14:50 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

1:15:07 Thomas: No, no, no. I just wanted to know when I I should, like, start complaining.

1:15:11 Matt: No, let's start complaining. Now's the time.

1:15:13 Thomas: So, see, my memory's failing me. I need to resign as president. The previous vice president who that my cat or your Some cat is going nuts.

1:15:23 Matt: Should go deal with my cat. She's really, I don't know what she's doing. I'm going to just shut her somewhere else. We'll be right back.

1:15:28 Thomas: Okay. Did you know Biden's old? And

1:15:31 Matt: From the newshose.