The Scales of Justice (?) Move Slowly

On Episode 10 of LegalAF (#LAF), MeidasTouch’s Sunday morning law and politics podcast, hosts MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, examine why in Ben’s world the “scales of justice” (?) move so slowly (inside joke alert) while discussing the looming criminal indictment of the Trump Organization, Trump and his family by a New York state special grand jury based on Trump tax records obtained through a divided, 5-4 Supreme Court ruling. While Ben and Michael are at it, they discuss in detail the special qualities of the grand jury process in the American legal system. Of course, no #LAF podcast would be complete without a deep dive into Rudy Giuliani and his 18 cellphones and laptops about to be closely reviewed by a special master to be appointed by a federal judge to determine if any of the materials are protected by the attorney-client privilege from disclosure to the prosecutors investigating him for his role in the firing of the US Ukrainian ambassador. The “Legal Analysis Friends” next discuss former Ambassador Sondland’s attempts to have former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Federal government pay the $1.8 million in legal fees he racked up testifying to the House Intelligence Committee that Trump illegally withheld millions of dollars in US aid to Ukraine in order to force them to open an investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter during the Presidential election campaign, that later led to Trump firing the Ambassador. Hooded Justice and Velvet Hammer then turn their attention back to, where else, Florida, and explain why Governor DeSantis has the First Amendment and its protections exactly backward with his new law prohibiting social media companies, like Twitter, from banning (i.e. deplatforming) users for bad behavior like Trump. Ben then takes the #LAF listeners through the law of Presidential pardons leading to the SDNY prosecutors and judge having no choice but to drop Steve Bannon’s criminal prosecution arising out of his fraudulent “build the wall” charity. Finally, and ending on a “politics makes strange bedfellows” note, Ben and Popok discuss why the current Department of Justice is arguing in federal court that that even though Trump’s forcibly removing protestors from Lafayette Park to allow him to have a “clean” photo op on his way to a nearby church holding an (upside down) bible was a bad thing, a court should not interfere with decisions by the Executive Branch around how to provide security and protection to a sitting US president. Easter egg alert: Ben drops a little “Federalist Papers” knowledge on Popok, and Popok reminds Ben that scales of justice don’t move forward and back, wheels do.

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