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- [00:00]
Michael Popok
Oh, Donald Trump just got out. Foxed, pun intended by Rupert Murdoch. You know that defamation case down in Miami where Donald Trump made a big deal out of getting the jump on Rupert Murdoch is 94 year old bones and trying to force him into a deposition because he might die at any minute. Well, not so much anymore now that I'm sure the Wall Street Journal lawyers told Donald Trump. You want our guys deposition before discovery has started. Before our motion to dismiss is going to be filed against your defamat case. Because you don't like the fact that the Wall Street Journal ran an article about a leather bound scrapbook birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein in which you called a sexual predator a beautiful secret and an enigma. You don't like that story. You want to take this deposition of Rupert Murdoch now in 14 days because you think he's old and about to die. We want your deposition on the 15th day. And now suddenly Donald Trump and the Wall Street Journal just filed a new motion with the judge saying we've agreed not to discuss to take any discovery or depositions until after the Wall Street Journal's motion to dismiss is decided by Judge Gales. Good idea. You're on Midas Touch Network. I'm Michael Popo. This is a version of Legal af. Let's get down to the new reporting. You saw the headlines, now let me explain it to you from the context and the perch of being a trial lawyer in Florida in federal courts. Okay, so two weeks ago the Wall Street Journal ran a front page article, a one in a series of front page articles that likely had some corroborating witnesses. Like I don't know, maybe the prosecutor who was fired off the Epstein case by the Trump administration. Maybe some insiders in the Department of Justice that don't want to work for Donald Trump. Somebody was giving this Wall Street Journal and their reporters enough confidence that they could run the article that 20 years ago or whatever it was when Jeffrey Epstein was having a 50th birthday birthday party. Get this. Ghislaine Maxwell. Yes. Donald Trump's other best friend, convicted child sex trafficker, put together a scrapbook. People still do this. A scrapbook, like a yearbook. Remember in yearbook used to write little notes to your friends like oh, you know, you were the best. Yeah. She put together a scrapbook of like adults submitting birthday card and birthday wishes to Jeffrey Epstein. Now look, I'm going to tell you straight. I don't think Donald Trump made the birthday card. I'm not expecting the apex. He can't, he can't even Read. Apparently, I mean, Donald Trump, I mean, allegedly can't read that. It would explain why he uses that Sharpie pen, like a seismograph, to sign his name. I don't expect that he made it like an arts and crafts project. Like, they brought him in, you know, sparkles and glue. And then he made a little card. No, he had people on his staff that could make a card for him and have him sign it at the end and give the general outline of what he wanted on it. And we got pretty good reporting. There's a couple of people on Donald Trump's staff that are pretty good artists. So somebody drew this naked lady. And the problem for Donald Trump is it's not a good look when the person that you were best friends with, your bff, that you said a year earlier than the card, has alikes, has a taste for young women in an interview. It's not a good look. When a sex predator that you may or may not have known at the time, you say about that person, you're an enigma and you've got so many sweet secrets. That's not a good look. And what was the Wall Street Journal to do but then publish that story as soon as they had the right corroborating evidence about it? And they've got First Amendment lawyers, and I'm sure they vetted that and the reporter to within an inch of his life before they ran the piece. Now, Donald Trump says he heard about the piece and called Rupert Murdoch. And Rupert Murdoch said, well, I'll look into that. That's my Scottish accent, or whatever Rupert Murdoch is, and I'll look at. I'll take care of it. Well, he took care of it. He took care of it. He called his editors, he called his. He got the report from the reporter that this was solid reporting and he let it be published. If he didn't do it, somebody else would have. What are you supposed to do with that story? Story? Sit on it. Donald Trump's writing sweet nothings about secrets to a guy that's a convicted sex trafficker that used to be your best friend. No, don't report that. So Donald Trump doesn't like it, so now he's painted himself into a corner. He said, I'm going to file a lawsuit. So he files a lawsuit, follows it down in Miami. Very interesting. You all have seen my other reporting. I think he tried to avoid Eileen Cannon on purpose. So instead of filing it in West Palm beach, where she might get the case, he filed it in Miami. Why does he want to avoid Eileen Cannon case, he has to replace a Pam Bondi as Attorney General. Case there's another opening on an appellate court that he can just shove her through. Case there's an opening on the United States Supreme Court. That's for another hot take. All right, let's get back to the Miami filing. Who does he pull? A judge he doesn't really want to see. Judge Darren Gales. Not only an Obama appointee, I happen to know Gail, Judge Gales well, but somebody that was his presiding judge in the case for defamation against Michael Cohen. What happened in that case? Michael Cohen very smartly asked for a quick deposition of Donald Trump. That's a, that's a Q and A under oath, like you're in court. And Donald Trump folded and dismissed the case. They get the same judge, pretty good white Rupert Murdoch. And the Wall Street Journal hires some very good lawyers, some of which I know. I think a firm in Miami called Gunster, Yokley's local counsel and main counsel is a very fine firm, the Tremaine Wright firm up in New York which handles First Amendment cases for major news outlets like Wall Street Journal. And Donald Trump wants to get, I guess he learned from the Michael Cohen experience. So he's gonna ask for the Fast Depot. I was like, this is a mistake. Him opening himself up. Donald Trump to any depot is a mistake. Now, later beginning. So just as we predicted on Legal af, as soon as he asked for a Fast Depot of, of Rupert Murdoch early in the case because he's going to die. He's 94 years old. And then they had a whole list in the motion about why they need a fast Depot. He, he had Covid, he passed out, he had a stroke, he broke his back whatever whatever. He's 94 and he has all the information and I don't have any information. He knows everything. I don't know anything. I said when I saw this motion, it's called an essay bene motion. It's when you're trying to preserve testimony because somebody's about to die or go out of the country or whatever. I said this is a mistake for Donald Trump. It's one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. First of all, in the motion itself, I thought it was a confession by Donald Trump and his lawyers that they didn't have a good faith basis to bring the case. Cuz he said, I don't really know much. It's all in the mind of Rupert Murdoch that how do you file the case? You have to have a minimum of good faith basis if you're anything like.
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Unknown Speaker
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- [08:16]
Michael Popok
So here's what I am sure this is my artist rendering as a 35 year federal trial lawyer of what took place. Donald Trump's lawyer, Alejandro Brito. We're filing or we're about to file this essay. Bene motion to get a deposition before any discovery is conducted in the case. Months early because your guy's old. And we're, we're giving you, we're going to have, we have to have what's called a meet and confer about it before we file it. Okay. We're not going to agree to that. They file the motion, we, we report on it. You know, normally what happens in the order of operation in federal court proceedings and civil cases is that there is an exchange of documents and information under Rule 26 of the Federal rules of civil Procedure. I give you mine, you give me yours, you show me yours, I show you mine, I give you a little bit of a list. We get together, the judge does a pretrial order, we we submit our proposed timelines from now until trial about what gets done when federal court is very deadline oriented. A lot of milestones. Magistrate judges kind of keep an eye on all of this. What you don't do is jump off sides and ask for a deposition like in the first few days of filing your case. That's usually for month, you know, third month, fourth month, fifth month, sixth month after you got documents together. I mean, I've done early depositions, I've done cases with no depositions, but usually you want some minimal, minimal discovery. And judges don't really like to see people trying to catch the other side unaware or flat footed with these early depositions. So here's the conversation. Okay, we want a deposition in 14 days. And here's what the Wall Street Journal lawyers, I'm sure said to them. We're going to be filing a motion for summary judgment and, or motion to dismiss because you don't have a way to sue us for defamation under a number of doctrines. Fair reporting privilege. We're just reporting the news. That's a privilege, a common law privilege you don't have. You can't show actual malice, which is a requirement for defamation against a, a person who's in public, public, publicly notorious or a public figure. Actual malice means you knew what you were publishing was false or you recklessly disregarded whether it was true or false. You don't have that element. And so on and so on and so on. I'm sure they also raised the specter of a federal sanctions motion under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which require that there be a good faith basis to file. Judges also have inherent authority to award things like attorneys fees if against lawyers and parties if the case is frivolous. That's what happened to Donald Trump, also in the Southern District of Florida up in West Palm Beach. Maybe the other reason they didn't want to go to West Palm beach, because Judge Middlebrooks is senior status judge there and he already fined them $1 million, Alina Haba and him for a frivolous case when he filed it three years ago against Hillary Clinton and others for defamation, et cetera, et cetera. So it was a combination of preserving Aileen, Eileen, Cat, or whatever her name is, and not pulling Middlebrooks. But I'm sure in the conversation the lawyers who are very fine for the Wall Street Journal and Murdoch said, we're going to do a Rule 11 sanction against all of you and ask for sanctions, but you better agree to drop this request, this demand for an early deposition. Because if you don't, and you want this in the first 14 days, on the 15th day and the next day, your guy Donald Trump's going to be deposed. And they certainly don't want that. So Donald Trump blinked. No depositions then. I know the headline. Two weeks goes deposition early for Donald Trump with Rupert Murdoch over. Nobody's being deposed. Trump's not being deposed. That's a good thing for Trump. And Murdoch's not being deposed until Judge Gale's rules on the motion to dismiss that the Wall Street Journal is going to file. And that's the motion that they filed with the court to inform the court. We are, we want to agree that there's no discovery, withdraw our earlier motion can deny it as moot. We're withdrawing it and we're going to. Nobody's going to depose anybody. So it became like mutually assured destruction. You take my guy, I take your guy. That's exactly what we thought was going to happen. And that's what happened. And this is Tuesday, so we got Taco Tuesday. Trump always chickens out, especially in his civil lawsuits, which he brings for political purposes and talking point purposes that have no real merit. He's going to get fined another million dollars eventually. I mean, put that in the time capsule. I think that's going to happen. So we're going to continue to follow the next steps. Next steps in front of Judge Gale is going to be a motion to dismiss by the Wall Street Journal. I think it's a 70, 30% chance he's going to grant that motion to dismiss. Emotions to dismiss are based on the four corners of the pleadings. And you can't go outside the pleadings. They may even bring a motion for summary judgment. They might have such strong position or a motion for judgment on the pleadings. 70, 30, judge keeps the case alive, maybe. I think we're months away from any real threat of depositions in the case because Donald Trump, I guess, forgot that as a plaintiff, he's going to have to give a deposition. And he does terrible in depositions when he's not taking the Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination. Right. He's stepping all over his testimony and he can't keep his lies straight. You saw the testimony in the E. Jean Carroll case where he was finally adjudged to be a sex abuser and has to pay a hundred million dollars in total. Right. He got all confused and befuddled. Didn't know what photos meant, didn't know who, didn't know who was in photos. It was busy trying to be a child and insult the lawyer instead of answering the questions and getting the answers right. So I'll continue to follow it right here. You're on Midas Touch Network. You're on Legal af. Take a moment, hit subscribe for both channels. Thumbs up till my next report. I'm Michael Popo.
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Unknown Speaker
Can't get your fill of Legal af.
- [14:02]
Michael Popok
Me neither.
- [14:03]
Unknown Speaker
That's why we formed the Legal AF substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called wait for it Morning af.
- [14:19]
Michael Popok
What else?
- [14:20]
Unknown Speaker
All the other contributors from Legal AOFF are there as well. We got some new reporting, we got interviews, we got ad free versions, versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on substack. Come over now to free subscribe.