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Michael Popak (0:58)

Donald Trump is threatening not to recognize the pardons by Joe Biden the exercise of that Article 2 constitutional absolute power that even the Supreme Court recognizes because he says Joe Biden used an auto pen just like other presidents have done, including George W. Bush, to issue the dozens and dozens of pardons that he did in the waning days of the Biden administration. It's a threat that, that I don't take lightly. Donald Trump will will now weaponize his Department of Justice to go after those people that served valiantly on the Jan.6 Committee, Congress and staff, former general or general Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, Liz Cheney, Benny Thompson, Adam Kinzinger, you name it. Because he's claiming that the Constitution requires that the that there be a writing at all and that writing be hand signed in some sort of form, feather pen or quill. That's not how the Constitution works. That's not how federal court precedent works. And Donald Trump is wrong. But we are heading for yet another constitutional crisis under Donald Trump who beyond test the limits, colors outside the lines and abuses power. I'm Michael Popak, you're here on the Midas Touch Network. You may have woke up this morning to another rant from Donald Trump late Monday night or early early Monday morning in which he declared that he was going to go after the the phony pardons of Joe Biden, claiming that the use of an auto pen, which is an electronic device or a mechanical device to sign things renders the pardons invalid and unconstitutional. He's wrong. George W. Bush issued for instance a number of last minute pardons. You know, the President of the United States, as we know currently has a stack of papers in front of him that they don't want to risk having, you know, some sort of cramp. Doesn't mean that there's any evidence that someone other than the President of the United States used the auto pen to make the signatures. I mean, I've sat and had a sign dozens and dozens of papers. I mean, after a while your signature gets a little bit cramped. You're, you get a little bit tired. People can challenge, oh, that's not your signature versus somebody else's signature or your signatures don't match. And the way to avoid that if you're the President of the United States is you use an auto pen that makes sure your signature with you controlling the pen is the same every time. First of all, the Constitution does not require anywhere in it that there be a writing for the power of the presidency to be exercised or invoked. And we already know from the immunity decision granting criminal immunity to this president, primarily by the United States Supreme Court, they spent a lot of time and spilled a lot of ink and had a lot of conversation at the oral argument about the power, the core constitutional powers of the presidency, including that of pardon. And even suggested at one time during the oral argument, I think this was led by Justice Gorsuch that self pardon was something that could happen, something we've always feared with Donald Trump, that he would pardon himself or that he would use pocket pardons, that he had already pardoned himself. We just didn't know about it. And these were just submarines and one day would resurface. But there is no requirement. I defy anyone. And you can leave it in comments if you find it. Go through cover to cover, line by line, the U.S. constitution and tell me where there's any requirement that the pardon be in writing at all or even signed by the President. It just has to be a manifestation of the President's intent to pardon somebody that is clear and unambiguous. And we have that. Donald Trump's argument, as you could see from his social media posts, is that Biden didn't even know what he was doing. And who knows who was running the auto Pennsylvania. What evidence is there that anybody other than Joe Biden was using the auto pen? The auto pen is not what it sounds like. It's not that Joe Biden went out golfing like Donald Trump every weekend and left the pen on his desk for some human being to pick up that wasn't him and start signing and authorizing pardons. The pardons get prepared because we like formality and, and Joe Biden, for instance, was a an institutionalist, believed in the institutions of the presidency and of the Senate and the House, having been in The Senate for 40 years, had been the vice president before that. So he likes things orderly and just. Historically, there's been a b, a conduct that is a precedent set by presidents to just do it in writing. There's no requirement to do that when you have a big stack, a big sheaf of paper and you got to get your way through it. You know, if he had, if he had done 50 of these, which he did, Joe Biden, with his own signature people, he would have said, oh, that's not Joe. Number 38 doesn't match. 1201 and 16 don't match. That wasn't Joe Biden, we'd be having that argument. So enter the auto pen, where the papers are prepared at the direction of the President, in this case by a committee, by a board, by lawyers, and then given to the President to sign while he's in the room. Your nighttime bedroom temperature has a huge impact on your sleep quality. If you wake up too hot or too cold, I highly recommend you check out miraclemaid's bed sheets. Miraclemaid sheets are inspired by NASA and use silver infused fabrics that are temperature regulating so you can sleep at the perfect temperature all night long no matter the weather, so you get better sleep every night. These sheets are infused with silver that Prevent up to 99.7% of bacterial growth, leaving them to stay cleaner and fresh three times longer than other sheets. No more gross odors. 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And so you got a number of problems with Trump's attack, but that's not going to stop him from authorizing his Department of Justice to go investigate and potentially prosecute Anthony Fauci about his COVID policies and implementation of COVID policy under Biden and under Trump. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Donald Trump has a personal vendetta against and wanted to see him hanged. Liz Cheney, who sacrificed her own career to try to stop the tyrant that is Donald Trump by being the co chair of the Jan6 committee. Benny Thompson, the same thing. Adam Kinzinger, who left his career as well, who had been one of the only other Republicans to serve on the bipartisan Jan6 select committee and their staff. I mean, it's not just five people. People were like, why could he just sign five pardons? Because it wasn't five, because there was like 40 or 50 around it. Now only 10 or 12 were publicized in the papers and in the press release. But that doesn't mean there weren't dozens and dozens of things sitting on Joe Biden's desk to try to take care of in the waning days. We know about it because we covered it right here on the Midas Dutch network every hour. Joe Biden, after he lost in November until January 20th at 11:59am he was busy. He was an amazing lame duck president in terms of things that he issued. And yes, he used the auto pen something to be embarrassed about it. In fact, there's a 1929 Department of Justice memo that says the use of a mechanical device to sign these things is totally legitimate going back to the 1920s and the bush administration. George W. Bush relied on that when people challenged his auto signed pardons. Again, we go back to the bedrock principles of the Constitution that don't require a writing at all, just a manifestation. It could just be Joe Biden getting up at a press conference or a press release. Each one, remember, each one of these things had a press release that's sufficient to know the intent of the president that it be manifested in an unambiguous way. Sure, writing's nice, but I assure you, if he had not used the auto pen we'd be having, I'd be doing a hot take on. They're challenging, you know, a number of them because the signatures, quote, unquote, don't match. And I defy you to sit and do 50 perfectly matching signatures one after another, you know, over an hour long period or two hour long period. Go ahead. I defy you. I've tried it. It's impossible. So this whole big auto pen BS is just for Donald Trump to authorize the weaponization of his Department of Justice and the FBI to go after the people who were pardoned, the Biden family included in that, a Hunter Biden apparently maybe included in that and the rest. But I'm here to have you feel assured that this is an unconstitutional attack on the pardon power. And even this Supreme Court is not going to abide by Donald Trump trying to rip away the pardon power of a predecessor because he doesn't like the way the signature looks. I'm going to continue to follow it all right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal af. We just hit our four year birthday officially for Legal AF the podcast. It's longer because Ben and I started the podcast about six months earlier, almost five years ago. We just called it Legal Roundup or a special edition of the Midas Touch Brothers Podcast. It was something like that. But then we launched Legal AF and now we're at our four year birthday. Just crossed 500,000 subscribers on our less than six month old YouTube channel, Legal AF. All because of you. Follow us on our podcast Wednesday, Saturday, 8pm Eastern time right here on this Midas Touch Network as well. So until my next reporting, I'm Michael Popak. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legalafe MTN. That's at Legal AFMTN.