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Ryan Reynolds
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Michael Popak
MLS 696891 Donald Trump avoided taking the stand in any of his criminal cases. And he avoided his criminal cases when the Supreme Court backed him in an immunity decision. But he just opened the door to have to get on the stand and testify in his new suit against the British Broadcasting Corporation, a national institution of one of our allies in the uk. Has he just opened that door the way he does when he sued the New York Times, when he sued the Wall Street Journal? Because if you're gonna go for a $10 billion claim against the BBC, you better be prepared to testify under oath about all of your statements, not just the 53 minute speech on the Ellipse on January 6th in which he whipped up the crowd, pointed him towards the Capitol and said, I'll join you there. Don't forget to fight. He doesn't like the way that the video was sliced in a documentary that frankly nobody saw called Panorama. I defy you if you think you saw this documentary a before the election on something called Brit Box through a VPN in Florida where this case has been filed. Let me know in comments. But now Donald Trump's gonna have to take the stand. That's why when he files these lawsuits like he just did in the federal court in Florida, he doesn't do it because he thinks he's actually going to continue this case all the way through trial and through discovery and give depositions and sworn statements under oath and have to Turn over his documents. He does it for the naming and shaming. He does it for the splash Trashy headline. It's not even being filed in the right court. It's convenient to him, but it's inconvenient to the BBC. I'm gonna break it all down for you. Did Donald Trump just step in a bear trap of his own making? I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network. Take a moment, help us roll the odometer to 1 million subscribers over on Legal AF YouTube. And the subscription link is below. All right, just a couple of days ago, case gets filed in Miami, my, my backyard. A southern district of Florida gets assigned to a judge, Judge Altman. And we're off and running. Now let's put this in context before we get the deposition aspect of this. Donald Trump having to take the stand, so to speak. He's got a case in the middle district of Florida in front of Judge Meredith against the New York Times. They just filed their motion to dismiss to get rid of that case. And I think they're gonna win. Cuz whenever you're a public figure like Donald Trump, you have to get over a major hurdle. It's called actual malice. It's a defined term, a term of art in defamation law defined by a case called New York Times versus Sullivan or Sullivan versus New York Times. It's right there in the title. It's a case from the 70s in which the Supreme Court said, now if you're at the top of the heap and you have some sort of public notoriety or publicity, you're gonna have to prove that what they wrote, especially in the media, they knew or should have known or had reckless disregard for. They knew they were lying about you. What's the lie they clipped together from a 53 minute speech where he said, I'm gonna go down there, I'm gonna go down to the Capitol with you. And then later said, and you better fight, fight like hell or we won't have a country left. That they put the two clips together that somehow defamed Donald Trump. First of all, I believe Donald Trump is incapable of being defamed. I believe Donald Trump is incapable of being defamed. You can't defame Hitler. You can't defame Charlie Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer, you know, because their reputation is incapable of being defamed. That's an argument that was actually raised by the Wall Street Journal in the case involving the birthday book and Donald Trump's contribution to Epstein's birthday book. And there's a motion to dismiss that was filed by the Wall Street Journal on those grounds, among others, in front of Judge Gayle in Miami of the Southern District of Florida. Same courthouse, different judges, about this current case, about the BBC. And that hearing already happened at the beginning of December, and we're wa. Waiting on a ruling. And that's effectively what they said. And you know the BBC is going to say the same thing. How do we know that? Because they wrote a letter by a First Amendment lawyer in America in the. In the middle of November back to Donald Trump and said, look, we did an apology because of the editing job, but it's not defamation. In fact, the letter reminded Donald Trump, and this was written by Charles Tobin for the BBC, that Donald Trump had already been indicted by a grand jury for exhorting and fomenting the crowd and getting them to attack the Capitol. And that many, not just one, many federal court judges and on the Supreme Court reference the fact that Donald Trump was the tip of the spear for the attack on the Capitol. So now let's assume that the BBC is gonna do what people close to the case say they're gonna do. And here's what some anonymous sources reported by the Daily Daily Mirror have said about what they're going to do. First off, BBC spokesperson has said that we have made, as we've made previously, very clear, we will be defending this case. Mr. Trump thinks this lawsuit puts the BBC on trial. In reality, it puts him on the stand. He has finally walked into a process he cannot control with a tweet or a rally, says the BBC. That is middle finger. Up to you, Mr. Trump. Um, the BBC will be preparing discovery demands. That's the process between complaint filing and lawsuit that the parties get to obtain and exchange facts and information. And in federal court, it's very vigorous. It's proctologist style, if you know what I mean. Both parties put on the glove and go after each other to find. And he's gonna have to respond to interrogatories, written questions under oath. He's gonna have to respond to discovery requests, document requests. He's gonna have to sit for a deposition. You can't be a plaintiff and hide behind the fact. But I'm the President of the United States. Don't my social media posts count for anything in all capital letters? No, they don't. Not in a federal case where you're a federal defendant looking for $10 billion. Putting aside the ridiculousness of the $10 billion number, as the BBC reminded him in the letter from Mr. Tobin, back in November, you won Florida, where you're suing us by 14 points over Joe Biden. You did better from one election cycle to the next. What is your damage? See, in the law, you either have what's called defamation per se or defamation per quad. And defamation per se, it's okay. You prove you got defamed. Even if you prove you got defamed, if you're only entitled to a dollar in damage, that's okay to maintain that case in a court of law. Defamation per quad, you have to prove damages. How is he going to prove $10 billion in damages in a state where he won by 14 points? He would have won by 18 points. And his other problem is how that Panorama documentary that nobody's ever heard of, including within the BBC, how it got distributed, it didn't go like if you clicked around BBC America, it wasn't there. If you went on prime video and BBC America, it wasn't there. It wasn't even on Britbox. It was on another outside of America channel that you could only get to by using a vpn, which is often used coincidentally by people who are trying to avoid federal regulators about pornography. So the porn loving Trump documentary loving people has gotta be a very, very small audience in Florida. And how would you ever get and calculate, how would they ever get an economic damage expert to say it was a $10 billion harm to Donald Trump and his reputation? Again, a reputation I suggest that the BBC, following in the steps of the Wall Street Journal will say is impenetrable, unable to be defamed. It's called the holiday credit dip and it hits millions of people every year and most don't see it coming. The holidays roll in, you swipe your credit card a few extra times, your balance goes up and your credit score drops. That's where smart credit comes in. Smart Credit helps you stop the dip before it happens. Their patented technology pinpoints exactly which bills to pay and when to maximize your credit score. In fact, the average Smart Credit user can see an increase of 34 points in just 30 days. Maximize your score now and you could save big in the new year. So while you're out spreading holiday cheer, set yourself up for your smartest financial year yet. With Smart Credit. Don't wait. Before you take that next Swipe, head to smartcredit.com legalif and start your seven day trial for just $1. That's smartcredit.com legalif smartcredit.com Individual results may vary and are not guaranteed. They go on though. Every answer, every document Every sworn statement would be legally binding on Trump. As the source close to the case said for the BBC, if Trump wants billions, he's going to have to pay for it in disclosure. He's never faced questioning like this. The evidence demands that he be put under oath and in the hot seat. So will finally Donald Trump to get his entitlement to his day in court, have to sit for deposition and be cross examined to within an inch of his life? About January 6, we saw what happened when he doesn't like a series of questions. When he sat for Attorney General Letitia James and her deposition about fraud in the Trump Organization. He took the Fifth Amendment the first time. He did his deposition like 100 times. Now later when that was a bad look and somebody told him, hey, in a civil case, when you take the Fifth Amendment, there's an adverse inference, you know, the jury knows about your or the judge knows about your 40 or 80 attempts at Fifth Amendment assertion and can draw an adverse inference against you. He said, all right, now ask me questions. And then he sat for another deposition. Not going to be able to do that here because he's the plaintiff in the case. You have obligations as a plaintiff in the case. So we're going to continue to follow all that happens here about this ridiculous suit. But I also wanted you to remember all the other suits and what I haven't even talked about yet. Lastly, you got the New York Times suit, Middle District of Florida Judge Mary Day, motion to dismiss filed by the New York Times, New York Times today. By the way, as long as we're on the note about the New York Times, they're not sitting idly by, letting grass grow under their feet either. Nor are they letting Donald Trump's suit chill their First Amendment expression. They just ran an expose on the front page of the New York Times about Donald Trump's close relationship and using girls as currency in the Epstein cover up scandal. Front page New York Times today, folks, just a couple of days after they were done, after they're done filing their motion to dismiss the lawsuit against them for defamation. There's a defamation case pending in front of Judge Gale in Southern District of Florida in Miami by the Wall Street Journal, who said that Donald Trump is incapable of being defamed. That case was heard, that motion to dismiss was heard on the 9th of December and in the same courthouse. Now we've got the new judge that's handling this case that was just brought against our ally and the British Broadcasting Corporation. So get ready if the BBC is going to fight back And I think they are strenuously going, you're gonna see a series of motions. Wrong court, wrong case, wrong country. That'll be the first round. Then it's gonna be motion to dismiss. Cuz they might as well take a shot at it, arguing that he's incapable of being defamed, his reputation is such in the trash, and that judges have already found along with grand jurors that he participated in the Gen 6 insurrection. And failing all that, great. We want his deposition or go for the deposition right away. When Donald Trump filed the case against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal, he went for an immediate deposition of Rupert Murdoch. And they decided, we'll do that after the motion to dismiss practice. If I'm the BBC, I go for an immediate deposition within the rules of Donald Trump. I think they can do that within the first 60 days. Let's go, giddy up. Right, let's have a February deposition of Donald Trump in the case under oath. Now, the last time depositions were at issue in a case, Donald Trump brought a, I think it was a $50 million versus $10 billion here, $50 million case or so against Michael Cohen, fellow podcaster on the Midas Touch Network, and a former attorney consulari for Donald Trump. And that case was in front of Judge Gales. Again, random selection, everybody, random voting. I mean, random judge selection. But it ended up with the same judge. And Donald Trump was on trial and he was being indicted. He had fraud cases and E. Jean Carroll cases against him for sexual abuse. And so Donald Trump, when he push came to shove and the judge says, all right, time for depositions. Donald Trump dismissed the case. Ta da. You see where this is going? Here's the playbook so that there's no misunderstanding. Donald Trump has a lawyer in Coral Gables, Florida. His name is Alejandro Brito. Alejandro Brito reaches out for another right wing MAGA lawyer who doesn't seem to have an office, but operates out of a Mailbox USA in Boca Raton to join him along with another lawyer in D.C. they draft up the complaint, they file it. They filed the one against abc, they filed the one against CBS or the threatened one and George Stephanopoulos, they filed the one against the New York Times. They've been doing all the filing. They file generally in Miami or they try to shoot for Judge Cannon in the top of the Southern District of Florida in Fort Pierce. And then after that they really don't care what happens to the case. They put a big splashy number in that they're not required to do for damages 5 billion, 10 billion. It's all ink on a piece of paper. It's all made up numbers. And then they sit back and they let the case linger and they let the bad press hit the BBC and they let them throw, they throw all the monkeys in the barrel and see what happens because they just want a name and shame. They don't want to actually go through. That's why the BBC and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times should make them actually go through the court process and the discovery process and the deposition process and maybe he'll stop doing this because they're getting a lot of success out of just filing the complaint. $15 million settlement with CBS. $15 million or $30 million with CBS. $15 million settlement with ABC, you know, but now the rest are fighting back because if they don't, they don't draw the line in the sand. You see what's going to happen to freedom of expression and freedom of the press. I'm glad you're here on the Midas Touch Network. Help us, speaking of freedom of the press, get to 1 million. We need to be robust and muscular and built up, ready to go for 2026, the most pivotal year in my lifetime and yours too. Help us become the 1,000,000th subscriber on Legal AF over this weekend. Till my next report, I'm Michael Popach.
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Legal AF Host
Can't get your fill of Legal af.
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Michael Popak
Me neither.
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Legal AF Host
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 subst back. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called Wait for it Morning af.
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Michael Popak
What else?
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Legal AF Host
All the other contributors from Legal AO are there as well. We got some new reporting, we got interviews, we got ad free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.