0:00

This is Michael Popak, Legal

0:02

AF. Judge Aileen Cannon presiding

0:04

over Mar-a-Lago. Gotcha. NPR

0:07

has discovered that for two

0:09

years running, Judge Aileen

0:11

Cannon, without disclosing it appropriately

0:13

on the federal forms she's

0:15

required to disclose paid trips

0:17

on, went not once

0:19

but twice on all expense paid

0:22

trips. Sponsored by

0:24

George Mason University and

0:26

the Antonin Scalia School of

0:29

Law, which was funded and

0:31

founded officially by one Leonard

0:35

Leo, the founder of the Federalist

0:37

Society. They hold colloquiums

0:39

where they bring in lots

0:41

of judges, all right-wing

0:43

Republican judges to the Federalist Society,

0:46

to hear lectures on topics about

0:48

woke law and the problem with

0:50

that, and basically attacking the Democratic

0:53

or progressive agenda. Aileen Cannon went

0:55

on one of these all expense

0:57

paid trips, probably totaling about $10,000

1:00

in 2021 and 2022. And

1:06

certainly while she was presiding

1:08

over a case involving Donald

1:10

Trump. Now look, ProPublica just

1:13

won a Pulitzer for

1:16

exposing the all expense paid

1:18

trips and relationships between Clarence

1:20

Thomas and right-wing

1:22

MAGA donors that he's

1:24

been taking for years without disclosing it.

1:27

And tens of thousands of dollars a

1:29

year on yachts

1:31

on private jets to hunting lodges,

1:34

$1,000, $2,000 a day. But

1:38

he's not presiding at present over

1:41

the Mar-a-Lago case Aileen Cannon is,

1:43

so we need to talk about her.

1:45

Now look, George Mason University

1:48

is the rightist of right-wing

1:50

universities. It's law school named

1:52

after Antonin Scalia, funded by

1:55

the Koch brothers, funded by

1:57

Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society.

2:00

you can sort of figure out what

2:02

is going on inside of that

2:04

incubator, right? And Federalists,

2:06

Federal Judges and Supreme Court

2:09

Judges, Judges regularly go to

2:11

George Mason University for colloquiums

2:14

and seminars and all expense

2:16

paid boondoggles that

2:18

are paid for by these right-wing MAGA people

2:20

to rub elbows with other right-wing MAGA people

2:23

before they return to the bench to make

2:25

decisions for you and me. Justice

2:27

is blind? I don't

2:29

think so, and certainly not on

2:32

these all expense paid trips and luxury

2:34

resorts. Now,

2:38

Alien Cannon is not the only person

2:40

that participates in these

2:42

kind of events sponsored by

2:44

George Mason University and the

2:46

Law School. There are 75

2:48

other judges, appellate and district

2:50

court judges, federal, that

2:53

have also participated. Some of the

2:55

Supreme Court justices that I've just

2:57

outlined, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh,

3:02

Amy Coney Barrett,

3:05

Thomas Alito, have all at one

3:08

time or another taken

3:10

an all expense paid trip paid for by the Federalist

3:12

Society. Let's just put it that way. Should

3:14

that come as any shock? Now,

3:16

look, the Democrats do it too. I mean, I don't want to, you

3:19

know, it's good for the goose and the gander. I

3:22

mean, there are plenty of trips

3:24

that are paid for

3:26

the progressive wing of the

3:28

Supreme Court where they go

3:30

away every summer to their, you

3:32

know, sabbaticals for the summer and go

3:35

teach in Italy or in Europe somewhere,

3:37

and somebody's foot in the bill, right?

3:39

It's just not so blatant.

3:42

They're not taking all expense paid trips paid

3:44

for by the ACLU, although they should. But

3:47

Aileen Cannon didn't disclose on

3:49

her federal form that

3:51

she took these trips. She

3:53

had 30 days within, people

3:56

are upset about it, she had 30 days

3:58

within which to discuss. disclose on

4:01

her federal form, her

4:04

privately funded seminar disclosure

4:06

forum, and until NPR,

4:08

National Public Radio, contacted

4:10

her about it, she hadn't posted it for

4:13

either 2021 or 2022. I mean, a judge

4:15

that constantly torments

4:19

the prosecutors about being more transparent,

4:21

you need to be more transparent.

4:24

We have to have more documents

4:26

and information that could put witnesses

4:28

at risk on the public docket.

4:30

This is about transparency and the

4:32

public's need to know she certainly

4:34

got pretty opaque when it came

4:37

to her own participation in Federalist

4:39

society, all expense paid trips and

4:41

vacations. Why? I've

4:44

had a long time digital subscriber of

4:46

our next sponsor, The Washington Post, going

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back to, well, all the president's men. And

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we had our coffee over Jamie Friedlander

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washingtonpost.com backslash legal af to subscribe

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for just 50 cents per

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week for the first year. It's something she's

6:57

embarrassed by. She doesn't want the public to

7:00

know. Apparently, she doesn't

7:02

want the public to know that she did these

7:04

things, because if she did, she

7:06

would say it out loud and proud. I

7:09

am a Federalist. I go on

7:12

$10,000 a trip at

7:14

all expenses paid by the

7:16

Federalist Society, by the Koch

7:18

brothers, by Leo

7:20

Frank and the rest, or sorry,

7:23

Leonard Leo, sorry. And

7:26

I like rubbing elbows with other Federalists,

7:28

and we make fun of progressives and

7:30

Democrats, and that's me. Just

7:33

say it. Just come out and say

7:35

it, and disclose it.

7:39

You know, if I were the prosecutors, I'd

7:41

be looking into, huh, is

7:44

this something that, you know, we needed to

7:46

have known about at the time, and decided

7:48

whether to move to disqualify. Now, I'll tell you,

7:51

it generally doesn't work that way. You got

7:53

75 other appellate and

7:55

trial court judges who are right

7:58

wing, who attend these same things. They

8:00

just disclosed them. Supreme court

8:02

has his own issues, right? That was

8:04

the pro publica report that won the

8:06

Pulitzer because Clarence Thomas

8:08

didn't disclose these things. And we

8:10

didn't know about his close relationship

8:13

with the, um, uh,

8:15

with the Crow family and, and

8:17

other right wing, MAGA, mega donors,

8:20

including, uh, Holocaust, I'm

8:22

sorry, Nazi memorabilia collecting Holocaust

8:25

denying donors and those relationships,

8:27

we didn't know that Clarence

8:30

Thomas sold property to people who

8:32

have business before the court. Right.

8:34

He borrowed money in order to buy

8:36

his, his, his, his homestead that he

8:38

borrowed money from right wing MAGA in

8:41

order to pay the tuition of his

8:43

nephew. We didn't know any about, about

8:45

that. Doesn't

8:47

stop Clarence Thomas from presiding over one

8:49

of the most corrupt Supreme courts in

8:52

a long time. He never recuses himself.

8:54

He never disqualifies himself. Yeah, sure. He

8:56

may not show up one day unannounced

8:58

for oral argument without explanation, but that's

9:00

not the same thing as officially recusing

9:02

himself from a case because I don't

9:05

know his wife was involved with trying

9:07

to overthrow democracy. Jenny Thomas or something

9:09

like that. Now I'm focused at

9:11

the molecular level at the Mar-a-Lago case. We

9:13

have reporting we did right here on the Midas

9:15

touch network, but just the other day, um, alien

9:20

cannon, the $10,000 a trip, Federalist

9:22

society loving

9:25

alien cannon just helped out

9:27

Donald Trump again and let him off

9:29

the hook about a deadline that she said

9:31

weeks or months ago for him to disclose

9:34

any confidential information under

9:36

the, uh, uh, any classified information

9:38

under the SIPA classified information and

9:41

procedures act that he has to

9:43

disclose to the prosecutor so they

9:45

can get this trial going in

9:47

Mar-a-Lago. And she knew that the trial

9:49

in New York had already started or was going to start

9:51

at the end of April. Um,

9:53

and yet she just without

9:56

any resetting of the date, she just said, yeah, you

9:58

don't have to make your deadline. Without

10:00

that deadline being met, Donald Trump's

10:03

trial will never happen before November.

10:06

Managing expectations here as we like to do

10:09

with the Midas Dutch and legal AF. So,

10:13

you know, am I a conspiracy theorist?

10:16

I mean, not usually, but do

10:18

I think it's an interesting data point that

10:21

we should have known before that Alien Cannon

10:23

regularly rubs elbows on an all-expense pay trips

10:25

paid for by the Federalist Society to the

10:27

Antonin Scalia colloquium in Montana on a regular

10:30

basis? Yeah, I would like to have known

10:32

that and I would have liked to

10:34

have reported on that and I would like the prosecutors have known

10:36

it so they could have worked it

10:38

into their analysis as to whether to

10:40

move to recuse or disqualify Alien Cannon.

10:43

And only because NPR shined a

10:45

light on the issue and

10:47

called up her chambers that she then

10:50

fill out the forms years late about

10:54

about it. Meaning she had no

10:56

intention of disclosing to the public

10:58

and being transparent about what she

11:00

had thought until she was caught

11:02

with her hand in the proverbial

11:04

cookie jar. We'll continue to follow

11:07

everything at Mar-a-Lago and keep you posted.

11:09

We're not completely distracted by the trial in

11:11

New York. We're fixated on it. We're focused

11:13

on it. We're covering it with lots of

11:15

other news involving the intersection of law and

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