Dear listeners,
Rudy Giuliani and Michael Avenatti both used to be good lawyers — or, they at least used to seem to be good lawyers — but those days are long past.
Giuliani isn’t in prison yet, but he has a potpourri of legal troubles — he’s been indicted and he’s an unindicted co-conspirator and he faces civil lawsuits including one in which he faces a default judgment because he spent so long screwing around and not complying with his discovery obligations. He also appears to be running out of money. But at least he has a podcast!
This week, Ken and I discuss Giuliani and Avenatti — a two-fer — and how Giuliani’s drinking actually poses multiple problems for Donald Trump’s likely legal defenses in Jack Smith’s January 6-related case. We also talk about the trial date that’s been set in that case — March 4 — and how Judge Tanya Chutkan seems intent on actually going to trial at or around that date.
And we talk about the expanding complications in the prosecution Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has brought against Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators, all of whom she hopes to try in one single trial. Some of the defendants want to delay the trial, while others want to go to trial quickly — and much to Willis’ irritation, Judge Scott McAfee has granted that request with regard to one defendant, Ken Chesebro. Sidney Powell is also asking for her own separate trial, and while she makes some dumb arguments for why she should get that, she also makes some very good arguments — arguments that Ken thinks are likely to carry the day and force this prosecution to be broken up into pieces.
Free subscribers get our conversations about Georgia and Giuliani. Paid subscribers also get the conversation about the DC case and the March 4 trial date — including a look at the mess that could ensue if Trump tries to skip his own trial, which could result in Chutkan deciding whether it’s worth the drama of having him arrested for violating his bail terms — and our talk about Avenatti’s failed attempt to convince some appellate judges that he didn’t really try to extort Nike when he demanded an eight-figure sum from them. Alas, it seems Avenatti won’t be getting out of prison to send Ken a box of donuts anytime soon.
We hope you enjoy the episode,
Josh
