Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Battle for the Soul of Democracy & the Republican Fraud Machinery

Episode Date: March 13, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look in “real time” at this week’s most important developments.  On this “one year anniversary” episode, Ben and Popok discuss and analyze: 1. A D.C. federal jury returning a guilty verdict against Jan6 insurrectionist Guy Reffitt. 2. The Texas Supreme Court dismissing abortion providers’ challenge to SB8 abortion bounty law. 3. A Texas state judge’s decision to issue a temporary injunction to stop Governor-ordered state investigations of parents who are raising transgender children. 4. Stephen Miller’s efforts to avoid producing his cell phone records to the Jan6 committee because, among other things, he’s on his mom and dad’s family plan. 5. Mark Meadows lying about his residency in order to absentee vote in North Carolina during the last election. 6. A California federal judge’s decision to review the last batch of John Eastman’s emails to see if any are properly protected by attorney client privilege before turning them over to the Jan6 Committee, and possible criminal referrals to the DOJ for trump’s role in a criminal conspiracy. 7. The Texas Bar’s filing to begin proceedings to sanction and possibly disbar Sydney Powell. 8. A New York state judge’s decision to deny Fox News’ and their high profile commentors’ motion to dismiss the Smartmatic libel case. 9. A New York federal judge’s decision to dismiss Trump’s counterclaim against E. Jean Carroll and scathing critique of Trump for good measure. 10. A Russian-US dual citizen who has fled the country, being prosecuted by the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office for being a Russian propagandist and failing to register as a foreign agent, committing conspiracy to commit visa fraud, and lying to the FBI. Support the Show! AG1 by Athletic Greens -- Athletic Greens is going to give you an immune supporting FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit https://athleticgreens.com/legalaf today. Masterworks -- Join an exclusive community investing in blue-chip art at https://www.masterworks.art/legalaf today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to MidasTouch Podcast Legal. AF, if it's the weekend, it's Legal AF, Ben, Myceles and Michael Popak breaking down the key, Legal Issues, the key, Legal Decisions, the key, Legal Concepts for you in easy ways to understand, Because Popak, the law should be easy, the law should be practical, the law should be just. It doesn't always the case.

There's sometimes people want to try to over complicate this, try to use some big words to confuse, to juke, but at the end of the day, we will hold people accountable for insurrection, for violations of the day, we will hold people accountable for insurrection, for violations of the law, and we will stand strongly on the side of democracy. Michael Popok, the Popokian, rage tweeting at Starbucks and other locations on his Twitter

account. Popok is using the platform like you are basically, and I love Starbucks. I love it. They're not a sponsor, but you see me drinking it all the time. I like them too without the rats, but okay. So Popock, for everybody who knows, his Twitter handle, Popock is like the Batman. No matter who you are, if you're a retail store, if you're a mom and pop shop, if you're a big corporation, it doesn't matter with Popeye. If the service isn't pristine, you may get a negative tweet from Popeye exposing you.

More of my relationship got insulted by the barista. I may tweet out on that. Anyway, listen, I liked your intro today. We're going to have to recycle that. Although if it were as easy, efficient and not complicated as you described, you and me would not have a podcast. So fortunately, there are complexities and there are things that are head scratchers that you and I are going to try to untangle during the next 90 minutes tonight. Well, I always found, you know, one of the biggest revelations in my development as a lawyer is when I realized that, yes, there is all of these layers of,

about one there's the law, there's precedent, there's decisions, there's this kind of new language that lawyers use, there's pleading paper, there's the courtroom, there's the great seal, there's people in robes and people wearing suits. But at the end of the day, we're talking about making arguments and using logic and trying to find justice and that it's a human system.

So people trying to find scientific perfection within the system may be sorely disappointed when they find out that, wait a minute, the decision was reached because that's a Trump judge. And at the end of the day, you can over intellectualize it, but that judge was appointed by Donald frickin Trump. And that's why they ruled that way, despite where the logic goes, but we try to break down those nuances for you. And let's get started. Michael Popak, the Papokian. Let's talk about Elina or Elena Branson, 61 years old. She's fled the United States in 2020 when she was being interviewed by the FBI. She started a group in the United States. It was called like New Yorkers for Russia, you know, which is the center of New York.

They rush to center New York, which may have been the tip off there, but she was recently indicted for violating a law known as Farrah, the foreign agent, registration act and additional crimes of encouraging others, which we've talked about you and me about Rudy Giuliani and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and me about Rudy Giuliani and you and you crane. Well, it's interesting. So let's go into this one, Popeyes, break down what happened with Elena. And then maybe we should talk about, you know, very briefly this phara, which was passed in the late 1930s. It was very rarely used, but with Trump, everybody seemed to be in Trump's orbit, trying to represent foreign powers to kind of bribe Donald Trump and to bribe the government.

That's the way things took place under Trump. So all of a sudden you had this enforcement of Farah, the foreign agency registration act and say, wait a minute, if you're representing foreign governments, doesn't have to just be governments, foreign interests, you got to register. Yeah, with the attorney general of the United States. So look, we've talked a lot on this show and on the Wednesday midweek edition about one prosecutor in Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, who's the state prosecutor,

but the Southern District of New York has a new US attorney as of the same time period, January of 2022, and that is Damien Williams. And his office is very aggressive as it should be about federal crime and prosecution of federal crime. And they have brought, I'm sure the timing was linked to Ukraine's invasion by Putin. They finally got around to inditing Elena Branson, Elena held dual citizenship. US and Russia, Russia allows

that. You can see why. It's the unit within the US Attorney's Office, very interesting unit. It's the national security and international narcotics unit. Their chief assistant US attorney led the charge along with the head of the FBI in conjunction with main justice, which you and you and you and I have talked about in the past. The head of the main justice unit on national security was also involved. And so she is charged with obtaining about $200,000 worth of fees almost directly from Putin. I mean, she had a direct conduit to Putin to run what she said was like, there used to be a famous campaign in New York. I love New York.

Everybody has t-shirts with the hard side. She had a I love Russia campaign that she ran to Curry favor with Putin. It was really Putin's money being used, at least the indictment says that. And she did all this under the guise of just being one of those, you know, commerce, chambers of commerce related to Russia. She tried to whip up Russian nationalists here in the United States to get them to do her bidding on behalf of Putin. She helped perpetrate a conspiracy on visa fraud, bringing in people in Russia here on improper visa status. And she was interviewed

and apparently the indictment says she lied to the FBI during the interview in September of 2020. Well, October of 2020, she fled the country and went back to Russia, but they have now gotten around to adiding her. The six charges against her been, which include the charges under Farah that you described and the visa conspiracy range in penalty from five to 10 years, up to 10 years. Now, they may have to try her in abstentia because she's not coming back from Russia, I am sure for this trial or for appearances, or maybe she sends counsel, I'm not sure,

but we'll have to follow this one closely. But what was it about the fair that you want to dive into? Well, first off, Popoca, I want to say, great outfit that you're wearing. I rarely reflect on what you're wearing. were like, literally wearing the exact same. We rarely reflect each other in dress. And the fact you were both wearing a V-neck for those that are listening, though, watching, we're both wearing very attractive.

Probably cashmere like V-neck sweaters, which we did not coordinate prior to when I turned on the Zoom this evening. I was as surprised as anybody that Ben was wearing a very similar. I'm wearing a little slightly darker color, but it's all in the vein of blue because the democracy party that we represent and that we are a part of every shade of blue is welcome. Legal AF uniform.

So Popeyes, the Foreign Agent Registration Act, Farrah for sure, F-A-R-A, was enacted in 1938 and it required certain agents of foreign principles who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute to make periodic public disclosures of their relationship with the foreign principle. The foreign principle doesn't always have to be a government. It could be a foreign interest.

And the type of triggering events for FARA include engaging in political activities. And that term encompasses any activity intended or even believed to influence the US government or any section of US public policy or anything like that. It also includes acting as a public relations council, publicity agent, information service employee, political consultant, collecting or dispensing money, and or representing the interest of foreign principle before any agency or official of the United States government, generally

by making direct contact with the government officials. So it's any of that type of conduct that's at play. And as I mentioned earlier, the Farest Attitude really hadn't been used that frequently, but there was like 100 X Farer prosecutions in like the past five years compared to any time before when the phara statute was actually utilized. And you go back and you look at it when Trump was elected, you would see actually foreign governments going into Trump tower with their, you know, the different groups and constituencies and then other people who were connected to within the United States and run these influence operations. They were like,

literally right before your eyes, you could watch it on the C-SPAN camera that they had at the Trump Tower. So we'll be following more about that and we'll be giving you more updates if indeed there are other fairer violations taking place and other fairer prosecutions. Let's release the Kraken, Popeyes the Kraken. Pope, it was a Kraken or Kraken. Let's release the Kraken. It's from the movie, so it's the Kraken. Release the Kraken, Popeyes.

So what is going on with our friend, I'm just joking, she's proud to be. She's proud to be. She's proud to be. Brand different. Sydney Powell. Well, the Texas Commission for Law Discipline, Popeye, that's like their bar association. Yes. So they just sued Sydney Powell in the district court of Dallas County, Texas, seeking discovery, pursuant to complaints that have been filed by pretty much everyone from the Michigan governor's office, the attorney general, the secretary of state, and all

of these lawyers. And the Texas commission for law discipline could also, if they wanted to do it, sue a sponte because this was all right in front of their eyes. But this relates to all of the frivolous lawsuits, election lawsuits and actions that she brought her failure to even when the law mooted, made her cases irrelevant. She kept the cases on the docket. She would even do just some of the sleasiest things in the world. One of the things she would claim was that there wasn't an appropriate certification from, I forget whether it was, you know, smartmatic or whether it was demeat, whatever her claims

or smartmatic was just based in LA. Like, the whole smartmatic thing was, they were both completely made up with the smart matic claim, though. It's like, smartmatic only provided machines in Los Angeles County, but they tried to claim that smartmatic claim though, it's like smartmatic only provided machines in Los Angeles County, but they tried to claim that smartmatic. We'll talk more about that, but that smartmatic was somehow the parent company of Dominion, just completing other lines owned by the Venezuelan government and you go chavez. But she, but she would do things in her court filings like she would crop out the certification

dates. And then you would say, see, aha, these voting machines don't have certifications on them by dominion or, you know, or another election service. So therefore, they were subject to fraud. And then it was like, no, you literally just cut it out of the filing, just entirely horribly unethical things, the Texas commission here that does their ethical supervisory role. They're doing the right thing here, Popeye.

Anything else going on here that people should know about with that? It just shows you that suddenly Powell and the rest of them, Giuliani and the rest, they're their lack of ethics, new no boundaries. And one of the things that's the basis for the Texas Commission for law Discipline is that what you mentioned that in and filing these cases in the big battleground states including in Michigan She never let the facts Procedure or develop development of the law getting her way she just continued to maintain these cases first She didn't do what you're supposed to do as a lawyer, which is used due diligence and good faith in developing the facts, make sure you have facts to support your case. And then all of her facts, of course, a lot of them were fraudulent or defamatory, which we'll talk about the next

part of the segment here on this evening. And she but perpetrated the big lie through these filings and then thought there would be no repercussions. Well, as long as she doesn't want to hold a bar license ever again, I guess she's right. There are no repercussions. So you already got Giuliani who lost his bar license in New York and has not been reinstated. I assume this is the beginning of the end of her bar license in Texas. I don't know where else she holds her bar license. But yes, I think that's it was a bad day for her.

She had a procedurally okay day and a New York case that we're going to talk about involving Spartan addict. You want to talk about that next? Yeah. And so there's a headline that if you're not immersed in the law, you may think was a win for Sydney Pallow. And Popak and I will explain to you why it was really just a procedural delay. That's kind of the mo for these kind of trumpers and the people in the trumper

orbit. So smartmatic, which again was only based in Los Angeles, they filed defamation cases. The defamation case we're now talking about is one before the New York Supreme Court. That's their lower court. Again, that's going back to the beginning of the trial court is called the Supreme Court where normally you go, isn't the Supreme Court the highest court? Well, in New York, that's the Court of Appeal, which is strange, but you just have to know the language. But in front of the trial court, this was the case Mark Maddox brought against Fox News, Lou Dobbs, Bartoloma, Sidney Powell, Giuliani, Gene Piro. Yeah, all of those people, they moved to dismiss. And they move to dismiss, citing a number of things.

One of the things they cited was New York's anti-slap statute. Popoac, you want to speak briefly. There's a little bit of nuances in that New York's anti-slap statute. But it basically creates, statutorily, this higher bar, this reckless or intentional conduct as amended that you have to prove in the upfront. Tell us a little bit about that and how that was in play here. The short of it is, though, for everybody listening and watching, the court denied the

motions to dismiss by Fox and all of those other people, other than Sydney Powell. The court dismissed Sydney Powell purely on jurisdictional grounds saying that the New York court based on the location where Sydney Powell said it from, where she engaged in the defamatory conduct, like whereas Fox and all of these broadcasters are based in New York, the communications arose out of New York. So a New York court has jurisdiction over it. Like we can hear the case here. She's saying, I said these things in another state, in another area, another location. And the New York state court said, you know what?

We're not commenting on the conduct. If the court was going to conduct, commenting on the conduct. If the court was going to conduct comment on the conduct, it would have had the same results as everybody else likely, right? I mean, who the court denied the motion to dismiss. But the lawyers for smartmatic who filed this lawsuit, this is buried in a footnote in the order, though, they already filed against her in the federal court in Washington, D.C. anticipating that this may have happened. So Sidney Powell is not off the, but briefly, Popeyes, this anti-slap and if you want to put any additional flair to my analysis.

No, no, no, we've talked about anti-slap before. Cuomo signed an, while he was still governor that expanded New York at a very, very narrow strategic lawsuits against public participation, slap anti-slap provision. It was only related to things like zoning law and that kind of thing. I finally got expanded to kind of match what most states have on their books. And, you know, it's basically targeting, we used to call it a version of malicious prosecution, which is how do you bring your lawsuit? Why do you bring your lawsuit? And are you doing it for the chilling effect of impacting somebody's first amendment rights? Clearly not in play here when you've got a major news, alleged news gathering organization, which

the judge took to task in the motion to dismiss and said, you, including in comments made by Tucker Carlson, you Fox News, have not only defamed, spartmatic, likely on the pleading, at least as pled, because on the motion to dismiss, they're just looking at the pleading allegations not to evidence. That's later in a case. As pled, there's a good defamation case against you, against Ludobs, against Bartolomo. I think Piro is gonna make it out because she had a one liner that may give her a little cover

where it's really didn't sound like it was her opinion. That smartmatic was owned by the Venezuelan government or had fraudulent software that would flip elections for, you know, the candidate of choice based on some software code, which is all lies and wrong perpetrated by Powell and Giuliani primarily on Fox News shows. But as you said, when you say it's a technicality, I just want to be clear, because one thing I've said, and you've said consistently in every past 52 episodes, and now with Karen on Wednesdays, we are practitioners. I practice law for a living. That distinguishes you and me and Karen from the bulk of the other talking head podcasts out there in the legal world,

is that I, I try cases and you try cases. I was just in the second circuit arguing my live and in person for the first time in two years an oral argument on an appeal. I also filed two briefs in the in Nevada district court, one of them on personal jurisdiction ground. So if a party doesn't have the appropriate contacts with the state. It's not inappropriate to move for a lack of personal jurisdiction. We're not here to say, oh, is it, I mean, we've called it a technicality, but people should be sued where they're appropriately sued, where they have a connection, minimum contacts, constitutional, minimum contacts, and due process require that you be sued in a place where,

you know, the, the, the constitution believes is appropriate under the analysis. I give you an example. That's, I mean, this is not fair. Like, it was a trick play. It was just the wrong place to sewer. She'll get sued in the right place for the right thing and she'll lose. The, and the law here, you know, really wasn't meant to protect a Sydney Powell in this situation, but really play it through your mind here, though.

What if you're out living in makeup estate? You're out in North Carolina. And all of a sudden, you get this lawsuit. Someone's suing you in California. You have to appear in front of a California court. You've never been to California in your life before. You never even had any communications with California. But now you're in this California judicial system and you go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

why are you bringing me out there? I'm a North Carolina citizen. It's supposed to give you a level of fairness of you going in courts where you have citizenship, where you have jurisdiction, where you did it, were at the very least, you did the act. So if you went to California and you injured someone in California, it would make sense that you could be charged with California. With defamation, it gets a little more nuanced. And I've had cases that get a little tricky.

Well, when you say it, if she said it from Washington, D.C., in a press conference, but those words have a transient nature, obviously, and they were received in a place like New York and Fox News is based in New York, would that give you jurisdiction? One of the things here that Smartmatic asked for was jurisdictional discovery to try to uncover just those things. I think the court really recognized, though, that that process could have been dilatory anyway. I think the court focused on the fact that these lawyers for smartmatic filed in DC anyway.

Right. And so it was like, just get your case going in DC where it's where probably belongs anyway. And you can sue her there. But the headline, back to the headline is Fox News and all of its minions except for Jeanine Piero are staying in a case seeking hundreds of millions of dollars for defamation brought by Smartmatic

because of the lies that they perpetrated against Smartmatic on their network. And by the way, Sydney Powell's comments were big evidence to keep Fox in it. So I'm giving her the platform was one of the reasons they're in it. So she's not getting off the hook. I want you to know that. But Pope, it's actually a good way. Not necessarily the order we were going to take these, but because we're talking about anti-slap. One of the things that Trump wanted to do recently in the federal case filed by E. Jean Carroll

before Judge Kaplan is he asked the judge there, now that he's hired another group of attorneys. I want to amend the complaint that I, I want to amend the answer that I have. An answer is the response to E. Jean Carroll's complaint. And I, Donald Trump, oh, that's disgusting to say that, but I, but Donald Trump said, yeah, grossed for a second, Donald Trump said,

that he wants to add a counter claim to sue E. Jean Carroll under the anti-slap statute in New York, which actually allows for an affirmative cause of action, a claim where you can counter Sue if the claim being brought against you is frivolous, reckless, you know, and all of those things and shouldn't be brought and in further and so public speech. And Judge Kaplan, same federal judge who heard the Prince Andrew case and denied those emotions as a federal judge, not only did he reject Trump, it was a scathing opinion saying that Trump is delitory, you know, basically saying calling Trump out

as a pathetic litigant. He needs the words pathetic litigant. But like these tactics were harassing, harmful. Kaplan said, basically, we know what you're doing with all of these amendments. You've just tried to delay and delay and delay and judge Kaplan said, I'm not going to allow you to delay it. So no, I don't think you have any chance of prevailing by a certain account or claim, I won't let you do it. And even if I considered you now requesting this, like a year plus after the anti-slap statute was amended and updated by Cuomo and the New York legislature. So if you really wanted to do this and add this, you should have done this a long time ago. Oh, sir, you have the case, you have the suit there? Did he use that firm from

Bedminster New Jersey again, or did he pick up another firm? The firm that he had in that one. I believe is that one. What was the lady's name who's been representing? Yeah, I'm going to pull it while we're talking, but I, you know, if let's just before I make a comment, let me make sure that's true. So look, I know, and I know you've had E. Jean Carol. Alina. It's Alina Haba. Yeah. So, all right. So we're back to it. This is the firm that's in the, I don't know if it's on the 18th hole of the Trump golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey or the 19th hole, but they have a little office somewhere near the Trump course. He met her at the golf course.

And now she does this little law firm does all of his bidding and files. Everything that you and I have talked about in the last six months about Donald Trump trying to stop the attorney general prosecution trying to stop his being to pose, trying to this case against E. Jane Carroll. It's all been brought by this little law firm. It's like a captive law firm that he controls and they'll write anything and file anything. Having seen what happened to Sydney Powell

and Rudy Giuliani as we discussed on this show today, I don't know why anybody would abdicate their personal responsibility professional judgment to just file anything on behalf of a client. It's not right. I mean, you and I are aggressive litigants on behalf of our clients. It's not right. I mean, you and I are aggressive litigants on behalf of our clients. And when I take a case and I believe in a case, and I've done the research to understand the case has merit and is in good faith, then

there's no stopping me. But how do you get to that point when you're when your client is Donald Trump? Well, I think one of Trump's strategies and we see it more and more even with Eastman's arguments regarding attorney, client privilege, is that Trump was getting the defense essentially is that Trump surrounds himself with the worst people. And you can't blame him. This is advice that he's getting, even if it's the worst advice. So one of Trump's mob boss strategies is surround himself not with the smartest in the room, but with the idiots in the room. And so when

shit goes bad, he just blames it on all of the idiots and puts all the idiots in front of them. Well, there, there is a doctrine that we haven't really talked about on any other episode called the advice of council as a defense doesn't usually work in the criminal context. But you can say, well, listen, this is a very complicated area. That's why I hire professionals. And I was given a memo or an analysis or this and that.

And I relied on it. And look, in some circumstances, I guess the argument would be that that destroys mens rea, the criminal intent. I think that's going to be his argument, although we'll talk about the Eastman case where I think this recent disclosure of the email exchange between John Eastman, the Chapman law professor, uh, console yeri for Trump about overthrowing the, uh, the election and the lawyer for Pence, the chief general counsel for Pence demonstrates that even they didn't believe their own horseshit. So where are we at now with the E gene carol case? Let me tell you so. The second circuit is now

before it is whether or not the Department of Justice can substitute in as a defendant if the second circuit allows that to take place. This was the highly controversial decision by Merrick Garland to continue the policy by the DOJ of his predecessors in the Trump DOJ. And if the DOJ's permitatory main for all intensive purposes, that would dismiss this case because of a doctrine called sovereign immunity. If the United States government is allowed to substitute and judge Kaplan, who we just talk about, denied it.

Not into Judge Kaplan, deny it. Judge Kaplan said, I'm not even going to hold back discovery. Discovery can proceed. Interestingly, the tactics by E. Jean Carroll's counsel who are top rate, top in the nation, they've said recently as February 2022 in a joint conference before the judge on or around that time that they don't want to take such a smart move. They don't want to take Donald Trump's deposition because that's going to cause more delay. Right.

Now, looking for that. They said, Oh, I's, she's really good. I'm just reading the quote from Alina Habba after she lost with judge Kaplan while we are disappointed with the court's decision today, pardon me, we eagerly look forward to litigating this action, improving at trial, but the plaintiffs claims that no basis in law or fact, Godlover, the, the, I, I'm literally going to go watch Robbie Kaplan versus Alina Habba, whatever her name is, with E. Jean Carroll in the case.

And what Kaplan said, E. Jean Carroll's lawyer to the judges, we just want his DNA for now. We'll deal with the definitions later, just order that he produces DNA so we can show a match on the dress. So now basically what we have is really kind of a race for time. Like the second circuit, I don't know what they're going to do. I think the second circuit, it's a coin toss in my view, whether they side with Kaplan, or whether they allow the DOJ. Unfortunately, I think at some point, the Supreme Court is going to probably side with the Department of Justice

and Trump's position because we have a radical right extremist Supreme Court, just to me, even the fact that you have the current DOJ supporting the Trump DOJ kind of gives that cover. It really is an unfortunate thing. Unfortunately, it doesn't give it justice. What Mayor The current DOJ supporting the Trump DOJ kind of gives that cover. It really is an unfortunate thing. Unfortunately, it doesn't give it justice what Merrick Garland did there by having his DOJ consider that. It's kind of being too cute by half for trying to be, you know, oh, look, look how fair we're being, we're following the previous policy here.

But in a case where E. Jean Carroll is asserting defamation because Donald Trump is lying about raping her, our government in my view should have no place whatsoever in substituting as a defendant for Donald Trump. It wasn't right. He wasn't Donald Trump. Potus, when he made those comments about her, He was Donald citizen, Donald Trump talking about his sexual assault and abuse of a woman, you know, 20 years or earlier when he wasn't president. I just don't see why they try to do that.

You know, you know, I agree with you on your position about Jean's case. Absolutely. Steven Miller on his family plan, debiling lawsuits against the Jan 6th committee and Mark Meadows registering to vote in random dudes trailers, more to come on legal AF. But first I want to talk about our partner, athletic greens. Oh, you know, I love athletic greens. They say the proof is in the pudding. Uh, uh, uh, the proof is in the green right here.

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latest offerings. Just go to masterworks.art slash legal AF again masterworks.art slash legal AF. Tell them we sent you go to masterworks.art slash legal AF and see some important disclosures at masterworks.io slash CD. Poe Pock. Let's talk about Steven Miller. You the Steven Miller lawsuit against the January 6th committee, when I read this first paragraph, I kid you not, Popuck, I was cracking up. I'm just going to read the first few paragraphs.

This is the lawsuit. Ladies and gentlemen, brought by Steven Miller, senior advisor of the president of the United States, president Donald Trump against the United House representative select committee and Benny Thompson. I just want to imagine Benny Thompson getting this document his associate or a dad, whatever, you know, gives him this document his associate or offer. A to have, you know, gives him this document and he starts reading complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief. Remember the January 6th committee just subpoenaed the phone records of Stephen Miller regarding his involvement in January 6th. And it starts off. Plaintiff Karen Drive Apartments LP is a California limited partnership formed in August 1997.

Karen Drive is the subscriber for a T-Mobile Family Plan phone account that is used by Michael D. Miller, Miriam J. Miller, and their children, including plaintiff Stephen Miller, quote, family plan account. Several of the family account plan members are practicing attorneys who use their phones for privileged calls and text message communications with their clients. plaintiff Stephen Miller is a United States citizen and a former senior advisor to president Donald Trump. And Mr. Miller has been the user of the cell phone number assigned to the family to the family plan. Steven Miller is on his mom and dad's cell phone T-Mobile family plan. Popo. We can talk about him. The implication of what is following,

but I think we just stop there. I think we're done with the segment. 36 year old senior advisor of the president when he wasn't busy creating policy to put immigrant children in cages and separating them from their families because that's that was his big contribution to American history coming up with a separation of family plan at the border. Forget about that family plan has also saved 19 cents a month by being on his parents family plan. Parents who actually 20 years ago decided to create an LLC on their, let's I guess they live on, let me guess guess Karen drive in some town. So they created an LLC. So in case somebody slips and falls or their dog bites the postal worker, they don't have

liability. And they also went out and got a team opal plan. And all the kids who are now aging out, you know, four, pushing 40 are running around sharing overflow minutes on a family plan. pushing 40 are running around sharing overflow minutes on a family plan. I would not even have the balls to write that in a lawsuit, but they know no boundaries. They know no boundaries. But look, this is interesting. If you go into a little bit deeper in that laugh inducing first paragraph, his lawyers who wrote this say, the Mr. Miller does not take issue with the committee's investigation of the attack, they called it an attack on the Capitol or any of the things that happened during those tragic events. He just says, I wasn't involved at all

with the attack on the Capitol and that's the penis should be quashed as against me and it's also a family plan and I got a lot of personal pictures because I just had a newborn baby and there's a lot of cell phone traffic about the baby. So, but I thought it was interesting. Is it, isn't this like the, I mean, you probably are steeped in a deeper than me with the brother's podcast, but can you recall another senior official of maybe Mike Pence who was set out loud

that the Gen 6 insurrection wasn't a, was an attack on the Capitol and that the committee's investigation was valid and not invalid. Who else? I thought you were going to say for a second that Mike Pence is on his family plan. No, no, I was going to say I think Pence has come out. I think Pence has come out and called it. I know like, for instance, this is crazy. I don't know if you caught it on Wednesday's legal AF with Karen with KFA, when Guy refit, and we'll talk about him later, when Guy ref it got convicted after four hours of deliberation of all counts against him by the jury, his wife held a press conference on the steps of the courthouse continuing to show no remorse by the family. This is, we'll talk about it later. And she said, she, she, she called this group of insurrection as something off the pages of American revolutionary history that I'd never heard before. Have you heard

them call themselves the one sixers, like the 76ers? Have you heard them call themselves that? With pride. So, so ref it and the group all consider themselves the one-sixers that were, you know, doing what the, what that what we did during the American Revolution. So, but here, you know, at least I don't like that he's on the family plan. I do like that he's acknowledging that the Jansix Committee has a legitimate interest to investigate the attack on the Capitol. Why is Steven Miller involved in this? Because he's one of the architects of the Big Lie in all the battleground states. And they want to find out what, since Trump is starting to take a position, as you mentioned earlier

in tonight's podcast, that he was relying on information and advice from other people that, you know, the election had been stolen. They want to then see what was he told in real time by his advisors? What did the advisors know about the big lie? Because the big lie is linked to the fomenting of the mob that attacked the Capitol. You can't uncouple them, which Miller wants to do. They're linked together. So he may not have been on the ellipse, you know, exorning people to go attack the Capitol, like some of the others, like Mo Brooks and Madison, Cawthorne and the rest. But he was an architect of the big lie. And that's why his records will ultimately, I am sure,

just as every other subpoena has been enforced against every former member of the Trump administration or committee. Not one has been successful so far at the trial level or even the appeal level to get their records not turned over. These records are going over. It's just going to take another round of court procedure before that happens. And the information that has now come out as a result of these records and the fight for these records has added additional color, additional detail, additional facts that show just how complicit Donald Trump was. And now as we focus on the links, formal, direct, indirect relating to Trump, his advisors, and these terrorist groups, like the 176ers or whatever you just mentioned, and the oath keepers and the individuals who

were going to be directed and were directed to invade the capital, to terrorize the capital, to kill politicians, to try to create a delay, to implement John Eastman's overall plan of throwing the election back to the legislatures, trying to convince Pence not to certify, not to engage in the ministerial task of certifying the election and literally trying to inspire a coup engaging in coup behavior on January 6th. Unfortunately, it failed. Unfortunately, we have treasonous disgusting GQP Republicans, radical right extremists who pretty much make up 99.9% of the party right now. It's sad.

Who support and countenance this behavior? But speaking about disgusting and weird, let's go from Stephen Miller who fits both to Mark Meadows who fits both. And a great reporting by the New Yorker talks about how Mark Meadows registered to vote at a property in North Carolina, to which it almost appears with a certainty that he had never lived. And so the background is when he resigned as a member of Congress to become Trump's fourth and last chief of staff in around 2020 in March, he registered to vote in September according to the New Yorker asked for the address where you physically live, according to New Yorker, the magazine says Meadows quote wrote down the address of a 14 feet by 62 feet

mobile home in Scally, Montana, North Carolina. And quote listed his move and date for this address as the following day, September 20. Quote, Meadows does not own this property and never has the New Yorker said, quote, it is not clear that he has ever even spent a single night there. The New Yorker then goes to speak to the coroner of this mobile home who says, quote, I've made a lot of improvements, but when I got it, it was not the kind of place you think a chief of staff of a president would be staying and told of me, oh, using this as the address. The individual says that's weird that he would do that.

And we move on. I do love the fact that just in human nature, the guy's first lead was, I've made a lot of improvements to my double wide, but not enough to house a senior member of the Trump administration. I just love the human quality of that. It's really great reporting, but it's also a crime. Michael, right? I mean, you can't just make up fake residences. Like, what in the world is this? What is he doing? And it just goes to show you fucking pathetic these people are. And there's no other way to say it.

Like these are weird loser rejects. And these are people who are running their evil. I mean, the most paramount they're evil. But there's like no redeeming quality in these people. And they break the law, they break the law and the dumbest shit too. And these are people who are supposed to have been senior the top positions of our government. One's on a family plan and one's making up that he's living in a in a mobile home where

he never lived. Is this a scary shit? Let's tie it together. We talked about Pam Moses who was who was sitting in prison until she's been granted a in a mobile home where he never lived. Is this a scary shit? Oh, Bob. Let's tie it together. We talked about Pam Moses, who was sitting in prison until she's been granted a new trial for six years related to her voting when she wasn't quite off probation, but thought she was. Mark Meadows, who had been a congressman from North Carolina, which is where the North Carolina

link comes in, decided on his own to put a apparently according to New Yorker reporting, to put a fraudulent residence down in a battleground state. He then voted, this is the continuation of the New Yorker reporting, he then voted mail-in back to Republicans, do as I do as I say, not as I do, voted mail-in ballot for that district in North Carolina from the Comfort of his office in the White House in the West Wing. And it was a surprise to many. I'm not saying it was Meadows vote that tipped the scale, but Trump, you remember, then, one North Carolina by less than one percentage point over Biden, right?

Making it, you know, even a little bit scarier when we were doing the math about who was going to win this election from an electoral college count standpoint. So it's not that just that he voted, it's not just that he registered. He actually used that address voted in that precinct by mail in a state that he obviously did not reside in in a state that was a battleground state. If he was in New York, I bet you he would not have done this because New York goes 90 20 and 90 10 in favor of Democrats. So that just shows you the depth of this is voter fraud that should be prosecuted. And I'm hoping that the the Department of Justice or the US Attorney for the district in which this is implicated,

prosecutes meadows for voter fraud. What do you think? I think he absolutely should be prosecuted for voter fraud. And as you said, it's not like, I guess it would still be bad if you just did it to two states that didn't actually matter or California, New know, but exactly, you know, but here the impact of that, it was weaponizing the fraud too. The fraud was weaponized to try to tip the scales intentionally. And if he's doing that too, you wonder what's the rest of Trump's inner circle doing?

We know everything with them is projection. And so I think we got to look into that. I did. I mean, you have a party that is based, it's entire, pardon me, post Biden win. Their entire plank, their entire foundation for what animates them as a party is voter fraud. They use it for voter suppression law passage. Your favorite governor down in Florida, you know, the state that you think I'm from, you know, is pat has just created a police force to investigate voter fraud. They want it. Why don't you start with the voter fraud that's being perpetrated by your own party, including at the highest levels by Mark Meadows and others.

I think a nice transition for purposes of the transition, not nice in terms of the perpetrators. Transitions nice. It is talking about what's going on. And this is an update from the last legal AF regarding John Eastman was a law professor at University of Chapman School of Laws, a school in Orange County. John Eastman has purported to be. We take his representations as true to be, we would take his representations as true, that he was Donald Trump's lawyer and acting, according to him, in a capacity as Donald Trump's lawyer on January 6th, which based on the horrific and horrible things that John Eastman was saying, and what we know his role was in dealing with third parties and trying to Prevent the certification of electors and try to give the

Election to state legislatures to ultimately decide the election to Legalize the coup and through unlawful means and trying to violate the law. We've seen This is why Eastman saying that he was acting in Trump's capacity as a lawyer though, is not good news for Trump because Eastman's emails that we've He calls it. Um, we would just get to throw it back to the States, but they know there's violations of the law. These those emails were not subject to attorney client privilege because they're to third parties. It's not the private communication that exists between Trump and Eastman, but Eastman has claimed out of now tens of thousands, I think almost 90,000 records though, we kind of narrowed it down to about 111, 111 documents now from the 90,000, which he's now claiming are privileged. He has not substantiated really these privileged claims. He cited, you're supposed to produce when you make a privilege claim,

a privilege log showing what is privileged information and his privilege log is very vague and ambiguous. So the January 6th committee went to the judge in California who's overseeing this. It's a California judge because Eastman's from California going back to jurisdiction. So these these episodes all have tie-ins, but that's why it's being heard in a California courtroom. And the January 6th committee asked the judge, judge Carter, hey, look at these 111 documents. We trust you. Take a look at them and tell us Eastman said, uh, uh, don't look at them. Don't look at them. Trust me. Don't even look at them. Don't even look at them. Just trust me. And this week, a decision by judge

Carter is, I'm going to look at him. I'll look at him and then I'm going to comment on him after. But I'll look at him in camera. It's called I end space cameras, C-A-M-E-R-A, which just means private. I'm going to look at it privately, not in front of the parties. So the Gen 6 committee isn't going to see them until I decide whether they're privileged. But we, which we use as a procedure, you and me as little lawyers and litigators, we're frequently asking the judges to look at things in camera. It's a very common thing. It's for the judge to make the ultimate decision without prying eyes on evidence or documents in this case. So that's what everybody to know.

It's a common tool in our toolkit to ask for at the very least an in camera court only court eyes only review of something. And when the one thing that I would add to that, which gets slightly nuance that in the weeds though, is if that judge is also going to be your trial judge. In this case, it's not a trial judge because he's just ruling on the subpoena. So it's not like he's going to be hearing a actual trial. It's going back to Jan 6th committee for their investigation. Going back to the exactly.

So if it's the trial judge who's reviewing it, sometimes you would have another judge or a private judge do the in-camera review. So in the event they were privileged, it's even privileged so the judge shouldn't see those records. But here, that's not an issue because there's not gonna be a trial in front of this judge. He's just ruling on the documents.

So he's doing the in-camera review here. So my prediction here, and I'll listen to your prediction, Popeye, he's going to look at these documents, and he's gonna say, these are not privileged documents, and he's gonna probably have a scathing opinion that we'll see in the next 20 years. Yeah, and I know you've talked about in prior podcasts, you've been in front of this judge,

and you know what he's all about. And just to round out, round out the square here from prior podcasts recently, this is, this is the next step in the procedural process after the Gen 6 committee filed their brief last week in which they claimed that one reason that the judge needs to look at these things in camera, these 11 emails, is because perhaps the crime fraud exception to privilege has been implicated because they believe there's a reasonable likelihood that Eastman, along with Trump and others, has committed a conspiracy to defraud the government, not obstruct, but to defraud the government. And the judge is going to go look at that issue, but the headline for last week, if you remember, Ben, we talked about it, was, God, it's the first time we've ever seen

a filing with a Jan 6th committee suggesting that there's been a conspiracy, a criminal conspiracy involving the president, which, you know, we're going to follow up on because the Department of Justice is reading everything that the Jan 6th committee is filing and deciding for itself under its prosecutorial authority, whether it's going to open investigations, some of which they'll announce, some of which they will not, and they will continue the investigation. I assume they're not, Ben, let's be clear, you don't think that the DOJ is ignoring the Jan 6 calling out a possible criminal conspiracy with, with then President Trump to you. They're definitely not ignoring it.

But, you know, they're, they're parallel paths. They're documents that the January 6th committee is getting, you know, the DOJ is looking at. They're watching all of those developments. Ultimately, the power that the Jan 6th committee has, and this is where people may be underwhelmed by what the Jan 6th committee is ultimately empowered to do, though, is they basically write a letter at the end. They make recommendations and they can make a referral. They don't have, they're not a prosecutorial entity, but they will start holding hearings soon. There will be public hearings soon and they will be riveting public hearings soon. And they will, they will be bipartisan.

riveting public hearing soon. And they will, they will be bipartisan. You will see Adam Kinsinger, you will see Liz Cheney, you will see Benny Thompson, you will see Demi Rasson Republicans on that committee cross examining people and getting out facts and exposing what took place to the American people. That we're going to mandate legal a F law schoolers on this podcast watch all those people just to identify including Jamie Raskin doing cross examination and presentation of the evidence that's been accumulated over the last year by the J. N. S. X. Committee. No doubt about it. And talking about can I mention Eastman for one more minute before we move on. Of course. The part that was most interesting to me is the disclosure in the filing of an email that's already out now. That's not part of the judge Carter's review, which is now known by the

innocuous garden variety term exhibit N, like Nancy to the Jan 6th submission, which is now known by the innocuous garden variety term exhibit N like Nancy to the Jan 6th submission, which is a dial a back and forth chain of emails between Eastman and the general counsel for Pence in real time, the days leading up to Jan 6th, Jan 6th, the electoral count of Jan 6th and Pence's role. And that lawyer's name is Greg Jacob, who in his own words said to Eastman, your bullshit, and that's as a direct quote, has gotten us into this mess as he's watching the siege outside the vice president's windows the vice president's windows on Jan 6th day. And he said, your academic arguments and theories, which you knew or should know have no basis in the law. There's no judge in their right mind, including at the Supreme Court level that's ever going to adopt it, to allow Pence to reject the electoral count and send it back to the States. And that's where you mentioned earlier,

even Eastman in his email exchange with Greg Jacobs. And this is what pops the balloon on Trump arguing that he had a reasonable belief that the big lie was true. Because Eastman says, well, the House of Representatives and they've already violated the Electoral Count Act in a number of ways. Let's just violate it one more time. And your boss, the Vice President of the United States, should take a 10-day time out and not certify the election on Jan 6th, but give us 10 days to do what? For Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani to go get another another investigation

to go give word testimony in front of a phony, you know, legislative body or whatever. Just give us 10 more days. If we only had 10 more days, we would win this thing. And Greg Jacobs literally said, your bullshit has now led to an attack on the capital. And so that email exchange, which was sort of like buried in the filings, could end up being a major piece of evidence against Donald Trump, especially his defense

that, well, I didn't know, everybody around me said it was legal. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, Popeyes. And as we're talking about Jan 6, the committee in DOJ, I think we would be remiss, although you did cover it And as we're talking about Jan 6, the committee and DOJ, I think we would be remiss, although you did cover it

on the Wednesday episode of Legal AF with KFA. You were so funny before I was like, we're gonna talk about Guy Reffett and you were like, we did. We did, we did. I'm like, I understand that you and Karen did, but people could go back and listen to that episode and listen to the,

when I like about what you and KFA do is you can really drill down into a lot of these for a full film. And it happened that day. And you're right. We should, we should always do the rap because that's our lane at the end of the week. People expect, you know, Ben and Popocht to do like the rap. And you're right. I had left it off our curated list because I had my mind. I checked it off that I had done it, but curated list because I had in my mind, I had checked it off that I had done it, but I hadn't done it with you. And so we need to do it now. Early on when we started legal AF, I would give Popak a yellow card. And I don't have the yellow card anymore because Popak, Popak's like artificial intelligence. He learned

the yellow card. So I'm not going to give you a yellow card, but you know what I'm gonna give you? He's standing up. Oh God. I'm gonna give you a blue sock featuring me and my brother's faces on it. That's like, I thought you were gonna give me a bumper sticker or a sticker or something.

Oh, every time. It's a good reminder. Everybody, we have limited edition bumper stickers. It's based off my tweet that some people like, some people don't like. Many people said that I should do a bumper sticker on it. So we did a bumper sticker on it, which in the tweet was, gas is expensive, freedom is priceless.

We have about 50 left right now. And so make sure you go get it. Gas is expensive. Freedom is priceless bumper sticker for those watching. We'll put what the bumper sticker is on there. And it really just goes to at the end of the day, re-assurriver by the way, comment that she loved that slogan.

But at the end of the day, we're fighting for our freedoms here. And I agree that gas companies are price-couging. One of the things that Biden is very heavily And I agree that gas companies are price-gouging. One of the things that Biden is very heavily focused on, we've talked about this on legal AF is beefing up antitrust investigations on industries, including gas oil industries and their inflation and having record profits

while gas prices continue to go up. But the real sentiment behind that is not a deeper meaning of, yes, I think we should have prosecutions of companies that price gouge, but it is that the sacrifices that we have here at home are nothing compared to what we're seeing in Ukraine and with people fighting for their lives there. I may be just speaking personally, but I'm willing to pay $7 or $8 a gallon

if it stops the march of totalitarianism across Western and Eastern Europe, period, end of story. If it strangles and puts a chokehold on Putin and kicks him where he lives and stops his aggression because it's not going to stop with you, great. It's going to keep going unless we do something. And there's only so much, frankly, the free market and the market can do. All of the McDonald's and Starbucks and banks and AMX's that pull out of Russia are one

thing. But frankly, that alone is not going to stop Putin from his aggression. And we have to be willing to say, you know what? We have cheap gas compared to the rest of the world, maybe California doesn't, but most of the US has relatively cheap gas. If you do any type of travel and you fill up out of pump, you're like, wow, we really have cheaper gas in our countries. So there's things that Biden will end up doing.

He'll, there's strategic reserves that can be tapped. He's trying to make arrangements with other countries and pull them away from the Russian orbit, like Venezuela that are oil producing a part of OPEC. We supposedly have friends in Saudi Arabia, they could, OPEC could, could open the spigot and lower the gas prices. So all those things are going to be done. But, you know, we have to cut Russia off from a supply of oil for revenue, and we have to be willing to do something about it, and I'm willing to pay more at the pump.

So Popeyes, break it down, guy refit four hours of deliberations, a guilty verdict, guy refit one of the insurrectionists, the first to go to trial, and not just a defeat for insurrectionists, but that was a knockout punch, huh? Four hours. See you later. See you later. And as I joked on the Wednesday edition, it's only four hours because they hadn't gotten lunch yet.

When juries, as you know, Ben, when they come back quickly, if lunch is in the balance, they wait for lunch, they have to order, they have to get instructed, they go into their deliberation room, they have to order from the menu, has to be delivered. And then once they finish that, so it really wasn't four hours, it was really like lunch plus 20 minutes. And they came back and convicted him on all the counts that the federal government prosecuted a month, including the obstruction of justice count, which some judges are starting, you know, at least one judge in the district of Columbia

is questioning whether it's appropriately applied to any of the chancexers insurrectionists. But in this case, he was charged with it, it wasn't dismissed, and he was convicted of it by the jury. The defense did a three-minute, I'm not it's not a typo, a three-minute closing. It takes me longer to cook an egg and it took them to make a closing argument. The prosecution had put on not only all of the technology related evidence, the cell phone towers, the video cameras, his own, he was wearing a GoPro, the ref its own GoPro, but they, you know, they went for

the jugular and they got the son who's 18 years old to testify against the father and who testified that he thought his father was acting weird and inappropriately and a potential insurrectionist and was threatening the government and turned him in on Christmas Eve. Now, unfortunately, the FBI gets a lot of tips. And this one, I guess they didn't take it seriously as they should have. And they did not pick him up to interview him prior to Jan 6th. And then he disappeared and ended up in Washington at the tip of the spear fermenting all of these all these attacks on the Capitol police and others. The during, I don't know if you caught this, Ben, during the testimony of the Sun, refit burst into tears and turned red faced and

sobbed out out loud in the courtroom about his son testifying against him. And then now that we put two and two together, the wife, his wife who was not prosecuted, took to the, the front steps of the courthouse after the verdict and said none of the other January 6th people, the one sixers, none of them should take a plea deal. All of them should go to trial. They're trying to break us and all this other stuff that shows a zero remorse by the family.

But now I know why they didn't put the daughter on who was also threatened by ref that she would be killed by him, murdered by him if she testified or reported him. She ended up being released. I think it's because they had already got enough out of the sun. And they didn't want to fear like a little bit of a backlash from the jury that it looked like they were overreaching. They had enough already. They didn't need to like also drag the daughter who maybe not is willing to testify against the father.

They had so much. They were up so high on points before the closing. They just felt like, you know, we don't need the daughter also. But look, there's 170 other of the 700 that are being prosecuted. There are 170 others that also have the obstruction charge against them. And now we're going to have to see if the federal government is going to dial back some of the obstruction charges on some of these people, or they're just going to say, hey, we just won the refert case. Let's go full steam ahead.

More to come on that. We will keep you updated on legal AF and popoklets. Head to Texas developments there. First development regarding the directive from Republican governor Greg Abbott that called for child abuse investigations into parents who were supporting gender affirming care for their trans, gender children. And then I want to talk about SBA, the bounty hunter law, very dystopian in Texas. I mean, they are modeling themselves off of despots like Putin, you know, really attacking women, childbearing persons, the transgender community,

and placing these communities in serious danger, separating. This is what would happen. If these child abuse investigations take place, transgender children could and would be separated from their parents. They would be placed in foster care homes when the likelihood of suicide and death is already extremely high and that would likely be the result. You know, and it's not too dissimilar on SB 8 as well in terms of what the outcome would be, the outcome by placing bounties on the heads

of women childbearing persons and those who aid in the process of helping people get abortions, creating serious danger, threats to their lives, and making procedures that should be subject to the constitutional right to choose, secretive, dangerous, and deadly. That's what we know about the past in these, you know, in situations like this. So let's start off with the past week, the order from the Texas judge, this past Friday, who issued a statewide injunction on Republican Governor Greg Abbott's directive to have child abuse investigations into parents who provide gender, affirming care, and into organizations that do so. It's for me Travis County District Court judge Amy Clark Meacham, which arrived the same week after advocacy groups were speaking to the child protection services in the state. And they had

just brought this lawsuit. But this is a temporary injunction. Really what the court said here is that the governor on his own didn't have the authority to make this directive without legislative approval without, you know, without going through the proper legal channels here. It's just incredibly scary law that is, in effect, the AG Paxton said, this is a democratic judge, and this was a political ruling. It wasn't. This was the right ruling. Unfortunately, Popak, the legislature can go about passing a law like this the same way they did with an SBA, but it would have to go through a deliberative process. We'll see what other courts are going to do. Paxton says he's going to appeal. What do you think

is going to happen, Popock, and any other comments about this decision? Well, I'm going to give a call to action for the legal aethers and Midas mighty, because we talk about what can we do off of learning information on legal aeth and the brother's podcast? What can we do about it? I'm going to tell you, I'm going to do a shout-out to three entities that tie into the transgender terrible policy that Governor Abbott tried to pass. First one is the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, which is on behalf of the LDLGTBQ community. Both of those entities need our support.

I recommend people go on to their websites and see the good legal work that they do every day in courthouses, federal and state, all across America to defend people's rights. They are aligned with the interest of this show. They are aligned with the interests of the majority, vast majority of the people that are listeners and watchers. And if it wasn't for the ACLU bringing the case along with Lambda, we wouldn't even know about these kind of cases. And there would not be this fight for the soul of America in the courthouses, except they're led by organizations like the ACLU and Lambda. And the third shout out I want to do is to Amy Clark Meacham, who is the Travis County judge in the

201st district in Texas. And Travis County is the seat for Travis County is Austin, Texas, which we've talked about in the past. We've joked about it as being the Greenwich Village or the Soho of Texas, but it is where the soul. It's the crucible for the soul, the fight for the soul of Texas is playing out. And she is in also a fight for re-election. These are elected judges in Texas. And she's up for re-election on December 31st, 2022. I've went on her website. She is raising money. We'll try to post it tonight on here. And it is judges like that that need to be re-elected. The ones that have the conviction, that have the brass to make the right decision,

not politically motivated, to support civil rights, transgender people rights, abortion rights, it's judges that are sitting in Austin, Texas that are fighting the hard fight every day on behalf of what you and I end up talking about in our news analysis section. And as you said, the Texas Court of Appeals issued a ruling three days ago, four days ago, in behalf of an appeal that was taken by Paxton, who is Ken Paxton, who is the e-moral, a-moral attorney general of Texas, in which by Abbott's order effectively creating a law to separate transgender children from their parents, arguing that they are being abused under a child abuse statute and test because the parents are raising them in a gender affirming way, letting the children

be the children who they are from a gender and orate sexual orientation standpoint, including if they have declared themselves to be transgender. And it doesn't like that because he doesn't want gay people, transgender people, LGBTQ people in his state apparently. So he's decided that that is child abuse. And he has ordered the Texas department that's responsible for it, the department of family and protective services

that DFPS to open up investigations of any family who's child. We're not talking about foster care. We're talking regular families where the children were naturally born or adopted or whatever. I wanna be fair here. This isn't even foster. This is just you and me Americans being knocked on the door

by a department of the state of Texas and saying, we understand you have a transgender child. And we are going to open an investigation because you are allowing that child to be transgender. We're going to open an investigation that you are committing child abuse. That is the order from February the 22nd by, by Abbott. And if anybody thinks, well, no, no agency in their right mind would follow that order, there are, there are already nine open investigations across the state of Texas involving transgender children because of this law. So the originally, the judge, enjoyed the same judge,

Meacham issued a temporary injunction against this law from being imposed or being executed, effectuated. And it went up to the Texas A Texas appeal court who sent it back to the judge and ordered her to hold a hearing, a full and complete hearing on the temporary restraining order issues. And she ruled yesterday, judge, Meacham ruled that it is more likely than not that the, that the plaintiff in this case, the one led by the ACLU in Lambda will prevail on the merits of the case to find that judge, judge, have it. I made him a judge already. Governor Abbott's order, his directive is improper legislative rulemaking. He can't do it on his own and is unconstitutional. And, but as you said, we know how the numbers play in the Texas legislature. And now some,

you know, Republican right-winger state legislator is going to stand up like Monday and sponsor a bill that declares transgender children to be the subject of child abuse because their parents aren't making them, I don't know, heterosexual. You and I are going to have to do an all Florida, all Texas special edition of legal AF. We sort of kind of joke about it, but the soul of our country is being fought in these gilliad states of Texas and Florida. I wish we didn't have to talk about these things, but we do. Now people who listen to us have to take it to the next step, support judges that we're talking about. Go and go and send, if you live in those districts, send emails and correspondence to the offices

of these legislators and make sure these laws don't end up on the books of states like this. You know, David Pepper of politician, Miranda, Democratic organizations in Ohio, he wrote a book about how states have become the laboratories of authoritarianism, whereas they used to be the laboratories of democracy and perfecting our union. And it's not just Texas and Florida. And we see, for example, Republican legislators in Missouri, they want to pass a law that would prevent women from and childbearing persons from leaving the state to get abortions in other states. Cruelty is the purpose also, Popok. I mean, the knowledge, the literature that's out there is, and the outcome of removing

the child, in this case, from their parents, placing them in foster care and separating families, the likely result is not going to be the ridiculous outcome that the Texas radical right pretend is what they think is going to happen. They know what's going to happen, cruelty is the purpose. These individuals are going to kill themselves. I agree. I agree with you. There is no, there's no thinking Republican who can complete the following sentence that you and I have just developed here, which is Abbott's law is good because it will take from families, transgender children, who are being raised in a healthy environment, and fill in the blank. I defy them to fill in the blank on that. You know, occasionally when I'm

bored, I don't know why, I look at the trolls or some tweets that we get, and over, you know, 99% of the things that you and I get communicated to us either in our reviews of the podcast, which I do read with you, or in tweets the night up or whatever, are overwhelmingly supportive of what we're doing and appreciative of what we're doing. And that energizes us to keep doing it week after week. Occasionally you get a crackpot.

I don't know how anyone can defend this policy as being pro family, pro human dignity, or appropriately a Republican or conservative position. I just can't other than the cruelty that you're talking about. You know, for people who talk about small government or libertarian ideals, they sure love the government to get involved in threaten corporations, to get involved in the decisions of families, to tell women what they should do and childbearing persons, what they should do with their body, to tell families how they should and shouldn't raise their children. This is the heart of big government.

Like we see with Putin, like we see in totalitarian states coming into your home and telling you how to act. There's nothing. Imagine that this was a democratic governor. A democratic governor tries to pass a law to separate families based on gender and orient sexual orientation. I mean, think about what the response would be.

We, first of all, our party would never propose such a thing because we know it's antithetical to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness and everything else that our entire democracy is based on. But that doesn't stop any of the Republicans or any of the elected officials from doing it. They're not gonna stop until we take them out at the ballot box. They hope that they're not going to stop until we take them out at the ballot box.

They hope that they're not, that's the thing. It's a great point, which you just said there. They are not going to stop until they're taken out of the ballot box because they will otherwise turn the United States into a country that resembles Saudi Arabia, where there was just 81 beheadings. The other day where they believe in witchcraft and sorcery are on the list of things that people get beheaded for there. And countries like Afghanistan, what the Taliban America would look like that under the Republicans dystopian vision. And we would be incompetent,

we see going back to the earlier parts of the podcast, declaring your address as random trailers and other states and being on your family plan. These are the types of leadership that they have. Anyway, Pobok going to SB8, the updates on SB8, I mean, unfortunately we've kind of predicted this, the meandering way the Supreme Court, the courts of appeal, have tried to delay, delay, delay. And I've told you, until Dobbs v. Mississippi is ruled on, which will happen in the next few months,

May, June, I would expect the ruling to come out from the Supreme Court on the case that is challenging, Roe v. Wade, that's challenging Mississippi's 15 week ban on abortions, which has been replicated in other states. You and I both believe based on the oral arguments that at the very least, Mississippi's 15 week ban on abortions will be upheld. I'll go further. I think just to give you a pat on the back, it is obvious from what we're just going

to talk about next with Texas and the way that the Supreme Court has boxed out all of the other cases, leaving really only Dobbsby, Mississippi as the case that they're going to use to declare once and for all the constitutional right to an abortion or not, they've boxed out all the other cases. They don't want to handle the bounty case and SBA. So they have found ways procedural and otherwise to kick it down, to kick that can down, even even at the expense of tens of thousands of Texas women who are either being forced to go to term on pregnancies that they do not want or or in the cover of darkness go to states

where some states are suggesting they're going to criminalize cross-border attempts to come into another state to get abortions. And so while they're doing all that, it's obvious to me and you really hit the nail on the head three or four months ago, they only want to rule on dots and they want all the other cases to kind of fall by the way side and be mooted out by the dots ruling in June or July or whatever it's going to be. And this is an, and what we're going to talk about next in Texas. And what Gorsuch did to, to, to force it back or make it go back to the Texas Supreme Court for a ruling on the abortion providers is just a delay tactic so they can just rule on dobs in the summer. S.B.8 provides no exceptions in cases of rape or incest either. And what the way

the Texas radical right, Republican extremist architected this is that private citizens, not the government, are bringing these cases. So when the laws were challenged, what the government can say, what the state agencies can say is, look, we're not even involved in this. We have nothing to do with it. This is just private citizens filing it. So you can't sue us to stop it. Arguably, who you can sue to stop it is after a lawsuit happens, a bounty lawsuit takes place. Someone sues someone for the amount of money that they're allowed to. And then there's a verdict in that case, then that case could be challenged, but because of the deterrent effect of the lawsuit, because you can be sued for doing it and lose your livelihood and look, no one's going to be

performing abortion-related services or advice or guidance in the state. It's popped. There's no more abortions. There's no status. So what happened here is, you know, a number of, you know, agencies, the DOJ, people tried to stop the law, and the argument from Texas, this is an R law. We're not even doing anything here. It's not even in the books. We got the wrong people. And so the Supreme Court basically agreed with Tech, is that, yeah, we hear you on your constitutional arguments. We know Roby Wade is the law of the land, but these defendants that you're suing, the

health agencies, the Texas Department of this or that, they're not the right people. And then the Supreme Court then said, I'm going to dismiss everything, but, but we'll let the fifth circuit wink, wink, knowing the fifth circuit, it's a radical right extreme. It's quite maybe the fifth circuit can tell us what they think about one of the Texas, you know, departments and their ability, you know, to, you know, to be involved in this case, and whether they're a correct party. And then with the fifth circuit said, yeah, thank you, thank you Supreme Court. Appreciate that.

We're going to let the Texas Supreme Court make that decision. And let's see what the Texas Supreme Court has to say. Another lateral pass. Another lateral pass to the Texas Supreme court. And then the Texas Supreme court basically said, you know, sorry, these government entities that you're that you're trying to sue. Um, these state agencies, they're not the right defendants in the law. You got the, you got the wrong people. Where? Sorry. So what does that mean? That means that sp 8 stays on the books. That's basically what is SB 8 stays on the books.

I think the only one left, Ben, we've been on it. The only one left is the medical licensing boards. I think on the Supreme Court level are still considered to be a proper defendant in a case. But look, it's all going to be, this is the Ben Masalis dystopian view that's coming to fruition. It's going to be Dobbs v. Mississippi. They're going to make their declaration about the Supreme Court's declaration about constitutional rights on that one. And they don't really care about Texas at this moment.

And then they'll go back and backfill on cases like Texas and Louisiana and other places. Where abortion rights are still being considered and then fill in the blanks related to that. But this case, they do not want this case to be the case, the vehicle upon which they declare new rights related to abortion. Yeah. But Popoq, to be clear too, when the appeals court transferred it to the challenge of the state Supreme Court asking it to answer the question, whether any state official named as a defendant in the case, including the attorney general

who was tasked with doctor licensing issues to take action against those. The Supreme Court said, no, you know, that you think the licensing boards are out also. I think everybody's out other than private, you know, for all purposes, it doesn't, you know, and of course it matters, but what this means is that nobody's able,

the way you would have to go about challenging constitutionality as I read these orders is when a private citizen sews, and after there's a verdict, the motion to dismiss the lawsuit that's brought by a private citizen would be that it was unconstitutional. But by the time that happens, the Supreme Court is going to rule on dobs v Mississippi, and they will overturn Roe v Wade or at the very least uphold Mississippi's 15-week ban. It is an issue, Pope, that not a lot of people are focused on. But let me tell you this, when dobs, the Mississippi is handed down, mark this portion of legal AF. It is going to be one of the most significant decisions

in American jurisprudence, and the effect it is going to have. And the tsunami of emotions and people coming out overwhelmingly, people support Roe Veeway. They support the right to choose and for the people to make the decisions, women to make the decisions. Child-bearing persons to make the decisions based on how they want to decide, how they want to speak to their doctors privately, how they want to speak to their faith advisors and

consult with themselves. That's who makes the decisions, not big government in shooting. That is going to be the key issue or one of the key issues in the 2022 midterms and in American policy from here on out because that is going to be a major, major, major blow to people's constitutional. If the Democrats don't make the Republicans pay for what's going to happen to the constitutional right to an abortion at the ballot box, then we've given up as a party. This is the, this is, this will be the most critical issue as you just described it in our lifetimes

on a fundamental constitutional right. And it's about to be shredded by the US Supreme Court. And if we don't make the Republicans pay for that at the ballot box, we should have our heads examined. And we're fighters. Midas Touch was created because we're fighters for democracy. Legal AF was. And we're fighters. Midas touch was created because we're fighters for democracy. Legal AF was created because we're fighters for democracy. The real rule of law, not the bullshit rule of law and Trumpian language, which basically means upholding unlawfulness

to support their own regimes and their desires to have an authoritarian structure rule our country. We are fighters. You are fighters, legal a furs and Michael Poe, Pock and I are so grateful to share these weekends, whether you're listening or watching this during the week. It's a week wrap up. Watch it, whatever you want to watch it. Um, and continuing to support legal AF. Now the top legal podcast in the world, at least number one in Micronesia. So I think that is, is at least very good. And one of the top in all of the world. Thank you so much for all of your support. We covered a lot of law today, special thanks to all of our sponsors on legal AF masterworks, of course, athletic greens. Popo, thank you for joining me. Any final words? Popo again.

No, I think this is another example of another episode of the book, another chop of wood on the pile and we're going to we're going to keep moving. Next week will be our one year legal AF anniversary. You may recall Popeyes to go little popaki invocation, not cool very early on. What are you getting me for our anniversary? A blue cashmere sweater of course. See you next time on legal AF if it's the weekend. If you're fighting for democracy,

if you truly care about the rule of law, it's Legal AF. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.