Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Fed-Up Judge Hits Back After Trump Ignores Order

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

The Trump Administration has ignored a federal court order to make one of its senior officials available for testimony in court, and that Judge has just entered an injunction forcing the Administration to rehire tens of thousands of fired federal workers across 8 agencies. Michael Popok puts this new ruling in the context of 2 other rulings in the last 24 hours involving the “Office of Personnel Management” and its relationship with Musk and DOGE into perspective. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Trump administration is starting to resist federal judge orders. And we've got the results, Judge Alsop in San Francisco, none too pleased by the fact that the acting administrator for the Office of Personnel Management didn't bother to show for testimony in an injunction hearing that was held this morning in San Francisco, brought by the largest union representing federal workers. And Judge Alsop from the bench issued his injunction requiring at least eight federal departments and agencies to rehire over 30,000 probationary employees, those that have been on the job one year or less, and do it post-haste. And he'll take up at another time what contempt sanction he's going to come up with because the Trump administration just decided to ignore

or flout or be contumacious as we say in the business by refusing a judge's order. I don't refuse any judge's order, I'm here. On the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF, let's talk about Judge Alsop. Judge Alsop, the right person for the job, senior judge, San Francisco in California, he had a case in front of him,

he issued an initial injunction to stop the firing at at least eight different agencies, including the Veterans Administration, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, and Treasury. But his order may well go beyond and apply to all of the federal agencies in cabinet level positions. He's ruled that the Office of Personnel Management,

which we know is a puppet, at least now, under Elon Musk and Doge, illegally fired by order, by email, tens of thousands of federal employees when they didn't have the power, jurisdiction, or constitutional authority to do that. So he already ruled about two weeks ago in an administrative order and in a temporary restraining order that he would require the firings to stop. Now he's required the rehiring to begin by court order.

This separate battle is a bad sign for our democracy and rule of law that Donald Trump decided not to make available by under court order and sanction the acting head of the OPM Charles Azell. Now if you file an affidavit or a declaration in a court a judge can say yeah that's nice but you need to be able to cross examine it and you can't cross examine a piece of paper I'm gonna have live testimony or a deposition which is question and answer under oath which is not outside the courtroom but just like court testimony. And the judge ordered that a Zell appear. These are judges that we're watching, like Judge Al Sapir, Judge Cooper in D.C., Judge Chutkin in D.C.

They're trying to get to the bottom of this opaque thing that we call the Department of Government Efficiency, DOJ, Musk, and the Office of Personal Management and how they're operating, or as Judge Cooper just ruled yesterday, the velocity and speed and secrecy at which they're operating is obviously by design to catch us unaware, to catch us with our pants down as a democracy, to undermine Congress's power and authority under the checks and balance system.

But it's up to judges through evidence, through testimony, through documents, and through discovery, through public records requests to destroy the opacity that's been set up by the Trump administration and get to the bottom of the facts. If judges are good at anything, it is sussing out and ferreting out the facts

as the trier of fact in these cases. And Judge Alsop said, we'll talk about why this federal official upon my order as a federal judge has been contumacious, right, in violating my order. But I'm gonna issue this injunction. You are to rehire all of the federal employees that were probationary, whereas he previously referred to them, the lifeblood of our civil service are

people who start out probationary, we all did, we all had a first day, but I meet somebody on a job for instance, seem a little nervous or they're shadowing somebody else, I'll say is this a new job for you? And they'll say, you know, sometimes they'll say yes, and I'll say like how long you've been on the job, and they'll say, sometimes you'll get first day, say yes, and I'll say like how long you've been on the job And they'll say sometimes you'll get first day first week and I look at them and I say everybody Everybody had a first day and a first week and that usually makes them feel better and that's how I feel about it I've been working and drawing a paycheck

Literally since I was 13 years old non-stop except for one year in law school Other than that, I've been drawing a paycheck in some way, shape or form, busting my butt or somebody once joked I've been getting s done since at least 1966. I was born in 65. I gave myself a little time to stand up. But ever since then I've been standing up and I might've talked late, but I haven't shut up since. And Judge Alsop is a perfect judge for this. I mean, I've seen pictures of him holding up, you know, books written by, you know, very famous jurists about resistance, about principles, liberal principles, and he's seen it all. And they've had enough in these courtrooms, these courthouses. Your nighttime bedroom temperature has a huge impact on your

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So for now, I think he's going to also expand his decision because the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that brought this case, have expanded their lawsuit with a recent filing to include all of the cabinet level and agencies and departments and bureaus of the Trump administration. And I think he hasn't done it yet, but he will expand it. You know, good things come in threes. We've had three orders in the last 24 hours. Judge Cooper finding that the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk are subject

to the Freedom of Information Act request, our public agencies for that purpose so that we have transparency in government because sunshine is the best disinfectant and we operate government in the sunshine or we're supposed to. Then Judge Chutkin later that same day yesterday ruled that the only way she can get to the bottom of whether the states that have sued the Trump administration over federal funding being cut off is if she allows

limited discovery including putting Elon Musk under sworn testimony and oath, and making him respond under oath, in writing to questions that are asked. We call that interrogatories. That's the second hit to the pinata. And now you've got the third great thing that comes in threes, Judge Alsop requiring the rehiring of these federal workers immediately.

It'll go up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California, I'm sure, on an emergency application by Donald Trump. We know his playbook, but we know our own playbook. And the Ninth Circuit's going to uphold, I believe, Judge Alsop. It then has to go to the United States Supreme Court. First stop in that train is going to be a moderate, liberal Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, because that's how that works. That's who's been assigned to the Ninth Circuit

over to the United States Supreme Court. But for right now, Judge Alsop's decision stands, and I knew this was coming, because I could see from the docket the fireworks already, the refusal to put up Azel as the acting Office of Personnel Management. He filed an affidavit that said he didn't give the order. Yeah, how did it happen?

I feel like I'm doing a few good men, right? How did it happen? How did Santiago die? Who gave him the code red? Who gave the federal workers the code red? Be great if we could get Jack Nicholson and we could do a Jack Nicholson to do the cross examination scene with Tom Cruise.

But you know, we're in real life here and life or death about our federal government, its relationship with the people, its accountability to the people, the funding that we require and count on, the programs we count on. I just did another hot take earlier today about the attempt for Donald Trump to pay off his debts to the Heritage Foundation and follow the pages and the learnings and the teachings of the Project 2025 Am Book and shrink the Department of Justice down so small that it could be drowned in a bathtub. I'm sorry, I said Department of Justice. That was a Freudian slip. I meant the Department of Education, but you know what I meant. So we're going to continue to follow the next steps for all these judges. There's more than 100 lawsuits filed.

There's more than 50 different injunction hearings we need to follow here on Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. We created Legal AF, the YouTube channel, for this moment in time. We did it just after the election for a reason. Just today, we get the Alsop decision. We've got Letitia James leading 18 other New York Attorneys General as the New York Attorney General to sue over the destruction of the Department of Education in a new suit filed in Massachusetts, Massachusetts, California, New Hampshire, Maryland, District of Columbia, New Jersey.

This is where the beating heart of our democracy lives in these courthouses. And we'll follow it closely right here without regard to favor, without censorship, without anybody telling me what to say on the Midas Touch Network, where we speak truth to each other first as we speak truth to power. I'm Michael Popak. Follow me here on the Midas Touch Network. I do a show called Legal AF every Wednesday and Saturday, the original podcast devoted to law and politics.

Karen Friedman at Nifilo on Wednesday, Ben Misalas on Saturday, and then I do Popak Live on Tuesday nights. It's like Jimmy Kimmel Live, except it's me. It's a Ted Talk, meets a law school class. Tuesday nights on this YouTube channel for The Midas Dutch, and then of course we've got the Legal AF YouTube channel for us to capture all the overflow of all these amazing, important, landmark breathtaking decisions by federal judges.

90% of the time, the attorneys general, the unions, the civil rights groups, the public interest groups are winning against Donald Trump in the courtrooms. We tell you how, we tell you why, we tell you what's gonna happen next, and the Supreme Court better cancel its summer vacation because we're going to be in court a lot over the summer on these fundamental presidential Article II issues. I'm Michael Popock. This is Legal AF and Midas Touch.

In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN. That's at Legal AF MTN.