Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Fed Up Judge Rips Trump to Pieces as Contempt Looms

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

A Federal Judge —with the full support of the Supreme Court— ripped Trump’s DOJ a new one in court, and is likely about to find the Trump Administration in contempt for refusing in “bad faith��� to comply with her order to detail under oath steps taken to obtain the return of Armando Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador jail. Michael Popok explains what Judge Xinis is likely to order this coming week and why as the Trump Administration doubles down on a losing hand. Miracle Made: 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. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! 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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When you're a federal judge say that she feels you're playing cat and mouse or cat and ball with the federal judge, you're already in a losing position. You are wrapped around your axle. You are in both feet in buckets at that moment. Judge Zinnis is not having it. She's up to here. My hand is under my chin with the disobedience of the Trump administration in the Obrego Garcia case, and it all spilled out in the open during a hearing that was supposed to be about whether

Donald Trump and his Department of Justice is properly asserting privileges or not, like the state secrets privilege and the executive privilege to prevent the other side from getting any documents whatsoever about what they're doing, if anything, to comply with the court's order, not just a court order, a federal, a single federal judge's order, as they like to say, an order that has been affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, a command of the United States Supreme Court, nine zero, to take steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, nine zero, even with Alito and Thomas on the Supreme Court. And then they told Judge Zinnis in Maryland, you are to take control over this case, administer this case and justice, you're doing the right thing. When it comes to due process, the Fifth Amendment rights, get him home and find out what steps

have been taken to facilitate his release. And ever since Donald Trump has been playing cat and ball or cat and mouse with the judge. I can't tell you. I won't tell you. I would never tell you. Marco Rubio, secretary of state. I would never tell a federal judge what we're doing diplomatically. Publicly, they're bragging in social media posts about Abrego Garcia never

seeing the light of day, never being brought back to the United States, never stepping foot in the United States during the Trump administration, all in open defiance of Judge Zinnis and the United States Supreme Court. She even said to the lawyer at the Department of Justice, how is that statement posted on the Homeland Security social media post, those two statements about he'll never return. How is that not an open confession of disobedience and contempt of my orders? Explain that to me. And all the, it's my favorite part, all the Department of Justice lawyer could say is,

well, depends on the nuance, Your Honor. You have to take into account the nuance. What effing nuance? You're ordered to facilitate his return. She is ordered by her bosses of the Supreme Court to find out what you've done to get him to return. And you say you won't tell them and you publicly announce you'll never bring him home. What is the nuance? You want nuance? Come to Midas Touch and Legal AF. I'm Michael Popock. Let's dive into this. So we had a hearing and during hearing, the judge effectively said the following against the Trump administration. She said, I ordered depositions. Those are questions and answers under oath,

like live testimony in the courtroom with a court reporter of four different people, five different people for the administration. And all of them shrugged their shoulders and said, we don't know what happened to Abrigo Garcia. We don't know what the administration's doing to get him out. You're supposed to give me witnesses. You're supposed to give the other side witnesses so that I understand them to know with knowledge what is going on with Brega Garcia. I don't want to hear that, yes, I'm happy that he's healthy, apparently. You're telling me he's healthy in some other prison. You're supposed to tell me what you're doing to get him out and you won't. I feel like a cat and you keep moving the string doing to get them out and you won't. I feel like a cat and you keep moving the string and that is a problem. They said, well, judge, we're in good faith. She said, you're not in good faith. You're

in bad faith. And that is that magic language, bad faith, just as the backdrop. Judge Zinnes is considering whether she's going to find the Trump administration in contempt and the Department of Justice in contempt. She would be the second judge to do so. Judge Boesberg, the chief judge of the district court in the district court in DC, already found probable cause for criminal contempt for non-compliance about the immigration deportation and alien enemies act issues in his case. she'd be the second one. And this is what all the backdrop is, just to put it in context. The hearing was about documents to give the other side ammunition to be able to complete their motion for contempt against the Trump administration. The judge is more than halfway there. I mean, the judge is on the one yard line on contempt by the way that Donald Trump and

Department of Justice is abusing the discovery process, the information exchange process. And she called them out. She said, you are in bad faith and I don't like your Department of Homeland Security filings either. She said, I'm taking quotes from people that were in the room for this, she said, I got a goose egg from depositions about knowing what's been done. And there's a split screen narrative. Everybody in the Trump administration is playing cat and mouse with a Brangham Garcia, we'll never return. And the lawyer for the Department of Justice interrupted

and said, well, there's a nuance there. She said, what's the nuance? The statement by the Department of Homeland Security is that he'll never step foot back in the United States during the Trump administration. What is the nuance that I am missing? Well, they just meant, oh here now we're going to change the language. They just meant that he'll never be released from detention. Right. But you understand, sir, you're missing out a piece. You're missing a piece. The Supreme Court has ruled, as have I, that they're entitled to due process. Fifth Amendment due process.

Do you get it? They're entitled to process rights. See, that's why at the very same time this was going on, the very same time this was going on, the United States Supreme Court issued a seven to two ruling against Donald Trump in deportations and sending people to Venezuela against their will. And in it, in the order, they mentioned the Abrego Garcia case. They said, we are grounding the planes, if you continuing to fly people in the

middle of the night or any other time to El Salvador or anywhere else away from federal jurisdiction, because we want to process for these people. And we'll tell you what that due process and notice looks like, but we can't do that if you send them off to El Salvador in the middle of the night. And they cited this Abrego Garcia case in their seven to two decision against Donald Trump and said, you are taking the position in the Abrego Garcia case that he is long gone and in El Salvador, you can't get him home. We want to avoid that situation in the future.

So we're grounding the planes till the issue of the Alien Enemy Act, proper application or not, is brought before the United States Supreme Court in good time and in our time, not your time. And we're tired, this is reading between the lines of the Supreme Court, we're tired of being whipsawed by Donald Trump. Turn off the engines, get everybody off the plane. We'll in due time get this matter to the Supreme Court and make a ruling once and for all about the Alien Enemies Act. But in the meantime, stop trying to stampede us into decisions. That's my interpretation. The weather, it's heating up and your nighttime bedroom temperature has a huge impact on your sleep quality.

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at the Trump administration in the eye and saying, I'm done with your cat and mouse games. Now at some point, she threw the reporters and everybody out of the room because she had to go into chambers to finish the hearing because they had to go page by page about the state secrets issue, or at least she had to review it. There were issues that were going to come up that she didn't want in the public. So she took the rest of the hearing sort of in chambers. We will eventually know what that is,

but there is just a God-smacking amount of sealed secret filings in this case by the Trump administration because they don't want the American people to know either that they're not working to of sealed secret filings in this case by the Trump administration. Because they don't want the American people to know either that they're not working to bring home a Braco Garcia in violation of the Supreme Court, or they are working. Either way, they don't want to let anybody know what's going on, so they can publicly declare,

like Donald Trump just did in his posting where he almost cried, about the Supreme Court decision. They're not letting me deport criminals without due process, yeah. Yeah, because we don't know they're criminals yet. We don't even know if they're not letting me deport criminals without due process. Because we don't know they're criminals yet. We don't even know if they're subject to the Alien Enemies Act. That's for an adversarial proceeding. No, I was elected by one seven battleground states. Joe Biden, sleepy Joe Biden. It's like kitchen magnet poetry with Trump. Talk about word salad. It's a word salad every time he creates a social media post.

I don't want to give everybody due process. Yeah, you have to. That's what the Supreme Court says. I'm sorry. I got caught up in my impersonation there for a minute. What's the end result? Judge is going to take it under advisement whether any part of the state's secret privilege of things that she's entitled to know would be applicable. I doubt maybe a handful of documents. The rest of the documents are going to have to be provided to the other side. If they don't like it, they can take an appeal to the DC Court of Appeals. In the meantime, they're not doing jack shit. Sorry, pardon me. You can peep that out if you like to bring home a regular Garcia. That's pissing off everybody, including the United States Supreme Court. I don't think it is a coincidence that the Supreme Court has issued four rulings against

Donald Trump at the Supreme Court level just in the last month. And it's seven to two, sorry, I'll do it in order, nine zero on a Briegel Garcia. Bring him home. Six to three in JGG. You got to use rid of habeas corpus and due process and notice for these people. Two cases involving something called AARP out of Texas. Ground the planes, give them due process, bring us back the alien enemies act issue back to the United States Supreme Court. Those are his rulings. Four in a row as a loss. He's not helping his cause pressing this losing hand. But we'll continue to follow it right here

on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF on Michael Popak. Slide over to the Midas Touch subscribe button, boom. Come over to Legal AF, hit the subscribe button, boom. A lot of booming here. And then the Legal AF sub stack as well. Till my next report, till my next Legal AF podcast, I'm Michael Popak and I'm reporting. and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN. That's at Legal AF MTN.