Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Furious Judge Finally Snaps on Trump Admin

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

An irate Federal Judge declared that she “doesn’t trust” the Trump Administration any longer and that they have done ‘their absolute worst,” as she let 2 years of frustration with the failure to abide by Court orders spill out into the open in a fiery hearing. Popok reports that this is not just about a golf course and trees but so much more, as Judge Reyes digs in to protect the rule of law. EllaOla: EllaOla is offering my listeners 20% off your first purchase. Just go to https://EllaOla.com/legalaf discount applied automatically; No code needed. Subscribe:  @LegalAFMTN   Pre-order the new book from MeidasTouch, WTF America?!: The Way Out of This Hell and Back to Democracy, today: https://bit.ly/wtfamericayoutube 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 Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How dare you? How dare you? And no, you haven't done your best. You've done your absolute worst. I've tried to trust you. I can't trust you. You've lost all credibility with me. No, I'm not going crazy. That's Judge Reyes in the last 24 hours against the Department of Justice and the lawyers for the National Park Service in a fight over weather historic golf course, the East Potomac Golf Course, which was the site of integration and the fight for civil rights, is going to be destroyed by the big, greedy, grubby hands of Donald Trump and his administration. Because over a long weekend, when they thought nobody was looking, they chopped down over 500 trees. The problem, Judge Reyes had told them, you do more than 10 trees, you give us advance notice so that I can provide oversight. Don't come into my court, she told them in a transcripted hearing.

Don't come into my court after you've done the bad things and then tell me you can't reverse them. I don't want to hear you on that issue and that's exactly what they did, except they were caught by the lawyers who were representing the National Trust who ran in there. It filed an emergency application over the holiday weekend, got a hearing with the judge. The judge has now thrown the book of the Department of Justice. Justice, the National Park Service. She's ordered people to appear in front of her so that she could do her own cross-examination

and wait to you hear what she told them. I cover it all for you here on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. I'm Michael Popak. Shout out to the D.C. Preservation Leagues and our friends at Democracy Forward, like Sky Perryman, who brought this case. And it's not just about trees.

I know that Stephen Miller comes up with the almost a fellow sleep in the Constitution Convention section when judges were involved with golf maintenance. This is not about golf maintenance. This is about something much greater. As my late mother once said, when two people are fighting over a bike like two kids, it's not about the bike. This is not about it.

This is about federal judges having it up to here. They've had it with this Trump administration. Anna Reyes, who I'll cover for you in a minute, a phenomenal federal judge. She's been on many cases like trying to keep transgender Americans to want to serve our our government and serve our America in the armed services making sure that they can do so. She's had dozens of cases with the Trump administration, but it all came boiling out into this particular hearing, and I'll cover it for you right now. About a year ago, the D.C. Preservation League filed a case to stop the desecration of the East Potomac Golf Course.

For people who are golfers and are into civil rights and integration, I don't want to say it's the equivalent of Rosa Parks in the back of the bus and monuments to her. But this is important to people. This is where black Americans first learned how to play golf and where they were able to play with white golfers. The history of that is being erased and whitewashed and sanitized by Donald Trump, who just wants to make it a 36-hole professional, internationally acclaimed, golf course like he owns it, like he owns Turnberry in Scotland or Bedminster in New Jersey or the big blue monster in Doral, Florida. He doesn't own this. This is the people's golf course, literally.

And so the D.C. Preservation League ran into court about a year ago and told Judge Reyes, bad things are going to happen if you don't stop it. Maybe I can't put it any simpler. And she in the beginning sort of trusted the government. She said, you know what? If you want to do some maintenance, you want to move forward with your plans when you get proper approvals, but don't cut down trees more than 10 without telling me first. And all of a sudden, over a long weekend, Indigenous Day, Columbus Day weekend, the government goes into action. They actually said to the judge, oh, the project is going faster than we thought. The trees are going, we're felling the trees faster than we thought. Trees that are under court order not to be felled, not to be decapital.

without the judge's approval, which brought us to a series of hearings over the weekend, including on holiday Monday and her new ruling, which I'm going to go over for you right now. Let's start with what democracy forward in Sky Perryman. I'm going to have an interview with her up today on Legal AF YouTube channel on this very case. Here's what they told the court and reminded the court of what she told the National Park Service when they were all together in July, which led to the court. to the judge not being happy in the court hearing with a lot of how dare you during the court hearing. This is what the democracy forward said on pages one and two of their brief. This court has repeatedly instructed defendants to provide enough notice before some major things happen in the implementation of the Washington National Plan at East Potomac Golf Course to allow plaintiffs and a court meaningful opportunity to review and if necessary to act. Hearing transcript from July 2nd. Here's what I don't want to have happened, Judge Reyes said. I don't want to get to a point where someone is telling me from the government that it's too late.

Too many things have happened. And now here we are moving forward and, you know, we can't stop the trains. All right, please make clear to your client. I'm not going to entertain that. I'm going to be quite emphatic about not entertaining that argument, that things are too far along. It's gotten too expensive. We can't undo them. That's not going to happen in my courtroom.

What is she talking about? Well, these were the very arguments that Trump administration made about the ballroom. Too late, we knocked down a third of the White House in the middle of the night without approval. You know, we'd rather seek, you know, we'd rather apologize than seek permission. And there's nothing you can do about it because we already started. That was the argument they made. Actually, all the way up to the appellate court where they told Judge Pallard at the appellate court, we could knock down the Statue of Liberty.

there's nothing you could do about it. Okay. So with that as the backdrop, as the context, Judge Ray has said, I don't want to hear that in my courtroom. I don't want to hear that in my courtroom, ever. That's exactly what you heard in her courtroom in the last 24 hours.

She told them, the judge told them on July 2nd, if September 1st rolls around and there is renovation and construction and bulldozers at the course going on With this not being completed, they are in hot water. They fully understand that and appreciate it. Okay? That's what the, actually, that's what the defendants told the judge,

which leads us to fast forward to the hearing. So the die has been cast according to the lawyers on page one of their filing. The die has been cast despite the court's admonitions at 4.55 on Friday preceding the holiday weekend. Defendants announced their intent to begin, barely. 12 hours later, a massive operation to clear 529 trees at East Potomac Golf Course. Plaintiffs received no more notice than the court. By 8 a.m. on Saturday, defendants' workers had arrived in full force that began felling, including healthy trees.

And shortly after the conference, they held with the judge on Sunday, defendants notified plaintiffs that the tree-raising operation was proceeding faster than expected. Hooray, except that's in violation of the court's orders. Here's how the judge addressed the lawyers. With that, as it backtrub. What happened has cost the government all of its credibility with me in this case. And she ordered people to show up and to testify about what happened. She continued, I am just beyond disappointed in the government.

I've done everything humanly possible to give the government the benefit of the doubt. I don't know why, but you know, you have to do that if you're a federal judge. I don't have to as a legal commentator. I've done it for months, she said. I have no faith. This is the judge that the government is not going to cut them down the trees unless there's an order in place not to do so. Now we're all going to have to have a massive fire drill

because the government can't be trusted. Once you lose the trust if you're a lawyer in a courtroom, you're done, you're baked. And she's told them, I don't trust you at all. I did trust you, but you have abused my trust, and I'm now taking it away from you. She continued, there is no excuse for this, and you know why I'm furious right now. I was hearing from everyone on the plaintiff's side, right? That's the side that is represented by Democracy Ford, D.C. Preservation League.

I was hearing from everybody over there that this was going to happen. And I said, no, no, I trust the government. I trusted y'all repeatedly to do what you have, to not do what you've done. I'm just that a total loss, Judge Reyes said to understand what's happened here. That's when a very brave, or the opposite of brave, Marissa Pirapado, who represents the government, said to the judge and triggered her, we've done our best to notify the court about the tree cutting. She said, no, you didn't do that. You didn't do your best.

You did your absolute worst. And she continued. She said, here's the thing, counsel. there are American citizens who are deeply concerned with the actions of the government. I repeatedly on the record said, don't be concerned. I trust the government. I do not understand why this went forward on Saturday.

Why did this go forward on Saturday? And Peripato, the discretion being the better part of Valor, said, I have nothing further to add to the record, and she sat down. I'm a trial lawyer, but my two-year-old Francesca is opposing counsel at the dinner table. Vegetables, objection. Negotiations? She wants yogurt.

Counsel would like a recess. That's where Ella Ola comes in, a tasteless, colorless, multivitamin powder for kids ages 2 through 11. One sachet a day stirred into yogurt, juice, or whatever they already eat. No trace, no taste, and no closing argument required. It's pediatrician developed with 19 essential vitamins and minerals, plus nutrients from 15 organic fruits and vegetables, zero sugar, no artificial, dyes or sweeteners and free of the top nine allergens.

Ellaola is offering my listeners, 20% off your first purchase. Just go to Ellaola.com slash legal a.f. Discount applied automatically. No code needed. Try it risk-free with Ellaola's 45-day money-back guarantee. Go to Ellaola.com slash legal a.F for 20% off your first purchase. Let me show you because Judge Reyes has been on legal A.F. Not to talk about these issues, to talk about the attacks on the judiciary. But I want you to get a little bit of a flavor for Judge Reyes.

Here's a clip. In early February, I issued a decision in a high-profile immigration case that received a tremendous amount of news coverage. And after I issued the decision, the next day I received or that night and then thereafter for a number of days, I received dozens and dozens and dozens of very angry emails, some of them threatening. I received countless voicemail messages that were threatening and problematic in many ways. And social media also blew up. And I had another hearing a week later on the same case, and I decided at the end of the hearing to put on the record some of the threats that I had received.

I spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not to do that. I talked to some of my colleagues about it, and I felt it was important to put on the record the kind of things that were happening to judges so that we had the ability or people were able to see directly from the judges what was happening and not just hearing it second or third hand and the actual words that were being used.

Now here's the orders that she's put in place, which will take us over the weekend, over Saturday, and Sunday, and I think we're going to get a ruling Sunday, Monday of next week. In the meantime, the temporary restraining order to stop the continued cutting down of trees is in place. Minute order, the court orders the fetid to cease all tree removal at East Potomac Golf Course because the court, the plaintiffs are likely to suffer immediate and irreparable harm. She then set a hearing. She then, in a separate order, set a, briefing schedule. The court orders that the hearing is continued until Monday. The court orders that

Greg Wisher and Jessica Bauron, who represent the government, attend Monday's preliminary injunction hearing. She orders that if the plaintiffs are going to file a motion for preliminary injunction, they do it by this Wednesday at 12, we'll cover that. That any brief by the government and opposition comes in Friday at 12 and that the plaintiffs get one more brief Saturday at 9 p.m. She's then going to hold the hearing on Monday the 19th at 10 a.m. We'll cover it here. And no, I don't think it helps when people outside the nitty gritty of inside of a courtroom like Stephen Miller say stupid things like, well, I must have fell asleep when the Constitutional

Convention made golf course management of judge's prerogative. Now, this is much greater than golf course management, Stephen. This is about the rule of law, Donald Trump, in the Department of Justice's, and you, the administration's lack of respect for court orders and how judges have had it. It's, yeah, it's about trees, but it's about more than that. It's about fundamental principles. It's about contempt of court. It's about the power of the judiciary to provide oversight over an out-of-control executive branch. Don't be fooled by references to Gulf and trees.

Oh, and the liberal left is always in a rage when we try to beautify Washington. We're not about that. We saw how you beautified Washington when you effed up and legal effed up the reflecting pool and then try to blame Daveyard, who is now about to sue the government for being falsely indicted for destroying the seven-acre reflect. pool destroyed by Donald Trump. We saw you destroy a third of the White House in the middle of the night, claim that you could do it because nobody can stop you.

That's what this is about. That's what the midterms are about. Hell, we're 20 days away from the midterms. Midterms have already started. People have elected their ballots. They've mailed in their mail-in ballots. They've mailed in their absentee ballots. Voting has started already.

That's what this is about. That's what's on the ballot. continue to follow it all right here. I might as touch, come over to LegalAF YouTube channel. You're going to want to follow this fast-moving story. I'm going to do it with you and for you on LegalAF YouTube channel. Thank you for helping us get over the 1,260,000 subscriber threshold in the last day on our way to 1.3 million by the midterms and over 870 million views in the two years

that we've been up and running. Appreciate all of you. thank you from the bottom of our heart and our gratitude for the generosity of your time and spirit. Until my next report, this is Michael Popak. If you love this episode, make sure you're subscribed to the Intersection Audio Podcasts wherever you listen to podcasts. It's my solo ride, and we release new episodes daily, all completely free.