Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Hacks, Flacks & Quacks

Episode Date: September 19, 2021

The top-rated weekly law and politics podcast -- LegalAF -- produced by MeidasTouch and anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, is back for another hard-hitting, thought-provoking yet entertaining look at the most compelling developments at the intersection of law and politics in real-time. On this episode, Ben and Popok explore and explode this week’s political litigation developments: 1. Bombshell revelations about why Trump chose Rudy “I will say anything” Giuliani to be his lawyer when no legitimate lawyer would take his cases. 2. The troubling indictment for lying of democratic lawyer Michael Sussman by Trump’s special prosecutor looking into Russian interference for providing compelling evidence of Russian involvement, but allegedly not disclosing to the FBI that he also worked for the Clinton Campaign. 3. This week’s decision by a North Carolina 3-judge trial panel to overturn the state’s new Voter ID laws as racially-biased and violative of the State’s Equal Protection Clause. 4. The FBI’s bumbling investigation of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, the 4,5000 tips it received prior to his confirmation, and what it means for the future. 5. This week’s decision by an upstate NY federal judge to block New York’s front-line health worker vax mandate on First Amendment, religious grounds. 6. Key Developments in the USA v. the State of Texas case challenging the constitutionality of the abortion ban and now assigned to an Obama-appointee federal judge sitting in Austin, and a full hearing on the matter to be held by him in 2-weeks’ time. 7. A “friends of the court” brief just filed by the architect of the Texas Bounty Hunter/Handmaid’s Tale abortion ban, the state’s former solicitor general, seeking not only the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but also that women should go back to the Dark Ages of abstaining from sex altogether, and calling for the elimination of gay marriage and gay sex as a constitutional right. 8. And, updates, updates on: (a) E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit against Trump in Manhattan federal court; and (b) a Jan6 insurrectionist trying to walk away from a sweet-heart 8 month plea deal for breaking into the Senate Chamber by claiming his plea agreement was “forged.” Special Easter Eggs Alert: Popok receives NO yellow cards from Ben on this episode but does demand that Ben wear a LegalAF t-shirt on the next show. Reminder and Programming Note: All past episodes of Legal AF originally featured on the MeidasTouch podcast can now be found here on this channel. Follow Legal AF on Twitter here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Midas Touch Legal AF podcast. If it's Saturday, it is Legal AF Live. If it's Sunday, it is Legal AF Ben. My cell is with Michael Popak, aka the man, the myth, the myth, the legend, the Popakian, Michael Popak. How are you doing? I'm doing really great. I'm doing really great today, Ben. So good to see you.

I'm really excited for this one. I saw the lineup that you put together that we cultivated for today's show. I really like it. Now let's see if we can get our legal AF law school graduates, our future graduates to like it too. It was so funny, Popo. Whenever I do the intro, I'm always thinking which nickname should I throw at you today? Should I go popokian?

Is it popokian? Is isms. And so I love the engagement. I love the new legal AF merch by the way that everybody seems to love. I think it was the right move to move away from, I think we had the legal analysis friends, which is what the AF stands for and just go legal AF. People love that merchant. I think I saw somebody wearing it the other day actually out here in California when I was going to

farmers market. It was super cool to see a legal F.A. That will be that will be the highlight of my day. Oh, by the way, there is a growing ground swell for what you coined, which was the legal a F F or F for life as one of our major followers says. No, it's great. And listen, we got to embrace the logo. It's a little cheeky, but the title was a little cheeky when you and I came up with it. So it shouldn't run away from it.

We got to embrace it. I love it. Yeah. And I like the merged legal a effort. You illegal, you illegal a effort. As everybody knows, the legal a efforts know the popokians know. Here on a f we like to break down the pressing legal issues in digestible ways you could understand so you could also learn the

law as we discuss these issues the complexities within the law but we try to break it down in simple ways the first item that I want to discuss is, it goes into the fact why the legal profession are such stewards of our democracy and why it is so critical and so vital for lawyers to uphold their legal oaths, their oaths to protect and defend the law and the Constitution. And it's the fact that in this new book, peril by Bob Woodward always gets incredible scoops, Bob. But in this new book, he has people saying how Trump was complaining that the only lawyer that Trump could hire to deal with all these bullshit cases that they wanted to file, the best he could really do was Rudy Giuliani because, quote,

none of these sane lawyers would represent. And, man, it wasn't just Rudy Giuliani. There was a lot of other lawyers who were kind of of that elk who decided to represent Trump. But there were efforts at the very beginning, Popoq, you might recall, of some large firms that were determining whether they wanted to help Trump and to help the GQP in these fake cases that they were bringing in federal courts to try to overturn the elections in a democratic process that was a free and fair election might as touch you may recall made a video for those who want to go back and check it out called shame on Jones Day.

I just checked it out. It has about 1.7 million views. And Jones Day is a large law firm, very good law firm with a lot of great lawyers, a lot of lawyers I know and who I'm friends with who appreciated that we made the video, you know, and told me privately, great job on that video. There were certain people who were doing that case. Jones Day had a withdraw from that case and didn't pursue any more action in these election fraud cases. Jones Day made their Twitter completely private. And to this day, that was like back in November. I just checked it out again. They still have, if you go on their Twitter, you can't interact with them like they've disabled all comments, you know, which is still weird. Like you're a large international

law firm that is representing major corporations and major figures. So it's like, yeah, I mean, and a negative comment on there. But they had some good lawyers, but I think this, you know, this story basically shows, I think it was Trump being quoted, he's crazy. He says crazy shit, I get it, but none of the saying lawyers can represent me because they've been pressured.

The actual lawyers have been told they cannot represent. Wait, wait, stop. The actual lawyers won't take my case. I have to use Rudy. Exactly. And look, I think that shows Popak the work of the Midas mighty, you know, when you have to sometimes pressure lawyers to do the right thing. And the duty that we have as lawyers to do the right thing. And the duty that we have as lawyers to do the right thing is paramount. And I think it's fine. And we'd love to get your take. Like, I'm okay with lawyers representing people who are accused of crimes. Everyone has the right to a lawyer. You go back to, you know, the very founding of our country with John Adams, representing British troops who were charged

in the Boston massacre. And you want to provide that level of representation to people, but I don't think you should be able to overturn the Constitution, which is what those Trump efforts were. No, listen, we've talked about it on prior pods. I don't want to live in either to you and either to the Midas mighty in a society where there isn't a vigorous defense for accused in our judicial system. And there are plenty of countries, and I'll tweet about them, where the accused is basically convicted on the day of arrest by a puppet government. And there's plenty of those behind the iron curtain and otherwise North Korea included.

I don't wanna live there. We're not talking about that, you and I. What you and I are talking about are lawyers who violate their oath that they take as constitutional officers, as legal officers, because they are advocating positions that have no merit that are, as you said, either treasonous or mutinous for the overthrow of the country. A lawyer has boundaries that they are not allowed to cross. It's one thing, and we saw this in some of the cases that you

and I talked about about Sydney Powell, about Lynn Wood, about the federal judges who are now throwing the book at these lawyers in the cleanup after Jan 6th and after the big lie and saying, you don't have a first amendment right as a lawyer. You have an ethical obligation and a constitutional oath that you obtain that you have to uphold. And you know, just back on a personal note, because I know you and I share some of that with our, with our followers and listeners, I was in Florida. I know it's going to shock you, because you've made me Florida man on this podcast. But I was in Florida as a young lawyer when Bush versus Gore was being litigated and in Florida as the battleground.

I was, this will be no shock to anyone. I was on the streets in front of the Palm Beach County election office every day while they were counting. I actually got on, if you'll believe this, I got onto a little known show called the Chris Matthews Hardball Show three times. They pulled me off the street to be a part of like an audience that Chris bounced ideas around with at one point. But my law firm had a choice at that time, whether it's stay neutral or to jump in on the democratic side at that time in the Bush versus Gore debate. And many law firms in Florida that were really well established faced a dilemma.

Did they want to at the peril of bringing in other business and pissing off other clients, did they want to do sort of what was right and get on one side of the equation or the other, you know, on the vote counting on Bush versus Gore? Or kind of stay neutral. And unfortunately my law firm at the time when I was a very young partner decided, no, that's radioactive, that we're representing public sector officials, we don't want to get involved. And I did it sort of on the side privately, but there were law firms that stepped forward and said, no, we want to be. And I'm okay with the ones that represented Bush. They were honorable people. This was a legitimate constitutional debate and discussion over

vote counting. That's not what we have now. No credible human being on planet earth believes that Joe Biden did not win or that voter fraud. So in fact, at the election that Trump actually won. There is no thinking human being that really believes that. There are paid shills, There is no thinking human being that really believes that. There are paid shills, both political hacks and lawyer hacks who have taken up the cause for money, but that's different. And so the fact that it all came out now that as we said earlier to Tweet, the quiet part is being set out loud in Bob Woodward's book where people are confessing to him and saying, yeah, we hire Rudy Giuliani because they'll say anything.

He'll do anything for money. What a side. Right. And we will definitely keep everybody updated as well on the developments in the duty Rudy Giuliani criminal investigation. That's now taking place on multiple fronts, tune into future Midas Touch legal AF for those updates and popoctas briefly. On the Florida issue with Bush v. Gore, we were talking about a few hundred votes that were at stake

and the counting of those votes in one state versus the completely spurious, bogus, ridiculous conspiracy theories being spewed here. Popo, I want to talk about a headline, and then I want to get into the law and what is really going on here. So let's start with the headline. here. So let's start with the headline. Democratic lawyer Michael Susman is indicted accused of lying to FBI in Russia probe. What's going on here? A Democratic lawyer in a Russia probe who's being indicted, you know, Michael Susman, a renowned preeminent lawyer, at a credible offer, Perkins Coy, a grand jury is returning an indictment, and Michael Susman is a cyber security attorney. And you think to yourself,

why would a Democrat be in this Russian probe? Well, you dig a little bit deeper here, and you have to recall, and you have to remember that United States attorney, John Durham, who was the US attorney, basically the top prosecutor in Connecticut, who resigned his post as US attorney for Connecticut, but was appointed in October by then attorney general William Barr as special counsel with the mandate of investigating, quote, the origins of the Trump Russia probe. And that's what he was hired to do.

So Durham is a lackey of Trump and Bill Barr for the purpose not so much of investigating what Russia did wrong to try to influence the election and to try to sabotage and engage in the troll farms. No, I mean, that's pretty well established. What Durham was there to determine was how did all of the Russia information get out there? How can we go after basically the whistleblowers and the people who brought that to light? So, Popo, what's going on here? Yeah, your headline sounds like Fox News is wet dream, but when you really unpack it, it has to do with the fact that Democrats have a moral basis, a moral universe that they operate in, and Republicans don't.

And what do I mean by that? So when Biden took office legitimately, he could have basically fired this independent prosecutor, a special prosecutor that Trump had appointed this John Durham to investigate what we refer to colloquially as the Russia hack investigation of 2016. He could have done that. Trump certainly would have done that or another Republican had they taken office. But Biden said, no, we're not going to play their game. We're not going to get down in the mud. We're going to let the special prosecutor, even though it was appointed by Trump, even though he has credentials that would suggest that

it would be somebody that a Trumper would like and not a Democrat. We're going to let him do his job. And really one of the only indictments, there's two indictments that have come out of this four or five year grand jury. And this is one of them right before the end of a five year statute of limitations for the federal crime of lying to the federal government, which is 18 USC 2001 often used in prosecutions because it's sort of easy. You don't have to prove perjury. You don't have to prove the person was under oath in a litigated environment and gave false testimony. All you have to prove or at least show to get the indictment at the grand jury level is that a government official, in this case, the general counsel of the FBI in a meeting with Michael Sussman was lied to, at least that's the allegation.

And what was the lie? What was allegedly the big lie? Did it have to do with the underlying material that Michael Sustman provided to the FBI, the white papers that were prepared with backup and and exhibits and information about connecting the Trump organization to a Russian bank and therefore the Russia hack. No, they had no problem with the information. They believe the Michael Sussman did not properly reveal, quote unquote, who his client was, or if he had a client at all. So in other words, he was there. They later, at least the indictment reads on behalf of the Clinton campaign when Hillary was running for office and a tech executive. They say, right?

And a couple of tech executives that were sort of related to this and some professors that were doing some work on behalf of the Clinton campaign and doing some research, but it really comes down to he didn't reveal that he was working for the Clinton campaign and by extension the Democratic National Committee, the DNC, which begs the question, who did they think he was there representing his law firm at the time, and I say at the time, because since he's been indicted, either he's elected to or his firm has required him to resign from Perkins Quay. He was, when he went that day, that day that will not live in his own personal history to meet with the FBI director, his law firm was publicly announced as being

the general counsel for the Clinton campaign. So here's a partner from a law firm that is publicly acknowledging that they are the Clinton campaigns general counsel. And the FBI general counsel is confused as to who this person is representing. And what they put in the indictment was, well, we thought Michael Sasmin was just there as a quote, unquote, good citizen to give us a, you know, 500 page white paper, you know, all good citizens roll into their FBI office and hand in a properly researched dossier about the connection between one presidential candidate

and our arch enemy Russia. That happens every day. Okay, it doesn't. And so I find it sort of beyond stretching credulity that the FBI really was duped by Michael Sussman. Now, if Michael Sussman did, if he was asked point blank, who are you here representing? And he said, I'm not representing any particular one client. I'm not even sure that's a lie. I'm not even sure that is a lie. I'm not even sure that is a lie because he was

representing multiple democratic interests when he delivered the thing. And at the bottom, who really cares if the information that he was given that he gave to the FBI was credible and gave them leads and gave them information and condition condition or continue the investigation. What does it matter who they really thought he was representing at that particular moment. So they charged in the indictment, well, had the FBI known that you were really representing the Clinton campaign, they might have,

and then they kind of trail off. They don't really say what they might have done or not done and evaluating the credibility of that information. But in the meantime, a well respected, you know, a lawyer in Michael Sussman is having his career basically, you know, sacrificed on the altar of Trumpism for what purpose? So you and I are going to follow this closely. You know, I think he's been, I think he's been railroaded here by a prosecutor whose job

is about to evaporate because that just limitations are running and he felt like he needed to put a big pelt on the wall. So that Fox News would go crazy for a couple of news cycles. But at the end, you have a 40 year law career that stands in shambles and shredded because of it. Absolutely. And I mean, if you believe the case and you accept the facts as even pled in the complaint, what you're talking about is this semantic decision of or just the semantics of whether or not he said, this was my client or here are my clients or I'm

giving this to you or do you represent someone? I mean, it's also very possible in connection with the meeting, the way the scope of a representation is. He couldn't reveal it. Yeah, exactly. There's client confidences as well. And also to say, is this specifically in the course of scope of a representation? Like, is there a billable hour connected with this specific act?

Or do I have this information through clients that I'm presenting to you because the fate of our democracy is hanging in the balance? But here you have someone who was trying to help the country. Here you have someone in Susman who wanted to do the right thing and to prevent Russia from going after the United States and destroying our democracy and you have Trump appointing a federal prosecutor, a special prosecutor to go after the whistleblower. It's funny. I was in a case when I was in my global head of litigation world, where Durham was the prosecutor in Connecticut. And all of a sudden, he disappeared one day from the pleadings and from the case that we were like,

hey, I wonder what happened to that guy. Now we know he popped up as the special prosecutor. But let me shock or maybe not shock our followers and listeners. Lawyers, good lawyers, ethical lawyers, like Ben and I, sometimes have to lie to opposite, not to the court, but to our opposition or to others in the legal process to protect the confidences of the client that we are paid and ethically duty bound to represent. Correct. And, you know, and, and, and, somebody actually point blank, who, who is your client? I may be able to tell them.? I may be able to tell them. I may not be able to tell them.

And I may not be able to tell them that I'm not able to tell them. Right. And here, the issue is, look, you cannot overtly lie to a law enforcement agency like the FBI. But in terms of a case about whether you specifically have to affirmatively share attorney-client confidence is with them, I think is something that you don't have to do and it's a silly premise for a case. And so moving from a special prosecutor Durham to another place where there is a Durham in North Carolina, although it's not directly related to Durham. And I went to Duke, it's a Durham near and dear to my heart.

You've got Durham connections. A North Carolina court after a trial, a long trial, lots of times these cases don't go to trials. They usually end in consent decrees, resolutions, injunctions, but a full-fledged trial was held on North Carolina voter ID laws to determine whether or not they were, they had discriminatory intent against African-Americans in North Carolina. These were additional restrictive voter ID laws. These laws, Popok, I believe, were stayed since 2018.

There was an injunction that prevented the voter ID laws in the restrictive voter ID laws in North Carolina from being enacted. And then a full trial was held in April. There was a full-fledged ruling that basically said that the law was racist. I mean, they didn't sugarcoat it in this opinion. I mean, if you just look at basically the headings

of this ruling, it basically says, you know, North Carolina has a history of imposing. The table of contents, right? The table of contents tells you where you're going. They have a history of imposing racist laws. These laws are racist. They specifically target African-American voters who are more likely to lack qualifying IDs than white voters.

Popoq, this ruling is likely to get appealed, but I doubt there will be a ruling on the appeal before the 2022 elections. Tell us what's going on in this one. Yeah, this one's fascinating, and I'm going to do something that we you and I haven't done, but I think we're going to start doing. You talked last week about this really eloquent and poignantly written opinion. And I think you and I are going to start on our Twitter feeds, at least for legal AF posting right after the podcast recording Some of these opinions so people can that it's not required to pass the course for legal AF But for those that want to do a little more and see what we're talking about So this was 102 pages and what I liked about this

This is sort of the microcosm of everything you and I have been doing over the last 24 episodes, all coming to a head in one place. There's three or four interesting things about this case all at one time. One, we're going to talk about state constitutional analysis. We've always talked about federal constitutional analysis. And for instance, this state has, as most do, an equal protection clause that is co extensive with the federal constitution. But the entire analysis is under the state of North Carolina's constitution. The second thing that's interesting about the case is unlike other states, because there's a constitutional attack or an equal protection attack on the on the statute, a three-judge

trial panel, not a pellet panel, not a, not a, not a feel three, three trial judges sat for this 20 day trial. And the majority went. So two out of three, whatever their opinion is, that's what got reported in the 102 pages. Then there was a descent. They got written up as well. So we got a three. The first time you and I have talked about a three judge trial panel making a decision. And then we're gonna look at legislative intent behind a statute and how that's used by a court to render its ruling.

And also docket and venue, you and I are gonna talk a little bit later in the podcast about where cases are filed to litigators and trial lawyers like you and I are really, really important. Even within states that people would say, oh, that's a red state, that's a blue state. Even within red states and blue states, there are places that are more or less conservative or more democratic. And where you pick and what judge you get as a result is really important to the result. So let's break down this one. This North Carolina passed

on a referendum to change its constitution to add voter identification and other quote-unquote voter fraud issues. This ruling does not attack the constitutionality of the amendment to the North Carolina constitution at all. What it goes after is the statute that was passed by the legislature of North Carolina. That's why they're the defendants in the case. That was supposed to effectuate the amendment passed by the voters of North Carolina. Because if there's a gap between what you're supposed to pass as the statute and the effectuating constitutional amendment, that's where mischief comes in. And that's where courts are supposed to protect that the legislature has gone too far and farther than the amendment to the constitution that the

voters have passed. And again, this is all in the fever pitch of the days after the big lie and Trump's lost the Biden. And what all these Republican houses, although North Carolina has really gotten to be more of a blue state, but it still has the remnants of being in the South. And therefore, we always look with a John Dost Eye towards anything that attacks voter rights

and black voter rights in a state like North Carolina, at least historically. So this panel said, let's look at the equal protection clause of the North Carolina Constitution, which matches the one in the US Constitution. And what they said is what we need to look at, for example, is the legislative history, the process by which this bill, which is another Senate bill,

we've talked a lot about Senate bills, but a Senate bill. How quickly it was passed? What did the sponsors say about it? What happened on the floor debate among the legislators? And can we fair it out and suss out from that, a bias? And what they said was, if we apply all of those factors and I just want to give our listeners some of the factors which are really, really interesting.

One, the bill passed in 20 days. Normal legislative session over a bill like this was 144 days. So they did it in 20 days. It's like the same 20 days that Coney Barrett got put into our Supreme Court to see it in. So very quick, right? Heated debate. Certain black legislators were shut down from debate, from the floor of the legislature based on parliamentary procedural rules.

But the judges all said, look, that's a problem. You did it too fast. You did the heat of the moment. You shut down voices of color and minority and diverse members of the legislature who all said you're going too fast. This is going to have a disparate impact on black and brown voters. Why are we doing this? And the other thing that you look at besides the legislative history is the history of the state itself. And this panel of three said North Carolina has a terrible and recent history of voter suppression

against black and brown people, including federal cases that have come and the fourth circuit, which is the appellate circuit for North Carolina, having to overturn a series of voter suppression laws that North Carolina was responsible for as recently as the 1990s. So when you look at all of that and you look at the actual text and language of the voter ID, which would have fall and disproportionately on black and brown voters, the two out of the three judges said, there's no doubt in my mind on the face of this law, it is racially motivated and biased and they're going to strike it down. Now it's going to go to a point that they also Popeye, which may be worth mentioning, is the number of instances of

fraud and whether that jived with the allegations. Yeah, I think over the past 20 years or 30 years in the extensive research, there were like two documented instances in history of the state. Yeah, that's an interesting point you just raised that I want to bring up now. There is, and has been for the last 40 or 50 years as part of political science, a whole segment of political science that's devoted to voting and voting rights and voting results, holding up a mirror to our own process. These researchers who get doctorates on this stuff and spend years and PhDs, they mine

all of the data. And collectively, they have found that one half of one percent of voting is infected with fraud nationally, one half of one percent. Okay, it's not that it doesn't happen. I don't want anybody to think and listening to either might as touch or legal a half with you and I that we are suggesting that fraud doesn't happen. It does. It does, but it happens at such low numbers statistically that in no way

could it ever could it ever overcome a national or local election. And when it is really that close, then they do recounts by hand and otherwise to get to the bottom of it. So the takeaway here is voter fraud happens, but it never happens historically at a rate that would be enough to change the outcome of an election. Such a diminimous percentage. And oftentimes the cases that we do see a voter fraud tends to be these crazy GQ peers and the Trumpers who, you know, tried to vote twice or three times. There was a dead people voting. They take their mothers dead ballot, you know? It's such a GQP progression projection thing. So we will keep everybody updated on what's going on

in North Carolina. Popoq any final thoughts there? No, I think that's a fascinating case. It's going to be stayed. I think you're right. It's not going to impact the election per se. And I think when it goes to the, you know, the problem is when it goes to the fourth, I think the fourth tends to be a little bit more conservative, the fourth district court

of appeal. I'm sorry, the fourth circuit. But listen, it's going to be another one of these. This is why you and I are going to be in business for a long time with legal AF. Hopefully that's music to our followers and listeners ears because next Supreme Court docket putting aside any more emergency applications which could certainly come up in the months of September and October. We start getting to full argument in October and results in the spring. You know, all of these things we're talking about now are critical constitutional, personal privacy and civil liberty issues

which are which are going to end up unfortunately before supreme court that many that you and i many of our listeners have graved out so about absolutely let's talk pop up about justice bret kavanaugh thinking about so about justice is Exactly the transition, Popak. That was a Popakian interception of the exact words.

I was actually going to use that in the transition. But the, you know, his names come up a few times this week, Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The first is in connection with a ninth circuit court of appeals, nominee, Jennifer Sung. Popak, I think we've explained to our listeners that we talk about the federal district courts when these federal district court cases get appealed. They get appealed to the circuit courts that are throughout the country. And then ultimately those could get appealed to the Supreme

Court, and the Supreme Court takes not that many of those cases, and only if there are disputes, usually if there are disputes between circuit courts or some major constitutional issue, or some bigger issues that play, will the Supreme Court decide to take a case on a, what's a writ of certiary or a cert writ is when the Supreme Court takes a case. But here we have a ninth circuit nominee. Her name is Jennifer Sung. Her position right now, she's a neutral adjudicator for the Oregon Employment Relations Board.

She's one of Biden's federal nominees. She's nominated to be on the ninth circuit court of appeals. When you nominate someone to be in the federal courts or a court of appeals judge like this, they have to sit before the Senate Judicial Committee panel who asks questions. And here there was a lot of grilling of Jennifer Sung over past remarks that she made,

well, she didn't make, it was in a letter that former Yale students submitted when Justice Kavanaugh was being nominated. And she signed it. And she signed it. Calling him morally it. I'm calling him morally bankrupt. And so she was grilled whether or not he was morally bankrupt. She stated, quote, I did not write the letter, but I recognize that much of its rhetoric was overheated.

And if by signing that letter, I created the impression that I would prejudge any case or fail to respect the authority of any Supreme Court justice or any of the court's precedents that I sincerely apologize. She did not say that she does not think that he's morally bankrupt. And when pressed on that matter, she basically repeated that line that she would respect the authority that Justice Cabavanaugh has as a Supreme Court justice, but would not answer whether or not he was moral bankrupt. Yeah, I remember the good old days like 30 years ago when the only thing we were concerned

about was whether a Supreme Court nominee smoked potternot. Like Ginsburg had to give up his entire position and they had to replace him with somebody because he smoked a joint in college. Yeah. And now we got to talk about Brett Kavanaugh and whether, you know, later on, we'll talk about whether 4,500 tips about him being morally bankrupt and depraved in college should have been followed up by the FBI. So here, I want to ask you something too, back to you Ben, because Callie's, you know,

your neck of the woods. I think she's a fine candidate. I looked her up, but I was a little surprised, you know, your neck of the woods. I think she's a fine candidate. I looked her up, but I was a little surprised, you know, she's been on this labor board thing for a short period of time. She's really a private lawyer who's worked in labor and labor organizing and never was a judge, let alone a trial judge.

And Biden has put her up to be on the ninth circuit court of appeal, sort of skipping what would be normal steps of starting out as a trial judge to learn the process and then, you know, sort of being elevated to the appeal court. What do you, what do you think about that? Then I'll get to Kavanaugh and her comments to, uh, and Ted Cruz not letting her off the hook during the confirmation hearing. But what do you think about her being elevated, like directly to a pellet judge on the ninth circuit? You know, I always find it interesting, you know, and I say this on a kind of bipartisan

way when someone's appointed to the ninth circuit or a court of appeals without having been a federal district court judge before that and kind of skipping that step. But I think you look back, I tell people to look at civil rights.org and they do a real good recitation of Miss Sung's impressive legal career. It talks about her work at the Employment Relations Board.

It talks about her organizing and community organizing. You know, when I do think it is helpful to have voices in the judiciary who reflect labor, you know, and reflect other important aspects that are not just, you know, representing large corporations. And so her experience to me in the field of labor, there are lots of labor disputes that come before the court. And I think you can equally say that how could someone be qualified to handle a labor case as a district

court judge if all they've handled was representing corporations that destroy labor. And so you have to get diversity on the court diversity of views. You say employee labor or destroy labor? Destroy labor. And I heard you. I think both employee and destroy labor sometimes. But you have to have someone who reflects and has those views, diversity of views, diversity of opinions, actual diversity is important. And

that's what Biden's nominees have embodied so far. Well, you know what that reminds me, you're right about that. I agree with you. And just bring that historical background here, Justice Kagan, who's the fourth woman on the US Supreme Court, never served as a trial judge. She was the first female dean of Harvard Law School. She was one of our solicitor general. She was the solicitor general, where she argued cases in front of the US Supreme Court.

But she was nominated to be a district judge, and her nomination, because the way the Senate was being controlled at that time never got taken up in a sort of died in committee. She then went back to Harvard became the dean of Harvard Law School and then got elevated by Obama. She never served as a trial judge. I think she's doing a pretty fine job as a Supreme Court justice. There is a different Court justice. So there is a different policy. A lot of these Trump nominees were just

completely unqualified people. He picked a lot of people from the ranks as like associates, from like large law firms with ties to the Republican Party, who had no experience whatsoever in adjudicating anything or overseeing disputes or actually seeing the law function. I mean, if you want to have any knock on this current nominee, you can say that while she's only handled labor cases or that's kind of her specialty, but she has an expertise where she's dealt with disputes, which is what she's going to be doing as a nine circuit judge. She has to write opinions in her position. And so there is real world experience there.

I have, and I have a soft spot for her. She, she, looking at her bio, she, I was at, people know my background. I was, started my career at SCAD, Narps in New York. She was a SCAD and fellow to the Brennan Center for constitutional issues and democracy here in New York, meaning that big Wall Street law firm, White shoe law firm paid her way, paid her so that she could be, you know, have a living wage or more while she served an internship at the Brennan Center. She's got the right credentials for me.

You know, listen, I think they rehearsed what she needed to do when Ted Cruz went after her and said, I want your answer. Do you think, you know, justice, Kavanaugh is morally bankrupt? I mean, I would have loved for her to have just said, I do sir. But instead, she wants to get the position. So she's sort of equivocated. And at one point, she said, Oh, it was a fevered pitch of the moment. And I signed a letter. But I'll always respect all the justices and their precedent. That's the best she could do. I hope she gets on. I get bygna lot of credit. And it shows he's got a couple of brass ones because she's not an easy candidate to get through. He knew she was going to hit headwinds of resistance, especially having signed the letter. And he was like, full steam ahead. Let's get her

on the night circuit while we have the Senate. Okay. We'll keep you updated on more developments. There are pop-up speaking of developments, though, with Justice Kavanaugh, you know, also in the news, whether the FBI conducted a proper investigation into Kavanaugh's background and connection with his confirmation. I think the FBI received, they disclosed to the Senate, I don't believe this June, two years after the confirmation hearing that it had received 4,500 tips from the public that could be deemed relevant tips about issues surrounding Kavanaugh. Of course, we know about the blazy Ford accusations, Christine Blaziford, a professor who knew Kavanaugh in high school, regarding him sexually assaulting her, which he bravely and

courageously spoke about. But even her ability to go to the FBI and other accusers' ability, the FBI, was stifled. The FBI director, Chris Ray, claimed that there was a memorandum of understanding that prevented him from investigating unless he was permitted from the White House and he was not permitted. There's some dispute here about whether that MOU actually controlled. That's what was in the news this week. Did this memorandum of understanding? And Pope, I want you to tell us, what is this memorandum of understanding? And why does it matter? Is this one of these traditions

and norms that people follow that you just want to, you know, just get so angry about because you're like, just do what's right here, you know, why you file following some MOU that may or may not be actually a legal binding document on you or is it a legal binding document? You know, and he said, I couldn't investigate it. But the new, the new allegations are the MOU didn't prevent him from investigating it. It just required a little bit more of a back and forth with the White House and the White House could have limited the inquiry, but could not have prevented the inquiry. Po-Bach, is this like a distinction without any meaning? Is this meaningful?

And I think for our viewers and listeners, is there anything we can really do because I don't think I don't want to get anyone's hopes up that just in Kavanaugh is going to be removed. He's not. He's not. You know, the process there was, frankly, the whole process for all of Trump's nominees was shameful. Yeah, this has been a really bad week for Chris Ray, the FBI director, and the FBI. It's not quite in our wheelhouse, so we're not going to, we don't really spend time on the really gut wrenching testimony by the US Gymnastic team about Larry Nasser

and his sexual abuse of them over years. But, you know, the FBI didn't, didn't cover itself in glory in that case, either, in having ignored tips and leads and not having properly investigated, which is at the heart of the matter. And the Senate Judiciary Committee, as you're saying, is doing a post-mortem. We're not going to get Cavanaugh impeached off of this. Question is, what went wrong and why? And who's responsible for it?

So it doesn't happen again. So they're pulling Chris Ray back in front of them about why didn't you do a proper job of investigating the Supreme Court nominee that was Brad Kavanaugh and to remind our viewers and followers the FBI never never interviewed Kavanaugh. Let me just let me just let that hang out there for a moment. They never interviewed Kavanaugh to push back against him on any of the 4,500 tips. I'm not sure all of them are credible. Let's say 100 were credible.

Then you get the person in front of you and you go through them and you try to find his side of the story as you sus it out. So never interviewed Kavanaugh and never interviewed professor Gleysi Ford who had the most damning testimony, sworn testimony about what he did to her when he jumped on top of her and almost raped her when she was in college. And they never interviewed her either. So what did they do?

And then to halt us to fall back on, well, there was a memorandum of understanding, which was apparently signed by Obama's attorney general, Eric Hulter. So just don't think all screw ups are at the hands of the Republicans, in which he was trying to negotiate with the FBI about what the limits of judicial investigation of their nominees would be. This is where, you know, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. And so, now, the unfortunate thing for this show and this recording is, I have not, despite my best efforts, been able to get my hands on the MOU, even though it was apparently produced as part of public records. Have you seen it? I have not seen the MOU. All right. So, I'm going to, I'm going to charge our MidasMighty and Legal AFers to use all lawful means to locate the 2010 MOU signed by Eric Holder

and provide it to Ben and I so that we can do an update, update, update next week. But my reading about the MOU suggests that they have, the FBI has misinterpreted. You know, they have lawyers too. They've misinterpreted what it said and severely cramped and limited, what should have been their primary obligation, which was to get to the bottom of serious charges about the moral morality and ethics of a lifetime appoint points to the US Supreme Court. Speaking of updates, updates, updates, here they come. You've got your updates, updates, updates, updates.

Popoq, we've been talking about Vax requirements, vaccination mandates, mask requirements. We've been talking about these in different states. We've been talking about Biden's testing requirements and requirements for federal employees around vaccines. We've been talking about the potential constitutional challenges that it may confront. And we've spoke about historical precedence. And we went back to the small pox epidemic, the small pox ravaging the United States. Did you see that did you see after our podcast?

Like everybody's talking about that 1905 case, since we did that, I've seen it referred to like a hundred times since our podcast. I'm going to take credit with you. Oh, I think that that originated here. Um, but pop up the precedent seemed to be on the side that while there are personal freedoms and personal liberties, you also when you live in a civilized society have to respect the health and safety of others who are living with you.

And it seemed to support in that case a vaccination requirement there. In New York, there was a vaccination mandate required of health care workers that they at least have their first shot. A number of health care workers then filed a lawsuit and claimed this law is unconstitutional on the basis of our first amendment rights because it discriminates against us on the basis of religion is the argument that they used. They said that this law does not have a religious exemption

and that for religious reasons, we as health care workers refuse to get the vaccine. These health care workers refuse to lend their names to the complaint claiming that they would receive professional blowback if they gave their names But pop up this federal judge in New York a Clinton appointee His name is David heard He granted a preliminary injunction stopping or joining this law, allowing a fuller hearing to take place.

But on the grounds that this New York law did not have a religious exemption and that's how that was analyzed. I want to hear your thoughts, Pope, but I think to some of these news articles that I've read and things I've seen, where you have these just fake use of religion as a pretext to destroy vaccine mandates and requirements that are in the interest of people and people just writing religious exemptions freely when there's really no such religious exemption that takes place. Popeye, what do you think about this? Well, I've got one thing to say, to kick it off.

This judge sits in Utica, New York, in the upper regions of upstate New York, near the Canadian border sort of. I really, I'll be frank, I didn't really understand the underlying legal analysis that he's using and I'll tell you why. On one hand, you have these anonymous doctors and nurses, nurses who claim to be Christian, who say because they're Christian, they can't take vaccine. And therefore, they should be able to treat the public, I guess wearing a mask, they haven't complained about masks, but unvaccinated during the middle of Delta virus and a pandemic. There is a long body of law that says that your religious convictions cannot stand in the

way of public inoculation for disease. That is why the Orthodox Jewish community and the Jehovah Witness community do not sometimes and the Amish community doesn't send their children to public school because if they send their children to public school, one of they send their children to public school, one of the things they'll be required to do is to notulate their children against measles, rebella, and all the other list of diphtheria, whatever the rest is.

Because you can't send your children, that's our social contract. That's the liberty that I possess that also protects another person's liberty. You send your child into the public school system, but he's protected from these childhood diseases. And those that have religious convictions that are really that strong, they can do home teaching. They can teach their kids at home. Even at some states, I'm not sure that's enough. I think your kids still have to be

inoculated because they don't live in a bubble and they're going to be outside. So I think that doesn't even avoid it. How first amendment right to be a Christian allows you to say no to vaccine, I have no earthly idea. I think he's going to have it fully brief. Judge heard HURD. He's told the state September 22, which is right around the corner, tell me your position, which we know is going to be opposing it. And of an on September 28, I'll do it.

He says, I'll do an oral argument. I'll do hearing. And then this is going to go right up to the second circuit and the second circuit, which covers New York, is a very moderate to liberal federal appellate court. And I would be shocked if he doesn't get it right. The second circuit is going to get it right. And the New York State vaccine requirement for healthcare

workers frontline prediction prediction prediction is going to be ultimately upheld. Now the question is, will you and I always talk about these stays? Are that is it going to be stayed while there's full appellate review? And that's going to be, we're going to be talking about that on the next podcast. Sometimes they are stayed. And sometimes they're not stayed. Pope, I would understand this ruling if the government required a religious institution to get a Vax mandate. If they literally said church ex, church Y,

everyone who's in the news, yeah, exactly. The shoes get vaccinated. But these are individuals who made the choice to work in the public health sector, to work as health care, to operate on people, to help sick people, not to make them sicker. So for them to say, my religion should allow me to make my patient sicker, I think also violates their oath as doctors. Right. How about this? My religious, my deeply held religion, sincere religious belief is

that I don't have to wash my hands or wear gloves prior to surgery. That's just my thing. I like to get close to my patients. I like to get right in there with my bare hands. And I think the answer to that is no, and you lose your medical license. You're not, these are not decisions that you individually get to make in an organized society back to the Jacobson, Massachusetts case. These are decisions that are made for us, I'm sorry, to have to wake up our Republican listeners and followers, and I hope we have some, I assume we do,

that there is a state interest that overrides individual liberty to protect and in the area, especially a public health. The logic of this decision, Pope, would basically say, you don't have to follow the laws in a civilized society. Do whatever you want to do and just claim a religious exemption because I like driving the wrong way down a street. Religious exemption.

Religious exemption. Religious exemption. That's completely, no their exemption exemption exemption. That's completely no seatbelt religious exemption. So did you hear this one? Listen to this one. And I apologize. I don't know the state, but I know what happens.

I did read it in a couple of places. There is a community in our country that can no longer offer the services of delivering babies because they because most of the maternity ward has refused to be inoculated as walked off the job. So that community, which is not that big, can no longer offer local services to women to deliver babies because they don't have enough staff that's willing to get inoculated. What country did I wake up in? Apparently upstate New York and upstate New York hospital announced that it will stop delivering babies this month after several

staffers in the maternity department resigned over the hospital systems. Coronavirus mandate. So you're actually you're actually in the area where this lawsuit was filed. So it kind of it kind of makes sense. Popok, we're going to talk about where you file lawsuits right now. But I think we pause here. Do you think that one this bullshit? I just want to call it what it is. This bullshit pretext religious exemption claim here. That's not what this is really about. This is about people trying to undermine vaccine requirements. And it's part of the GQP's agenda to harm us all as Americans. I think that's clear. But do you think as part of the effort, these individuals who are likely organized by GQPers,

they want to stay anonymous, but it's probably not probably I could say with some degree of confidence almost likely is a concerted effort by one of these WACo GQP groups. You think they picked that location specifically to file the law student. Yeah, I'm going to even prove your point, even if you didn't know it, you and I have talked about the Thomas Moore society, which sounds like a religious organization on campus named after St. Thomas Moore, but is actually a private law firm sitting in Chicago that files these cases, Siriotum over and over again, sometimes successfully depending upon the jurisdiction and venue, and sometimes not. You and I have talked about them in prior podcasts and other cases. They filed this lawsuit. There is no doubt in my mind that they hand picked the venue in jurisdiction to file this to even if they

were to pull an Obama or Clinton appointee, which they did in this case, even though he's a senior status judge in his late 70s, that they wanted a very conservative region in the state of New York to test it. Just to give you an example, Stefaniq, who is, I don't know, she's like 30, but she's now the number three member of the house on the Republican side comes from one of these regions and up upstate New York. So for our listeners and followers abroad, and we have a number of them.

And in the United States, the things New York is all liberal, pinko communists, you know, run around. That's Manhattan where I live. But but in the other parts of the state, the more north you know, that run around, that's Manhattan where I live. But but in the other parts of the state, the more north you go, the redder it is. In fact, if you saw the map for the elections for Trump, it's like another one of these sea of reds and then blue, the luckily the sea of red, there's like nine people in each county.

And then the blue, it's the metropolis is like Manhattan, Brooklyn, you know, Staten Island and the like. But yes, they handpicked Utica, New York to be if they're going to challenge this, this New York statute, they're going to find the most conservative region of New York in which to do it. Well, the good thing is land doesn't vote people vote. And so those see it very good. T shirt. New merchandise. Land doesn't vote. Popo, you talked about picking that jurisdiction and our listeners and viewers may be wondering like, wait a minute, I could just pick wherever it is. I want a file. And how do I draw a judge? Maybe give us some context there because we're

going to talk about this case that the DOJ file to enjoy and stop the Texas handmade bounty hunter anti-child bearing person and die women law. We're gonna talk about that in a second, which was filed in Texas, but just briefly, briefly, Popeyes, not a whole papakean diet tribe.

But if you can just, I'm not, I'm not, I don't show is based on Ben and Michael's diadribs. I'm just using the Pope. Talk about how could they pick it? Could they have picked any jurisdiction and that it has to be people who are based there. They're asked to have a jurisdictional hook and then are the judges randomly assigned? Like, how does that work? Yeah, I'll do it, I'll do it quickly. So you have to, I'm just joking. I'm just joking. I'm going to work.

There's going to be a riot. There's going to be a riot. I want to look over at the chatter because there's going to be a riot. People have said, don't cut it short, go long. We're in this. Keep going. All right.

Anyway, we're doing fine on time. I assure you. So lawyers like you and I trial lawyers like you and I that file cases, you know, sometimes plaintiffs come in our door and and you have to file it. Where there's a negative. It's all right. Hello, knock on the door. Come on in. Sometimes they just walk in and wherever they were injured or wherever there's a legitimate way to show both what we call jurisdiction. So the court has to have jurisdiction over the matter and the court has to have jurisdiction over the person that's in front of them. And there's a whole

analysis that you and I've talked about on prior podcasts about how he does that. Then there's a venue analysis, which is, are you in the right courthouse? Should you be in federal court? And what are the requirements for federal court? Which are generally federal question, is it stake? Or you have two people or two entities from different diverse states, or a foreign country in a state, and there's a jurisdictional amount of, I think, 75,000, and you can walk into federal court.

Or should you be in state court? And then which courthouse should you be in state court? And then which court house should you be in and where? And that's going to have to do with, is it a convenient forum for the parties? Do the witnesses all sort of reside there? Is the information there? The data, the exhibits, that the crime, the event, the breach of contract happened there? And so these are all the considerations that you and I go into, but you and I have talked about without revealing client confidences,

if we've got a choice between one jurisdiction or another, the jurisdiction where the defendant resides, or the jurisdiction where our client resides, or where the event might have happened. And now there's three jurisdictions. We'd be committing malpractice if we didn't look at each other and say, where's the best shot for the best judge and the best court for the issues that are at stake in this litigation? We don't just go, oh,

it's just any old judge will just walk in, we'll pull a good one. I mean, that is, this is trial lawyer 101 is to try to find the right docket to place your case. So evil shout out to the Thomas Moore Society. They did their research, didn't take them that long and figured out that if you're going to file a conservative based case or a right wing, as you like to say, right wing religious case, do it in upstate New York, not in Manhattan. So you got to find plaintiffs that reside up there, which is what they did and challenge the, because that's a statewide mandate. So that could be challenged by any citizen located in any of the counties within New York, but they chose

the county particularly. And then within it, it's a random wheel assignment, usually, by the clerk's office to assign the particular judge. They literally run an electronic wheel and next up is that judge. If that judge doesn't have a conflict of interest, it'll stay with that judge. If that judge has had issues with the lawyers or there's a reason he should be disqualified or she should be disqualified or what we call recused, you'll lose that judge and it'll be assigned to a new one. You and I have been involved with cases directly where we had not one, not two, but three judges. I got an out of the case. I got it.

I got it. It's public record. So we can tell the, we can tell the listener that's true. So it was when Popock and I filed the lawsuit against Marjorie Taylor Greene. You heard it right there in the Central District of California, where Midas Touch is headquartered where our principal price of business. We filed it in federal court and we filed her for blocking the Midas Touch account

on Twitter and violating the constitutional rights in our first Amendment to be involved in public advocacy against her policies by blocking us. That resulted in, in its public, there's no confidentiality clause. It resulted in a settlement, Marjorie Taylor Green settled it for $10,000. Midas Touch made a donation in $10,000. Midest touch made a donation in $10,000

to two groups that support gun reform, that support taking militarized weapons outside of schools and outside of school zones, which completely set Marjorie Taylor Greene off that we then did that with the resolution proceeds. But in that case, Popoq, we had like three judges who were like, yeah, I'm not touching this, might as touch be. And in a claim to conflict, but I just think it was,

I would not really get an involved in this, might as touch be Marjorie Taylor Greene. You and I as lawyers on the case get these emails with the electronic updates of the case that I said to you at one point, do we just lose another judge? We just got one like eight hours ago. No, nobody wanted to touch that with a 10 foot pole, but eventually somebody has to, I mean, they can't all just say, sorry.

So eventually a judge gets a sign. Usually it's not as hard as what Ben just described dealing with might as touch and you get the judge aside. And then, and then you're often running and we're going to talk now whenever, whenever Ben's ready, we'll talk about the one in Texas and what happened there. Ben is always ready. Popok. And that will be on the t shirt. Ben is always ready. So the next update update update is the DOJ's injunction against the handmaid's tail, horrible bounty hunter law that totally takes away a childbearing person, a woman's right to choose in the state of Texas, turns neighbors into bounty hunters to report each other. It tries to get around Roe v Wade and Casey and the progeny of cases that provide a women's

right to choose and a child bearings, persons right to choose as a constitutional right. Popok broke down the constitutional analysis of how, while the exact text of the constitution does not say there is a constitutional right to an abortion, that right is within the Constitution's reach and its this Texas handmaid's tail law. It was filed in the Western District of Texas. They drew a judge, Judge Robert Pittman and Judge Robert Pittman. I mean, you're in Texas. Remember, land doesn't vote in Texas is becoming a purple state, but I would

imagine it's probably more likely you get a Republican appointee in Texas than you would a Democratic appointee. But you got Robert Pittman, who is a Obama appointee. Pittman did something interesting this week, Popok, which was the way it was reported. It sounded like bad news, but want you to tell us more here. He did not agree to an immediate injunction of the law, or to stop the law from going into, to prevent the law from being enforced.

The language in the ruling Popak also kind of looks like that Supreme Court ruling a little bit in terms of there's a lot of complexities here and a lot of issues that need to be discussed. But unlike the Supreme Court which kind of punted the issue, Pitman said, look, let's hear this on October 1st. October 1st is in a far away. So basically there's's a few weeks, and this will be heard, given a full briefing, what I think Pitman wants to do here is have all the evidence out there, have all the briefing out there, not really make it less susceptible to being overturned on appeal by building out the record here, which is what the hearing will require the parties to submit evidence and data and facts and things supporting the

claims. And he'll hear this on October 1st. My prediction, Popok, is that there will be an injunction on the law that's coming late October. November, what do you think's going on here? Yeah, and to pick up something that you mentioned, that's really important about the brilliance of Merrick Garland in this scenario, because he's in Texas. He has no choice. He's challenging. He has to be in Texas. He's challenging with his Department of Justice, the Texas abortion ban and the land of Gilead that they've created there. It's not just the Western District of Texas that he filed, and he filed in a particular

courthouse that sits in Austin, Texas. Austin is the most, it's like the Greddige village of Texas. It is the most liberal location. It's where the college town, I've been to Austin. I felt very comfortable in Austin as I don't not sure I would in other parts of the state maybe. But he picked the right place and people love you everywhere. Well, yeah, I don't want to be. I like Texas. I've been to Dallas and Houston, San Antonio, but

but Austin is a very agreeable place when it comes to moderate and democratic politics. So I'm not surprised that there will happen to be sitting in there at Obama appointee sitting in Austin. Now, we got two problems here. One judge Pittman is doing, as you noted, the right thing. He could have issued what we you and I call in the business or lawyers call in the business an ex-parte order of injunction, which would mean without the other sides really full briefing and without oral argument. He's elected not to do that, which means the abortion ban is going to be on the books for almost a full month, meaning no Texas women, including ones critically needing it for

this month, are going to be denied that right until we get around to having this full briefing. But it isn't, you know, we're talking about a month, not a year away as it would be with the US Supreme Court. He'll hold the briefing and you're right. He, it is the same problem that we talked about with the Supreme Court case. How do you enjoy the, you have to enjoy a thing. You have to enjoy a person. You have, you can enjoy the state.

Of course, their comeback back is we're not doing anything. We're embodying and empowering all of the local bounty hunters to go do their thing and judges at the trial court level. And you can't and so figure it out. And you know, but he's doing something

Supreme Court punted on for a year, which is he's going to try to figure it out and figure out how to reach and I think an injunction and enjoying this openly defiant to use the term of the Department of Justice attack on the US Constitution and women's rights. And if he does the problem, and this is where other podcasts come into play, is that it goes up to the fifth circuit.

And the fifth circuit is a supremely conservative circuit. So, so supremely conservative that it allowed this abortion ban to go forward the first time. I'm not saying that on the merits, they're not going to come to a different decision, but the quicker we get to pitman, judge pitman, the quicker we get to his ruling, the quicker it gets to the 5th with whatever result they're going to make and the quicker we take it back to the Supreme Court, the problem is I think it just joins up with the Mississippi case. I don't think they handled this earlier. I think we're again a year away from having a definitive ruling by the US Supreme Court on a woman's

right to choose under Roe v Wade and it's progeny. And Poe Pock, that case you're referring to is called Thomas E. Dobbs MD, the state health officer of the Mississippi Department of Health at all, versus Jackson women's health organization at all, that is a case that will decide will Roe v Wade, will Casey, the whole line of cases that give the right to choose and find that it is a constitutional right for women and child bearing persons, is that going to remain the precedent or will those laws be overturned?

You know, it's really scary. Oh, there's so many scary things. I don't know why I let in with that one. The, and I tweeted about this on legal AF, they former solicitor general for Texas John Mitchell, who was the architect of the current band. One of the, I hate to use this phrase, one of the fathers of the band, filed an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief in support of overturning rovers' weight in the Mississippi case,

just recently, in which he not only said that rovers' weight should be overturned, that women should return to abstinence as birth control if they're really were concerned, or talk about callousness. Basically liberal Democrats with money should pay to have Texas women leave the state and go to liberal states in this union. Again, his two country solution, right? Go to New York and get your abortion and let the liberals pay for it. But if it wasn't as callous, if that isn't callous enough, it goes even further and suggests to the justices that they should not only overturn Roe V. Wade, but they should use that as the beginnings to overturn same-sex marriage. And while

they're at it, gay sex overall. One of his co-authors of that Amicus brief is a former Justice Thomas clerk. I mean, it just calls me that the Republicans believe they can just openly say that all of the rights and human rights and constitutional rights that you and I and generations before you and I fought so hard to protect can just be destroyed and unraveled because they've got the numbers at the current US Supreme Court. Let's literally read what this Jonathan Mitchell, this forbors solicitor general of Texas, what he actually said in his brief, quote, women can control their reproductive lives without access to abortion.

They can do so by refraining from sexual intercourse as one of the lines that he said. He also says, as for women sexual behavior, one can imagine a scenario in which a woman has chosen to engage in unproductive or insufficiently protected sexual intercourse on the assumption that an abortion will be available to her later. But when this court announces the overruling of Roe v. Wade, that individual can simply change their behavior if she no longer wants to take the risk of an unwanted pregnancy. Again, meaning that a woman should not have sex. And this is a man who's saying this.

And everyone should just look up, just who this Jonathan Mitchell is. You can see his photo on the Federalist Society, but he gave birth to the abortion ban. No pun intended. He is, I mean, this is just a disgusting and despicable person who's never had to deal with these issues.

And that's what makes it additionally disgusting and despicable for him to pontificate of. And the way he even phrases that it's it's just filled with this hatefulness and in the sentence. It's misogyny. It's misogyny and hatefulness. And literally those words and some are like Jonathan Mitchell, it's not an exaggeration to say that even goes a step beyond some of the things you see in handmade tales of like it's at that level of craziness and that is going on right now. He is speaking to a Supreme Court though and this is the bad prediction, but this is why you all need to be motivated out there.

I think Popok, they are going to overturn Roe v. Wade and Casey. They have the votes to do it. I don't see why with the Amy Coney Barrett being now on the court. Her entire literature is overturning Roe v v Wade. She was appointed to do that. And I suspect that's what's going to happen. What do you think's going to happen in this? Yeah. It's so diabolical that we have to sit here and think about the overturning of Roe v Wade. I mean, it really makes my heart hurt that we're still talking about this. And Roberts, who was able to hold the court together, but with Ruth Bader Ginsburg still on the court and save a woman's right to choose the last time around.

He's really, we've talked about this in prior podcast. He's lost the court. The center is not holding. There is no center. He's citing more on fundamental issues with the liberal wing than he is with with those that are considered to be the right way. And so this is going to be a terrible tug of war. And it's going to unfortunately come down because we already know where Alito stands. He's already basically voted. We know where Thomas stands. Pretty sure I know where Kavanaugh. And so the fight is going to be Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.

Amy Coney Barrett, a former University of Notre Dame Catholic University Law Professor with seven children. And Gorsuch, who has cited, who has cited with things like gay marriage and and rights of of gay lesb, the gay lesbian community. But that's going to be the battle and caucus and conference within the Supreme Court. It's going to be the clerks arrayed for Kavanaugh for Gorsuch and those for Amy Coney Barrett while Roberts tries to keep order in the house to save a fundamental constitutional right. I think here, Pope, it comes down to Gorsuch. I really do.

I think Amy Coney Barrett's, I mean, her literature is to overturn Roe v Wade and why it's unconstitutional. So I don't think she changes that view. I think you've seen with Gorsuch on these types of social issues, willingness to be open-minded. And I hate to even frame it that way, but I think that's our hope. And the other hope though is, and what we need to also continue to do

is make sure we don't have voter, you're not voting like people that are voting in 2016. Our voter, you not voting like, you know, people that are voting in 2016, you know, our friends and people not voting like, you need to be out there every day because if we have another GQP president and this entire Supreme Court swings a certain way like all your rights are gonna be gone.

And I hate to put it in those stark terms, but that's what's that stake here. Yeah, look, look at the braze before we conclude. Look at the brazenness. That's the thing that I find most shocking with my historical sort of viewpoint is the brazenness at which right wing, religious zealot, people feel that they can just say out loud their convictions like this and overturn 50 years of constitutional or 100 years of constitutional principles, because like I said, they have the numbers, the brazenness about no Democrat, whatever right, if we, if the numbers were reversed.

Oh, you know, all those things, you really love the Second Amendment and all that. We're getting rid of that. You know, all those things that you, that you're clinging to, they're gone. As soon as we get the numbers, A, we wouldn't do it. And we certainly wouldn't say it. And they're saying it out loud. That's how they felt. And truly, they have no convictions other than their hatred of women their hatred of minorities and then wanting to establish a white supremacist the partied state in the United States. They don't want America to be a diverse

country So popok one more update, update. EGEN Carol, we discussed the EGEN Carol saga. She was a guest on the Midas Touch podcast, an incredible guest on the podcast. She said that me and the younger brothers should all get cheerleader outfits with the letter M on it was one of her observations about us which led a lot of the minus 92. I might see that. Well, I'm not sure

you want to see. We've got a lot of items Photoshop. But tell us what's going on here, Popok, where here, Popok, where federal judge has denied Trump's request, but it's really the DOJ request, the previous DOJ request, to stay or stop the proceedings while they substitute in as Trump's lawyer in the case. Trump, through Bill Barr, had the DOJ substitute in into this case involving the accusations by E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump that he defamed her by basically saying, I don't know who she is. I never touched her.

I never sexually assaulted her and making another disparaging remarks about her, when in fact prior to that, she's alleged that she was sexually assaulted by him in the mid 90s at a Bergdorf Goodman. So she sued him for defamation based on statements that he made to the press on the eve of Trump having to turn over discovery, including DNA samples that could potentially

confirm a match with E. Jean Carroll's dress that has a male DNA sample on it as well. The Department of Justice, Stepton, had the United States represent Trump, basically changed the caption of the case on their own so that it basically read E. Jean Carroll versus the United States of America instead of Donald Trump. One of the surprising things, Pope, was that when Merrick Garland stepped in, we weren't sure was Merrick Garland and the DOJ going to keep those designations of having the United States be in there representing Trump and be a defendant in the case instead of Trump. They did do that, which was a bit surprising to some of our listeners.

We've spoken about this before that. Merrick Arlen was still attempting to, in his mind, preserve the idea that if a president speaks at a press conference generally, that's usually a presidential duty. And so him responding to questions and that capacity still allows there to be some executive privilege and allows the government to step in. But what's interesting here now with this ruling, I think, is, well, what's Merrick Arlen and the DOJ going to do next? Because now that the DOJ substituted in, you have a federal judge that basically said,

great. Welcome to the party, DOJ. You're in, but you know what? We're not going to stop these proceedings right now while you make your arguments that the case should be dismissed for executive privilege or for these other reasons. So, yeah, we'll wait to see what the court of appeals is going to do, but let's, but go on, continue the case, continue exchanging discovery.

Now it was denied without prejudice, meaning that it could, there could be another motion that's filed to stay it to the extent there is an an appeals process taking place to assert executive privilege. But Popoak, do you think Merrick one, what's going on here to Merrick Garland pretty much the DOJ? They may just be like, you know, we're a little busy right now. Go on with the discovery and we'll assert executive privilege, but we're not gonna intervene and actually stop discovery from going forward here. Yeah, well, that's just,

in this little case, that's really important, and not just to E. Jean Carroll, but to the fundamental principles that are in meshed within the case, but to remind our followers and listeners, if the government is successfully substituted in to replace Trump as the defendant, at the end of the day, and I'm not sure where that end of the day is, the case will be over because in her case, E. Jean Carroll's

case is one for defamation, and the federal government, the US government cannot be sued for defamation. So whether they do it at the motion to dismiss level, which I think has already been, I thought denied, or at the summary judgment level, or at trial, ultimately, the trial of fact or the, or the giver of law is going to have to decide whether it's a judge or a jury, whether Donald Trump at a press conference was wearing his president hat and therefore covered by privilege, or he was not at stepped outside and was acting as an individual and therefore can be sued for defamation.

This, this nettlesom issue of whether he was or it was not acting as the president at the time. This judge, Judge Lewis Kaplan has decided to punt it in favor of the plaintiff in favor of E. Jean Carroll. Down the road until the second circuit makes its ultimate decision about whether the motion to dismiss, the first level motion to dismiss that was granted, was right or wrong, or whether it should just continue through trial, development of facts, and the ultimate legal issue of whether the government was, is the proper defendant or not, and therefore cannot be sued for defamation is ultimately decided. So what Kaplan did, what Judge Kaplan did, to kind of just keep the ball rolling. Is he issued a no page opinion?

We talked today about 102 pages that of North Carolina. Judge Kaplan issued no pages. He denied the motion for stay at the trial court level that was filed by Trump's lawyers while the appeal goes on at the second circuit in November. Now, is that the end of the stay issue? No, the second circuit itself has the power to issue a stay. So now there's going to be a little mini-briefing at the second circuit by the Trump lawyers and the lawyers for E. Jean Carroll, who's Robbie Kaplan's firm, to decide whether there should be a stay. If there's not a stay, and as of this moment

right now, there's not a stay, Then the plaintiffs law firm for Miss Carol can issue subpoenas and do civil discovery and take depositions and exchange documents and run the case. Now when she was quoted, the lawyer for Miss Carol said, Mrs. Carol said, we're preparing for the briefing at the second circuit in November, and we'll sort of wait to see what happens there. I mean, they could set a deposition tomorrow of

Donald J. Trump in the case. But I guess they think that'll be a sterile exercise. They'll just put up the privilege. They'll be running back to the judge into the second circuit. So I think they're just gearing themselves and loading themselves for the second circuit argument in November that you know, I will, will doodifully report on once it comes out. But that's what's going on with the state. Again, you know, another favorable venue for a plaintiff like E. Jean Carroll, you've got Lewis Kaplan, who is not only married to a New York Times journalist and Miss

Carroll comes out of publishing a journalism. But, you know, he's been, he's a senior status judge. He's been there for a long time. He's probably a Democrat. He's the right judge for this case, having been filed in Manhattan against Donald J. Trump as opposed to a conservative section of New York or Texas. Popak, I love the quote that you read of E. Jean Carroll's lawyer. I think that's just such a deep quote, quote, we will be proceeding with the case. I think the reason the judge didn't issue any paper when he granted or denied the stay is he doesn't want like something else to have, you know, that can be appealed. He just is like, no, I'm not staying. If you want to get it stayed, go to the second circuit where you're having

the appeal, but I'm not doing it. You know, my position, my position is that the argument that Trump wasn't, you know, isn't, it wasn't acting in a personal capacity and can't be sued for defamation. It's sort of BS, get on with your case. But he also understands as a senior judge that there are broader appellate issues that are going on. And yes, Robbie Kaplan is very political and she gave a very political response, which is see if they were all argument next month. And Robbie Kaplan is E. Jean Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan. And she also is representing Mary Trump and her proceedings against Donald Trump as well. Those were your updates, updates. Hope you enjoyed those updates.

Popoq, let us talk about Paul Hodgkins. Paul Hodgkins was the insurrectionist. He was adjacent to the barbarian QAnon follower. Hodgkins is in the photo holding the stupid red Trump flag, wearing the stupid Trump 2020 shirt. He's got his war goggles on. If you look at the photo the barbarian had is just to the right of him.

And Paul Hodgkins was the first January 6th insurrectionist, Popeyes, I don't like when these media use the term writer, like yes, they were writers, but these are insurrectionists also. And I think that is important to keep referring to them as insurrectionists who try to overthrow our democracy and kill our politicians, to kill Pelosi, Pence, pretty much anyone they can get their hands on. But thanks to the bravery of

capital police officers, metropolitan police officers, they were stopped. So this guy Hodgkins, stopped. So this guy Hodgkins, he was charged. He took a plea agreement. He made a deal with the government. He was represented by a lawyer, somebody named Patrick Ladouk, a former Jag reserve officer who was deployed in Qatar. This lawyer who's been assisting Afghan refugees recently. Someone who was representing a criminal defendant, I'm fine with people representing criminal defendants. I'm not fine with them overthrowing our elections, but you can represent criminal defendants. But enter to plea deal in popok.

This were one of the cases. This could have even potentially fit into the update section because we had the judges basically telling the government, you know, you're not really going after these people hard enough. And even here, there was a 18 month recommendation. There was a, the government was a 16 month sentence

recommendation. This Hodgkin's guy was only sentenced to an eight month jail term. So, you know, I guess the government's a 16-month sentence recommendation. This Hodgkin's guy was only sentenced to an eight-month jail term. So, you know, I guess the government's also thinking, look, we did a 16-month and you gave him eight, though. So, why'd you do that? But they gave him eight months. I mean, these people should be going away, popok for their life, I believe. 16-month is ridiculous. These people should go to jail for 20, 30 years. If these were not white men claiming mental health issues, fucking bullshit, these, these, these were black and brown people. They'd probably be dead on the Capitol steps. Plus, 16 months, he'll be back out while Biden is still president. Right. Exactly. And so he got, he got an eight month sentence by the federal court. And now he's seeking to

unwind his plea agreement. And he's alleging that the plea agreement was a complete forgery, that he had no information about it, that that's not his signature. He hired a new lawyer. His old lawyers, like basically the quote was, I'm sick of this shit. I'm so fucking over this He didn't say fucking but he goes. I'm just so he goes his quote was the le-doke guy. He's like, I'm so over this He goes, I spent hours and hours and hours sitting with him going over every single page of the plea agreement that he understood and he said it's Freakly it's frankly mind-boggling. These things keep popping up, I'm floored. And by these things keep popping up,

I think what he means, Popeye, are these people are just fucking crazy. They're maniacs. And to me, what this also goes to Popeye, is that that eight-month sentence, that 16-month sentence, is not enough. These people need to learn that. These are crazy people. So, so this one's so act. First of all, he's the guy, we, you talked

about the guy with the, the Chubaka helmet. This is the guy with the Trump 2020 t-shirt and Trump flag that ended up on the Senate floor rifling through papers in the recently evacuated Senate chamber after they just barely got out of there seconds before these idiots and insurrectionists and violent overthrowers got their way in. The reason he got, even though it was a felony, the reason he even got eight months instead of the 16 is because the judge noted at the time is that he accepted full responsibility. And not only did he sign, he claims now it conveniently forged, but he had a stand in court and acknowledge, do an

allocation, acknowledge the crime that he committed, admit to the crime that he committed, outloud, under oath, in front of the judge. Where was there any mention that, oh, by the way, the thing that I'm now saying out loud under oath that I did, I somebody else signed my signature to that plea deal. This guy is, so here's what's gonna happen. He's going to be, the judge is gonna resent and send. Finding that he's now pulling a fraud on the court

because he found some lawyer who is one year member of the bar. Now look, she's got a 30 year, allegedly a 30 year career in the US military, the Army as a colonel and some sort of intelligence officer, but she's been a lawyer for like, I'm not kidding, like 10 months. So he found this person probably through the loony right wing conspiracy network that's out there headed by Sydney Powell and and Lynn Wood. They found this poor person just freshly minted out of some law school I've never heard of. And so they she takes the case. And first thing she does is get some forgery expert and you

can buy these experts anywhere who said, aha, ah, ah, must be a forgery. That signature doesn't match. And this is what they put in front of the judge. And the judge warned this lawyer and said, you really want to go down this road because it'll probably be worse for your client. Because if the plea deal is gone, then let's go to trial. And if we're going to trial, I bet the government now having to be put through this BS goes for a three, five, 10 year sentence instead of the sentence in the plea deal. So that's where you want to go. Or you've committed a fraud on the court.

It turns out, right? Right. Right. Right. Which is worse for you. Now I'm just, I'm the same guy, the judge that's going to sentence you two more time. So I don't get what he's trying. You know, I like to think like these people occasionally. So I understand where they're coming from. You like to think what two more time. So I don't get what he's trying. You know, I like to think like these people occasionally,

so I understand where they're coming from. You like to think what they're thinking, not thinking. What are you thinking? But does he think he walks out the courthouse door of free man, that can't be what he's thinking. He gets less of a sentence because the plea deal is thrown out, or does he just want his crazy day in court

so that he can be a martyr and go to jail for three or five years and come out and write a book. I mean, what do you think is going through this guy's mind to throw away a plea deal, to do effectively minimal, minimal time of eight months. Po-Poc, Po-Poc, Po-Poc. I am a legal analyst. I am not an analyst of the six psycho to make his minds of fucking Trump nut bags. This is an insert. This is a crazy insurrection as popo. What do I think he's thinking? I don't know. I think he's thinking that the QAnon moonman is going to come back

and in order to Trump and the moonies as you know, I could be it. No, no, that could be it. Trump is reinstalled on some weird date in the future and he has a sentence commuted. I could be it. Point is this, these sicko psychopath GQ peers, they need to be held accountable. You said it perfectly, Popok. If you want to know how unfair our legal system is, just look at one of the most glaring examples, staring you in the face right here. You know, these white men insurrectionists, mostly white men who are getting sentenced for literally trying to overthrow the United States

government who are caught on video who enter into our democracy's most sacred chambers who break things, throw things everywhere. They're getting sentenced to eight months and they're fucking privileged. They're fucking privileged to say that is unfair, judge. Unwined that deal, judge. That is what's wrong right there with our legal system. And I hope these January 6 insurrectionists rot. I hope they rot in prison for the rest of their lives. And they go claim, oh, I had a mental health issue. Lots of people suffer from mental health issues and we take that incredibly seriously. Those people don't commit insurrections. Right, but that's it. And that I agree with you, but they're not claiming they're mentally unstable.

The other right wing elected officials are claiming that they're like Marjorie Taylor-Green and all the rest are claiming their political prisoners. Look at the language, the big brother language or well-earned language, political prisoners. That's the side of this argument that you're on as a right-wing Republican, that the people that tried to overthrow democracy for the first time in our history are political prisoners of the United States. That's where you want to be and his friend the barbarian popok and that was the reference I was referring to and some of their insurrectionists. Yeah The barbarian guy the QAnon shaman not the Papokian shaman the QAnon shaman He said that you know his lawyer made the argument to get him leniency that he had mental health issues

and there are some that are arguing that. But yes, the political class, the actual Republicans who are GQPers now who are not conservative people who are complete psychopaths, they are calling these people political prisoners. But let me tell you one thing, Popak, when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. And that brings me to my closing point today. Let's look at California. Let's look at California.

And as Gavin Newsom said, while the Californians voted no on this GQP-inspired, ridiculous recall, look what they voted yes for. They voted yes for the right to choose. They voted yes for climate. They voted yes for the economy. They voted yes on issues that matter to the American people like democracy. When you go look at those exit polls, what you see is that many people think that Gavin Newsom's mandate measures and

vaccine measures did not go far enough. You look at the stats 65, 70% of Californians supported or wanted to go further. And that's just not a California phenomenon. As we look, we had governor, former governor Charlie Christ on the Midas Touch podcast, who's now running against death, Santas and Florida's polling 10 points ahead of death, Santas, the Santas one by by a margin of error that is smaller than the amount of people who have died in Florida of COVID based on his wayward policies. We look at Virginia, we look at 2022 and we see that while the GQP embraces Trumpism,

embraces a side of law, you know, what Popoq and I are talking about on this show as lawyers. To me is not democratic tilted or Republican tilted. These are pro-democracy positions of fundamental rights that people have. And when you see the GQ peers calling people like this individual we just mentioned who's an insurrectionist, this criminal we just mentioned, embracing them and calling political prisoners,

that's what's motivated Poe Pakenite to do this show. That's what motivated us to spend the weekend talking to you about these legal issues, empowering you with this knowledge. So you learn about the law. So you know your rights, but that you use the information that we provide you that might as touch provides you to go out and make sure that we preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution and the United States of America at all times. Popo can I, as we always tell you, we're practicing lawyers. Popo can I handle cases we get.

We appreciate a lot of people have actually sent in cases that they had. We do our best to try to respond. If we can't respond, try to direct you to potential resources for you. But if you have a case, whether it's a discrimination case, a sexual harassment case against you, whether it's a personal injury case, I handle those cases where there's catastrophic injury, really bad accidents, really bad injuries and damages.

I do cases where I do lots of civil rights cases. Popock and I handle business dispute cases, contract cases. We represent founders that often have disputes with corporations over their shares and just other large business disputes. So reach out to me and popock. You can email me. Ben at MidasTouch.com, B-E-N-A-D-A-S-T-O-U-C-H.com. Popox email is mpopoxmpo.com at zplaw.com. That's mpopox at zplaw.com.

We're wearing or I'm wearing the Midas Merch today. Check out the Midas Merch. Go to the Midas Merch store, get your legal AF merch, your Midas touch merch. You need a legal AF t-shirt. I'll wear my legal AF t-shirt on the next one, Popok, and your closing words, Popok. Ben, Ben, Ben. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed doing the show with you. I just wanted to say three bends in a row. Again, listen, I get up every day after the podcast, fired up by our followers listeners, the Midas Mighty,

the Popokians, the My Salisians, to do it again, which is a remarkable achievement, because there's very few things that I do this successfully once a week, and then I look forward to. But it just, we do it again. And you and I create that list during the week, and we go back and forth on the list during the cut down to the broadcast and to the video. And I just feel like we're having fun. We're doing it in the right way. We're touching people, we're resonating with people. And we're doing what you said.

We're defending our democracy and giving people the tools to do that in the streets, in the chat rooms, on the internet, with their families, wherever it is. We're just given, given, we're dropping knowledge. Drop that knowledge. Popokian, the feeling is mutual. Thank you, everyone who watched this podcast live. Thank you, everyone who's

listening, no matter where you are in the country in the world. We appreciate you. We appreciate all the support your enthusiasm for might as Touch Legal AF. If it's Saturday, it is Legal AF Live. If it's Sunday, it is Legal AF. As my younger brother, Jordy, would say, shout out to the Midas Mighty. We'll see you next time. you