Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Ho Ho Hold Them Accountable: Jan 6 Committee ready for Action, SCOTUS on Vaccines, Biden’s judicial appointments and more!

Episode Date: December 27, 2021

The law & politics do not take a break for the holidays, so neither does the LegalAF x MeidasTouch podcast. Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast is back for another hard-hitting, thought-provoking look in “real time” at this week’s developments.  On this episode, Ben and Popok analyze: 1. SCOTUS and Vax Mandates Monday’s Oral Argument  2. TRUMP sues NY Attorney General 3. GUN MAKERS sue NY/NYAG to Stop New Public Nuisance Law 4. JAN6 Committee Sued  5. Jan6 Defendants Sentenced to Harsher Sentences 6. Michael Cohen Sues Bill Barr/Bureau of Prisons for Retaliation 7. BIDEN’S Federal Judges Scorecard; And so much more. Support the Show! Calibrate -- Your weight doesn’t reflect your willpower. Get back in control with Calibrate. Get $50 off the one year metabolic reset when you use promo code LEGALAF at https://JoinCalibrate.com BetterHelp -- Go to https://BetterHelp.com/legalaf and try BetterHelp today with a 10% off discount your first month! Affordable, private online therapy with BetterHelp. Anytime, anywhere. Fiverr -- Receive 10% off your first order by using our code LEGALAF at https://Fiverr.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Midas Touch podcast legal a F if it's Saturday if it's Sunday you know what popokin if it's the holidays it is legal a F these other podcasters they're sleeping they're not doing new content right now, but the law does not sleep. The wheels of justice do not stop. And when it goes holiday time, Popock goes Christmas sweaters, polar bear style. We go hard to the whole. There's no best of legal AF that wouldn't even make sense.

That wouldn't make sense anyway. Who wants to hear old legal and political news? Nobody. Popoq. So first before we get into the law, tell all of our listeners and viewers about your polar bear sweater. Where did you get it? What is it inspired by?

What made you decide to wear it today, Joe? Okay. All right. So I don't normally wear Christmas sweaters, but I did see this one online. I'm not going to name the retailer. It's a nice, it's a nice retailer. It's a very comfortable sweater. It actually has a back to it. I'm not going to try to run a show anybody, but there's a back to it with the polar bears. I liked it. It goes well with jeans. I woke up this morning and I said, Hey, we got to do this podcast

for Christmas weekend. Let me whip out the ski sweater. Here we are. Pop, whip it out. The polar bear sweaters for the holiday might as touch and he's turning around. Pop, for those listening, just

did a 360 on us and showed us the back from a nice designer, which will remain nameless because we all know Papokian is humble. He's humble. He's not going to go there on the podcast, but Popeye, let's get into the law right away. And let's just start as we reflect on the year. And we've talked about cases, we've talked about federal judges, circuit court judges, making very significant decisions on cases. But the appointment process, the nomination process, is so incredibly vital. Frankly, one of the most important, important functions of the president, right, to nominate federal judges. And for those judges to be appointed, and Biden has been incredible. A plus on the scorecard of putting in a diverse

judges who will follow the law. He's appointed more judges by far than Donald Trump. I mean, Biden's appointed now 40 judges who have been nominated and appointed and got through their confirmation process. I think Popeye, what was it? Like almost three quarters of that are women, diverse backgrounds, 32 out of 40 are women. And it's not just, you know, former prosecutors who normally become judge. We're talking about voting rights lawyers. We're talking about public defenders. We're talking about civil rights lawyers. And so, Popak, why has Biden been so successful in making these appointments? What does it mean? And maybe even walk us through, it's kind of a bizarre process kind of steeped in some traditions where it's also important

that the senators agree with the process. And so sometimes you need to make sure you have two senators from the same party, even though that's not a formal rule, but it's more of a just maybe walk us through that process. So when we talk about judges, our listeners know what's up. Yeah, one of the reasons that Biden has been the most successful president in his first term

in his first year in office since Reagan, he matched Reagan in getting 40 lifetime appointment judges through the process, through the confirmation, nomination, confirmation process. 11 on the court of appeals, really, really important. 29 on the district court level. 0 on the US Supreme Court. He has to wait for an opening related to that. And we'll talk at the end of the segment about Breyer, Breyer appointment. Contrast that 40 with 18 that trump did in his first year. Of course, he also got in his four years three support Supreme Court positions. The Court of Appeals, where Biden is focusing his efforts as well,

is really, really important. Why? We focus on the show on the Supreme Court. Supreme Court takes and decides maybe a hundred cases a year. I'm not saying they're not consequential to our lives. They are. But the district courts have appealed that you and I have talked about at length from the first district court of appeal to the 11th district court of appeal. I'm sorry, the 11 circuits and the district courts of appeal under Decide over 50,000 cases, 50,000 cases per year. That has a tremendous impact on federal jurisprudence, body of law that's being created. The next generation of Supreme Court justices come from these justices, really, really important.

And as you said, Ben, and then we'll talk about the confirmation process. Out of the 40 judges, 32 women, 27 are people of color, 15 of the 40 were formally federal or state public defenders, meaning they come from the defense, the little people side, if you will, as opposed to corporate America. And the process, the reason why there's so many openings for Biden to take advantage of is because in Trump's era, of course, he was trying to get his people through, but before that, Obama was sort of steamy in his ability to place as many judges as he could by Mitch McConnell.

So the place where Biden has been placing the most judges are in democratic controls states where both of the senators are democratic. So New York and California and other places. He's not been successful yet in putting a judge where there is either a split or a Republican controlled Senate where the two seats for the senators are both Republican. He's about to do that in the beginning of 2022 and we'll see the result on that. But there's been so many openings in Democratic strongholds that he's been able to shove these justices through. He's got a lot more to do. And he will have time.

I want people to have confidence in that. We're worried about the midterms in November 2022 and then January when things happen and really change. But he has time between now, it's almost 11 months to get the remaining courts of appeal, circuit court judges, district court judges that he wants put on the bench. And he's going to focus on that and ramp that up, I believe, in the new year to try to fill as many as he can, because if things go awry and we lose the midterms, and we lose the house in the Senate, he's going to have a very difficult time

filling any more seats, including US Supreme Court. The process is that both sitting senators, generally, as a matter of courtesy and protocol, have what's called the blue cardability or the right to block a judge that they don't like. Usually it's a judge of a different party. Biden may have to play some hardball while he still controls the Senate and the House.

And he might have to override Republican senators to get judges appointed in those circuits and in those district courts. We'll have to see how much appetite Biden has for that. I think he has a lot of appetite for it, but that's going to be the process, but he's been fortunate so far and that he's been able to get this many judges through generally friendly, democratic Senator Senate controlled states. Tell us about Justice Breyer. You tease the audience on that point,

whether Justice Breyer, there's been rumors that he's thinking about resigning. He's obviously older. How old is he now? Like in the 80s? Yeah. And so what are your thoughts there and maybe walk us through if in 2022 we think there may be

Anomination of a Supreme Court justice by yeah the problem is briar has picked his his federal clerks for the coming term and He is he has made it clear that he's not gonna get pushed out the door that he feels he still has a that he's not going to get pushed out the door, that he feels he still has a vital and a viable remaining tenure on the Supreme Court. Now, I'll tell you, he took some pot shots, and I think they were not really well deserved based on his oral argument questions during the abortion, Texas 8, oral argument a month ago, you know, that he wasn't on his game that he was in sharp. I'm not sure that's totally fair but if Breyer is gonna do what we believe is the right thing Which is to resign while Biden still has the opportunity to nominate and confirm

He would have to really do it in the first half of the year because Mitch McConnell and other Republicans have already said that as they approach the midterms, they're going to do everything they can not to confirm a Supreme Court justice, even though the president has two more years left on his term. Now, is it unprecedented? Yes. Is it a change in the policy that even Mitch McConnell established with Obama in his waning, waning time?

Yes. Is it completely a flip from what they did with Amy Coney Barrett the last 35 days of the Trump administration after it was clear that Biden had won the election? Yes. But we have to expect that they're going to do it. of the Trump administration after it was clear that Biden had won the election, yes. But we have to expect that they're going to do it. So, Briar, if he's gonna do the right patriotic thing

that people think he should do, he's gonna have to resign like really soon to give so that there would be no real, straight-faced argument. And while we still control the Senate, and I use that term in quotes because of the mansion cinema problem. But while we still control the Senate, um you know we're gonna have to hope that Breyer does the right thing and resigns. If he does it and look you know with all due respect to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's sacred memory, she didn't

resign either. And she had had like three bouts of cancer and she died during a Republican administration. So this is not unusual. I don't want to blame Briar any more than other justices Democrat or Democratic-completed or Republican-appointed. So we'll have to see. But I want to get your opinion. I want to ask you, do you think Roberts

resigns to allow Biden to have the Chief Justice pick? You said no way. What do you think about Breyer? No way, no way as well. You know, it's the problem with these lifetime appointments, you know, that you have someone whose whole identity is in raptured by being a supreme court judge. It's everything that they do. It's who they are. And also people don't like to

think of their own mortality in that way, even when they're confronted with it, especially people who feel that they have the vitality to continue. I think Briar looks at the way his questions went down and his ability to decide these cases and say, I want to do this until the day I die. Lots of people who love the law feel that way. I know lots of trial lawyers, like not lots of trial lawyers, but real trial lawyers who are like the way I want to go out is given the

closing argument on a high profile case basically in front of the jury as a verdicts about to be read. A lot of people, their whole life and identity is attached to it, but also you need to take a step back and you need to think about the country, you need to think about that it's not just about your life and your legacy can be significantly tainted by you know you're not doing the right thing one other point though, pop about diversity on the bench. the position of two cases that I'll just touch very briefly on. There's the case in the prosecution of Kim M. Potter and for those who don't know Kim Potter's the former Minnesota police officer, she drew a gun instead of a taser and fatally shot Duante Wright during a traffic stop. And this past week she was found guilty of first and second degree manslaughter in the death of Duante Wright, the? The murder of Dauante, right? And the judge in that case, Regina Chu, what juxtaposition for the judge in the Kyle

written house case, Judge Bruce Schroeder. You saw no antics. She didn't make the trial about herself. I don't even know who the judge was until you just said her name. And exactly the way it should be. It's like when you go to a basketball game, you shouldn't know who the referee is, right? The referee should just blow the whistle and, you know, the same way with an umpire. You shouldn't know the name of the umpire at the end of the day. The umpire shouldn't upstage the actual game. And that was a judge Bruce Schroeder, but that's why having diversity other points

of views than just old white men, you know, is helpful. And you're, you're comment about Briar, I think, is right on. Nobody wants to be the ex-pop. You know, there is two popes right now, right away that's seen the movie a few years ago. Benedict is still rattling away somewhere, you know, in in near Vatican City and in an apartment. But what was the last time you thought about them? Nobody wants to be the ex living a US Supreme Court justice and lose all the trappings of office. And I think you're right about that. And frankly, no president ever makes that a litmus test.

I don't think there's ever been a conversation in a White House with a potential candidate where they said, listen, if it comes down to it and you're pushing 80 and there's a it comes down to it in your push in 80, and there's a Democrat in office or somebody in your same party, and we need you to reside, will you? That conversation never happened.

For any president. Popeye, let's go to New York, where actually you are based. And I wanna talk about this lawsuit, federal case in Manhattan District Court against Tish James over her enforcement of a New York statute that would hold gun manufacturers civilly liable and responsible if the gun is used for unlawful purposes or crime. The gun manufacturer, a lobby filed this lawsuit against

Tish James citing a law that's called the protection of lawful commerce and arms act, a federal law which provides broad and sweeping immunity to gun manufacturers for manufacturers for from civil liability arising out of the use of those weapons. And here I think what Tish James is looking at is kind of the structure that you've had in SB 8 and saying if you can have those structures in New York in a civil liability context. Why can't we apply that to gun manufacturers? Of course, gun manufacturers sued. Tell us a little bit about this case Pope. I can work with the whole area. It's a little different than the bounty laws

that have been, I'm not saying the New York is not gonna try a bounty law that you and I talked about last podcast, but this one's a little bit different. This law, let's start with the law and then we'll move to the lawsuit. The law that was passed by the Democratic-controlled New York's Assembly and Senate, which is Senate Bill 7196,

is an amendment to an existing set of laws on New York's books for public nuisance. And it was in the waning days, literally, like the last two weeks of the Cuomo administration. Remember him, Governor Cuomo, Mario Cuomo son. Yeah, so he signed a bunch of things at the end. And some of them were good. And this is the law that he signed that was delivered to him by the Senate sponsorship, which makes it a public nuisance civil liability, meaning you and I and the average citizen can sue and states can sue under public under public nuisance, manufacturers of guns, distributors of guns, if those guns end up contributing and

they have knowledge that those guns are contributing to violent crime, murder rate, increase in the city and create a public nuisance, then civil liability is possible and you can sue those manufacturers directly. The problem with that, frankly, when we're going to see it eventually get to the Supreme Court, who is a big believer in the Second Amendment, is that there is, as you noted on the books in 2005, a law, which is called the PLCA, the Protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act, which was a negotiated, basically, act that a Democratic administration, along with Congress enacted, to shield liability for distributors and manufacturers of guns, as long as they didn't take any affirmative steps to promote the misuse or mishandling

of guns. So it protected gun manufacturers who were frankly all going to go bankrupt if they didn't have this protection. And there was a public policy that was made in 2005 that we're going to protect gun manufacturers. Now our listeners and followers might be saying or being a gasp, oh my God, that laws on the books. Yeah, that's one of the purposes of this podcast

to let you know that we don't just fight over the Second Amendment. There are laws on the books of Congress, of this country, federal law that gives immunization and protection to gun manufacturers and distributors. The question is, has New York thread the needle and found a lane in between the federal law and public nuisance law? Or do we have a federal preemption problem? And we've talked about preemption in the past, but a quick, got a tutorial on it.

If there is a federal body of law enacted by Congress, and it's their intention based on congressional power. In this case, the commerce clause of the US Constitution, where the federal legislators, Congress, alone are empowered to regulate in the areas of interstate commerce. Guns flowing through the country is interstate commerce. Only the federal government and not each individual state can regulate in that area.

And if Congress has manifested its intention to regulate in the area of gun distribution and gun sales so that a public nuisance law passed and maintained by a state violates the U.S. Constitution, the Commerce Clause, and in this case, a federal law which we just talked about, which is the protection of lawful commerce and arms act. That is the fundamental question. So you have 14 manufacturers of handguns and weaponry along with one of these public interest groups that supports sports and gaming,

I mean, sports and guns and all of that. We have brought the lawsuit in the Southern District of New York. We're gonna get a ruling. They going to move on a preliminary injunction standard to try to get this law to not be enforced by, in this case, the Attorney General, Latisha James's office and anybody else. And a federal judge is going to make an initial ruling. It's going to go to the second circuit court of appeals. And I'm telling you, it's going to end up, I'm sure, on a 2022 episode of Legal AF because the Supreme Court is going to go to the second circuit court of appeals, and I'm telling you, it's going to end up, I'm sure, on a 2022 episode of Legal AF, because the Supreme Court is going to take it up,

and answer the question once and for all, can a state regulate this way in the area of public nuisance and guns or not? Answer this question once and for all, Popok, are you ready for a doctor guided metabolic reset? Listen, I wake up in the morning thinking I don't have enough doctor guided metabolic, you know, products in my life. So tell me enough, this one, this podcast is brought to you by Calibrate. And we all know that traditional diets don't work because you can't fight your biology

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Make sure you go to joincalibrate.com and use that code legal AF. Popoq, let's do some updates, updates. We got updates. I haven't even done my misdeggable. You miss the jingle, but what I don't miss is the January 6th committee giving us good updates as they move ever closer to holding individuals accountable. Let's be clear though what January 6th committee can do or not do. It's

not a law enforcement agency. The January 6th committee cannot prosecute anybody. The January 6th committee cannot lock people up. The January 6th committee can make referrals is what it can do. And Popeye, tell us a bit about criminal referrals coming from the Jan 6th committee. I think so. I think so. Yeah, let's give a quick scorecard on Jan 6th committee.

And then I'm going to talk about my view, I think your view about the role of the Department of Justice, sort of sitting and drafting to use a bike racing term, pellets on term, drafting behind the JAN-6 committee. You have a committee that's been duly constituted, properly constituted by the U.S. Congress, whose sole function is to look into the JAN-6 The Gen 6 insurrection root causes why it happened, how it happened before, during, and the immediate aftermath,

and then to recommend laws to the rest of Congress to make sure that that doesn't happen again, that a president doesn't barrel through all of the guardrails of democracy and find ways to put new laws on the books to prevent the next maniacal Donald Trump-like fascist president. That's their role. That's what Congresses are supposed to do. I found it fascinating in a later segment. We'll talk about Trump's lawsuit against the production of the National Archive

to the Jan 6th Committee, the records there, the argument that they made to the US Supreme Court, which we'll talk about a couple of segments from now, they actually said, it's not the role of a congressional committee to do a case study or to rifle through the papers of the ex-president, that's exactly the opposite of the proper position. It is the role of a special select committee

at the US Congress to look into the root causes of January 6th, the bloodiest insurrection at the nation's capital since the War of 1812. Now, what have they accomplished? Then I want to keep parallel to that, that what the Department of Justice is doing with their eyes and ears and their other senses in watching the Gen 6 committees work. Let's first start with the wood that they're

chopping. What would have they accomplished in a 10 months or so of forward and give testimony. They have 30,000 pages of documentation, including 9,000 from Meadows, which includes his 68-page PowerPoint, how to overthrow a government. They have all of that. They have 40,40 investigators working round the clock nonstop like today, the way you and I are, there's no holidays at the JAN 6 committee working round the clock. Now you were accurate, you were right, as always, in identifying the limitations of their powers and what they're doing what they're not doing. Well, here's with the Department of Justice, I believe and others believe that they are doing because it is a crime to lie or mislead or give a false statement to Congress. I believe the Department of Justice is letting this process go without interference,

understanding that they are the highest law enforcement agency in the land, that if somebody lies to Congress, misleads them, gives a false statement in this process, put it on the board for the Department of Justice for another crime. They don't have to do a parallel investigation, which will lead to more people invoking the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. They're sitting back, my view, Papakian view, and allowing the Janssix Committee to do its work.

And what has happened as a result, 300 people have come forward, not a surrogate of the Fifth Amendment, and given accurate testimony. They're getting convictions, and we'll talk about them in the next segment of Jan Sixth organizers and proud boys. They just got their first conviction of a proud boy. And so the Department of Justice is doing its thing, prosecuting 700 people in courts of law. of justice is doing its thing, prosecuting 700 people in courts of law. But in terms of the investigation, they are better off I submit to allow the Gen 6 committee to do its work to get its witness testimony down on paper, to get its documents in, and then they can gather that information, a direct conduit from the Gen 6 Committee to the Department of Justice, and anybody that's lied to the Gen 6 Committee, will be then with the Department of Justice starts

and takes it from there. Now, they can also make the Gen 6 Committee a referral, and there is now talk in the last two weeks, and including Republican members of that committee, including Liz Cheney, that perhaps wire fraud has been committed by people using the big lie to line their pockets with fundraising dollars. The RNC alone raised tens of millions of dollars with the big lie.

Trump has. Alex Jones has. Sydney Powell has. These could all be if that's a fraud using instrumentalities of the mail service or internet or phone, phone banks, that's wire fraud. That's how most criminals in the white collar arena are brought down. It's usually a one count wire fraud, one count mail fraud, maybe a conspiracy theory. The second crime that the Jan 6th committee is looking into whether there's been a violation and a referral to the Department of Justice is obstruction. You and

I have talked about it. That is the count that's got 20 years of a maximum penalty if you obstruct a process of Congress, in this case, the certification of the election. Now, who cares about a referral from Congress? People will say, Merrick Garland, Department of Justice, they can do it all without. But I think he is being, and his department is being very respectful appropriately so because you get more flies with honey, you're getting more information through the Jan 6th committee, which can then get turned over to the Department of Justice, the Department of Justice trying to replicate the investigation on its own. Ben, thoughts. My thought is that the January 6th committee is doing exactly what it needs to do. And it's so telling that all of the defendants in this who are clearly co-conspirators in the underlying acts are basically adopting each other's exact same tactics. buying acts are basically adopting each other's exact same tactics, suing this January 6th committee,

calling it illegitimate, freaking out about their cell phone records being taken. But the January 6th committee is moving methodically and building on top of, and we're gonna talk about this, I think with the, what the DOJ is doing also. And this is an overall legal strategy that we utilize in our cases as civil litigators.

Governments use it as prosecutors, though, is you don't basically start by fishing for the well. You don't take your little fishing pole and put it in and hope you're going to catch a whale. That's just not what you do. You have to basically start with the minnows and then you move up to the sea bass and then you move up to the dolphin. But do you think the Department of Justice is going to use the Jan 6 work rather than replicate it? I think that they're going to rely on it. I think they're getting insight from Jan 6th that they couldn't otherwise get as quickly.

Through the Jan 6th process, you have kind of quicker turnarounds on subpoenas, the phone records. And so I think they're going to be working in a symbiotic way. But ultimately, I think they're going to be working in a symbiotic way. But ultimately, I think that the DOJ, as a lot of the articles point out, are well-equipped to deal with these matters. If you have a name there, I agree. But there's all this Twitter verse, nonsense, noise, about, well, there's no evidence that Merrick Arlen is actually doing that wrong. Then you don't understand the interplay or the symbiosis, as you said, between the criminal justice system when there's a parallel civil investigation going on.

If they want a big foot, the civil investigation, the department of justice, it would just be a bowl in a China shop. They would blow out the congressional investigation. They would say, we're taking charge. We're doing the criminal investigation. And every one of those witnesses that was called before the Department of Justice, I mean, before the Jan 6th committee, would throw up their hands and say, fifth amendment, we're being prosecuted. We're being we're targets. We're witnesses. we can't cooperate with Jan6, but by allowing the Jan6 community to go first, they allowed them to go get 300 interviews, get tens of thousands of pages of documents,

and the Department of Justice is the beneficiary of all that. That is what's happening. And look what's happening with the January 6th prosecutions. I know a lot of legal a efforts were very frustrated about some of the light sentences that were being handed down quite years in prison for assault after pleading guilty to assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon. And so we are seeing more serious. Like the clown show, the QAnon shaman, you know, all of those people, you know, they got sentences. But, you know, they got sentences, but you know, I think the government was like we have to make sure our resources are target on the people as well who are engaged in assault the content. By the way, I think the lower level people should have still been thrown away, but here's the one thing, Popo.

I was going to say, you go first. the defenses of this Devlin Thompson was that he's autistic. He's autistic. His understanding of the events was severely impact and distorted by his diagnosed condition of autism spectrum disorder. And then the response to that was autism is not and should not be an excuse for bad behavior. And I think Popak, that we just see that increasingly that whenever these right wing

GQ peers get caught, they blame mental illness, they try to claim religious exemptions. We just see it over and over again, excuse me. Yeah, the most recent, as they move up the chain of bad people, the most recent sentencing's, prove your point, you don't do it the other way around, just to make it clear. You don't throw, you know, the person who got through the parakeid wandered around and smoke a joint in the Senate chambers, you don't give that person 10 years.

You want to try to get, as you said, the minnows and the guppies to turn on the whales and to give additional information and cooperate. So you don't just say, we don't want to talk to you. We're going for four years in prison with you and cut off all communication. If you're a good prosecutor, you're going to sit that person down

for a series of interviews and encourage them to cooperate so that at this time of sentencing, the government can say, they took responsibility and they cooperated. We have leads, we have names, we have additional pieces of information, we have their cell phone all voluntarily given,

and therefore we're going for a little bit lower end of the spectrum than on the on the higher end. If you do it the other way around, if you just put everybody in the gulag for 20 years, you're never going to get the information that you need to build the case against the real bad people, the predator organizers at the very, very top. And the one thing that you and I will watch is the sentencing for the proud boy from Syracuse, New York, the first proud boy to be, to plead guilty without a trial to both conspiracy and obstruction, which is the, you know, that's the home run count

for the prosecutors, 20 years away for obstruction. They got this proud boy who I read the Department of Justice press release on him. He did not hit or attack any law enforcement. He was present at various places, the portico, the West Terrace. He went through barricades, he lowered barricades,

he was wandering around for three or four hours. And there were two other guys that were with him. But he did not whip a fire extinguisher at somebody's head or use bear spray on a Capitol police officer. And he just pled guilty to a 20-year count potentially of obstruction. I am sure when he is sentenced now, and I read it's going to be in March,

between January and March, he's going to have a whole lot of interviews with the FBI, the Department of Justice, about what he knows, about the proud boys, their role in organizing, and the links or connections between the White House, the Trump campaign, and the Jans, and that J 6th day.

And we might see a lower sentence for that guy because he came in first. You get a benefit in the criminal justice system. If you come in first, plead guilty and start cooperating. And that's, to my view, Ben, what do you think? Why did he plead guilty so quickly with a sentencing put off till March? Well, he sees the writing on the walls.

I'm sure the government wanted to get additional information from him. He probably profored to the government and said, I'll give you lots of good information as well. And in order to get leniency at the end of the day, that's kind of what the way these deals go down and work. But I also, first, probably. Right.

And I also just want to say though, all of these lawsuits that are being filed, whether it's by Alex Jones or Michael Flynn or Scott Perry who hasn't filed a lawsuit, but probably will if he's ultimately subpoenaed for calling the January 6th committee illegitimate. It's not illegitimate. These lawsuits are not going to prevail. Like, and here's kind of a common thread with these lawsuits that are filed by GQPers. They don't even have the procedurally right posture in them.

And we're gonna talk about it a little bit, Popok, but the lawsuit filed by the Republican governor in Oklahoma against vaccine mandates relating to the National Guard's cited the wrong mandate, it cited the general federal employee mandate, not the military mandate. Imagine that, you are a lawyer. You are working with the government, in this case,

a state government of Oklahoma. You have all the resources in the world to file this lawsuit. And literally your lawsuit is based on the wrong law. You aren't even citing the correct one. But again, we're going to talk about today in, in, in, well, both for Flynn. And for every time there's a lost Giuliani, Flynn, Trump, the National Archive, Oklahoma citing the wrong statute. It's either they cite the wrong law or they don't submit the fundamental affidavit under oath because they don't want to to support their application for injunctive relief. How many times have you and I talked on this podcast about the fact that whether it like I said Flynn, Giuliani and Trump all got their cases tossed because they didn't even submit

a fundamental affidavit to support the allegations of their suit. And then they blame the issue on standing. Like, yeah, we had all of the merits of the case, but we didn't even have standing to suit. Like not having standing is even worse than the merit, the merits. Like you weren't even the right person to even bring the claim in the first place on this standing. But Popak, you referenced Michael Flynn in Flynn's lawsuit against the January 6th committee that he had just filed, and he's filed for a temporary restraining order without even giving what's called like ex-parte notice or notice at all whatsoever for Nancy Pelosi, he's soon Nancy Pelosi not sure why he sued her, but the January 6th committee,

you know, and basically the court was like, we don't even know what this law suit is. Like, what are you filing? You know, why is this an X part day application? Why are you seeking a temporary restarting? You're talking about middle district of Florida within one day after he filed Mary Scriven judge Scriven, who was a, who was an appointee by Bush actually, W. She said in a five-page order, you had a fundamental obligation and your lawyer did to support your motion for injunctive relief with an affidavit. You don't even have the affidavit denied without prejudice, you can like refile if you want. But, you know, look, I took a scorecard or I think we I think CNN did a good

job of doing a scorecard. So there's been there are eight current cases against the Gen 6 committee subpoena power that are going on. Not only a district court in one of the most prestigious federal court court houses in the country, the DC Circuit. Not only is every judge there found that the Gen 6 committee has the authority and has a legitimate body to wage this investigation, but even the court, even the court of appeals for the DC Circuit. So every judge who has faced the issue, and we'll have to hear from the US Supreme Court, but every federal judge worth its salt has said that this is a proper exercise of legislative authority in a to duly constituted body, the Gen 6 committee, and to stop arguing that it's not yet

Trump against the National Archive, Meadows against Verizon, Clean a Mitchell who used to be a lawyer, a partner at a major law firm has sued AT&T to stop a subpoena for her records. Alex Jones has sued to stop the Gen 6 subpoena. He's gonna lose that. Ali Alexander suing against Verizon subpoena. John Eastman against the Verizon subpoena. Amy Harris against the Verizon subpoena.

This is all delay, delay, delay because all of it is nonsense. None of it is going to prevail. The Gen 6 committee is going to get these records from these carriers like Verizon and AT&T, and they're going to finish their work. The one heartening thing, Christmas gift that I read today, but I don't know if you saw this. The Gen 6 Committee is on record as saying they believe they're going to give

a preliminary report with video evidence and everything else to the American public sometime in January or early February. Well, let's keep following that. Popeye, any other final comments about Jen sixth as we move to updates regarding vaccine mandate or testing protocols and that working its way through the Supreme Court Pope, anything else in the January. I think we've covered, I think we've covered Jen six. We can move on to Vax mandates and state

where the Supreme Court is doing that. This podcast better help. That's H-E-L-P is there something interfering or preventing you from your goals? We all get down sometimes. We all have very complicated situations. Myself included, and it's helpful to speak to an actual professional therapist in a secure fashion.

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first month at betterhelp.com slash legal AF. That's better help.com slash legal a f popok over to you on vaccine mandates. Speaking of better help. So the vaccine scorecard. I'm doing scorecards today. It's very interesting because the the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently over the past year. They have upheld and been okay when state and universities have implemented mandates. Time and time again, whether it's New York, whether it's Rhode Island, whether it's Indiana University, the sitting or the current composition of the US Supreme Court, either with the supermajority right wing,

is okay with states mandating vaccines. They have also been okay, just to kind of move one toe over to the federal side. They've even been okay when the Transportation Safety Administration, the TSA, when there was a challenge to them requiring and the FAA requiring masks on airlines, Roberts serving in a Chief Justice Roberts serving in his role as the duty judge for the DC Circuit rejected an emergency appeal to take away that federal right. So why are there

still lawsuits going on? Well, as we talked about last week, the sixth circuit ruled on the OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the OSHA rulemaking that Biden wanted for large employers of over 100 employees mandating that they vaccinate, that they mandating that they vaccinate or employees vaccinate or are tested regularly, was upheld that mandate was upheld by the sixth circuit, which was great.

But another mandate through health and human services requiring federal workers and federal health care facilities be vaccinated was enjoined or banned or barred by another circuit court. So the Supreme Court has decided in its infinite wisdom to bring both cases together and bring them up for full briefing on a fast track and oral argument to take place on the 7th of January.

I guess they were tied up on the 6th of January. So they're gonna do it on the 7th of January. I guess they were tied up on the 6th of January, so they're going to do it on the 7th of January. Now, is this unusual? It is. Roberts could have rejected the appeals outright in what we've referred to in the past as a shadow docket. He has the right to do that, or he can refer it over to the full Supreme Court if they want to do other procedures. He has the right to do that, or he can refer it over to the full Supreme Court if they want to do other procedures. He and the others have decided that because of the importance, I believe, of the vaccine mandate, and the criticism that they have gotten for doing shadow dockets have decided

that they're going to not only do full briefing on a very fast track, but they're also going to do oral argument that the public can listen to. I think that's a reaction to all of the criticism in 2021 about shadow dockets and one line rejections of laws, you know, SBA being left in place with a three line order. I think now they're like, all right, let's do full briefing and oral argument on a fast track. So we're gonna have a determination not at the day of oral argument, but some months later, about whether the Biden administration

through both OSHA rulemaking and HHS rulemaking can mandate vaccine. My gut is they're going to find as long as the rulemaking was proper under the Administrative Procedures Act and delegation of Authority by Congress, they're going to find that those mandates are proper. But we don't know until our argument. Now, the interesting thing I want to get your take on is that one of the mandates the large employer mandate is set to take place on the 10th of January the oral arguments on the 7th of January what do you think the court does?

I think you're going to get a quick ruling from the court I mean it is unusual to see them even taking oral argument in that way. It's interesting to note, as you just did, that they're even holding an oral argument, and they seem very reactive to how critical the public has been of shadowed dockets. And when you talk about descents, and sometimes the importance of them, you know, let's remember there are some great Soto-Maior descents. They're a great Kagan descents referring to the shadow docket and how that has become a, frankly, unconstitutional force that really hadn't been considered and how the Supreme Court even functions

to overrule precedent and to make these kind of rulings instead of having full oral argument. So what I would expect to see is that it will obviously be fully briefed. I think that you're not going to get a long ruling that's going to be 60, 70, 80 pages. I think, you know, a lot of these shadowed docket rulings are often very short, a page, a page and a half. I think they'll listen to the oral argument. I think we'll generally know where they stand. And I think before the 10th, they'll do something.

And I'd also be interested in to know, and I don't know if they have any authority to do anything pop-up with respect to the data deadline, or if the government will come in and basically say, you know, we'll give an extra 10-day grace period. I think you're right. I think the Biden administration will take the pressure off and we'll roll off the mandate. But with Omicron, it's hard to tell. I mean, things have gone three weeks ago. You and I didn't know Omicron from, you know, home the ground. And now it's all you and I can think about what's going on in New York with the numbers. But that may, you know, maybe they want just a fast ruling from the, hopefully a fast ruling in favor of the mandates,

but it's interesting, even though these cases are up at the Supreme Court, there's still stuff going on at the lower court. You have Gorsuch, who's in charge of the circuit that's respond that New Mexico is in. Just in a shadow-docket one-line order kept in place the New Mexico State vaccine mandate for public workers of New Mexico. And, you know, did not refer it to the full body into the thinking of even the more conservative Justices, they seem to be okay with vaccine mandates. It's going to come down to whether they find that the agency that made the rule.

We've talked about agency rulemaking, whether it was the rent, eviction, moratorium, there has to be a nexus, a logical nexus between the language that empowers the agency to issue the rule and the rule that's been issued. Otherwise, it's in proper delegation to it on the seventh of January. And the other suit that's fascinating is that there's a group of Navy seals, which are really just being frankly prostituted by a conservative justice center that wanted to bring this lawsuit and the seals as tough of bad asses as they are are claiming on religious grounds that some of them don't want to get vaccinated. So that has been filed in Texas and Fort Worth, Texas, before a judge who I believe was appointed by Reagan. And that's going to, there's actually oral argument been on Monday on the injunction hearing and 47 sitting members of Congress, including Ted Cruz, have filed amicus briefs in favor of the Navy SEALs being able to use a religious exemption and the first amendment religious freedom to avoid being vaccinated. In an organization,

that religious freedom to avoid being vaccinated. In an organization, Army Navy, Marines, Space Force, Coast Guard, where 95% or more of the people in those branches are double vaccinated or fully vaccinated. Hope I could we're going to be, of course, following those cases. And my own prediction is that the vaccine mandates and testing protocols, I think, are going to be upheld

by the Supreme Court. I think, given the Supreme Court, this is how dimly, I think, of all of our processes, because they are lifetime appointees and want to live longer, and it sounds so basic. And they don't have to deal with the political pressure of what their GQP base is. If they could be voted out by their base,

they would probably have the spine of death Santas and basically stutter and mumble when asked if he's received a booster, or if he intends to get a booster. But because their lifetime in pointease, because what they care about selfishly is themselves, I think they want these vaccine mandates in place because like behind closed doors, death, Santas is getting vaccinated, Ted Cruz is getting vaccinated.

All of these people are getting vaccinated and they're laughing at all of the people they are misleading with this anti-vaxx nonsense. But in a cynical fashion, as you can see it, what the right-wing conservatives who are leading these cases are trying to set up as a conflict in the minds of the Supreme Court justices between the religious freedom and the vaccine mandate. So they're trying to put them on an acute horns of a dilemma because we know how they feel about religious freedom as has been expressed time and time again for cases this term and last term, especially with the new super maturity right way. So of course, that is the acute

point that the lawsuits are angling for. They're trying to find out the limits of what the Supreme Court is willing to do, even in the face of religious freedom. But I think they've got a problem because if you remember, one of our first podcasts, 30 episodes ago, if you can believe it, Remember, one of our first podcasts, 30 episodes ago, if you can believe it, was reporting on Amy Coney Barrett, Catholic, Catholic, former member of the faculty of the University of Notre Dame Law School, finding that Indiana University students had to get vaccinated,

even if they had religious objection. Well, you know, when I think it comes down to like, we could go into all of all of the aspects of it, but as far as I know, there's nothing in Catholicism that is anti-vax. And so I do think that an Amy Coney Barrett looks at even looking at it from a religious doctrinal sense and kind of recognizes that the use of religion in this fashion to justify anti-vax ideology though is actually a perversion of the religion. That's not actually, it's not a religion thing and it actually, it actually denigrates the actual religious argument in other areas.

Most mainstream churches in every faith, and if you're of a Christian faith, what would Jesus do? He'd get boosted. Yeah, so, you know, and to see people make the phony religious claims. And like if there were actually genuine religious claims that are verifiable, that trinally, this exists for a long time, and this has always been your views and your values. Same thing with your health. I mean, if at the end of the day, the vaccine and medical doctor is saying that the vaccine can actually harm you and can cause these types of reactions, given very, very, very unique circumstances, which conflicts with all of the

literature that's out there. But I could see there being circumstances. And I've heard of circumstances where there are genuine medical needs and medical concerns, but this is like the student who comes in and says, the dog ate my homework or forges the doctor's note from their mother or when they get an F on their report card and their parents have to sign on,

they forge the signature. Like, it's all just phony bullshit and it's immature and it's amateur and we should all be coming together to support a healthy society. I have everybody listen to the Midas Touch podcast, which also have new episodes this week with Anthony Scaramucci. And Scaramucci broke down what exactly needs to take place. He's like, look, if you're a real Republican leader, you're talking to people and you're saying, listen, man, we're out here fighting a war. We're fighting a war against an invisible enemy and we need your help to win that war and we need to come together so you can have all of your freedoms. We're with you. You should have these freedoms,

but to get those freedoms, we need to destroy this. I saw a stat today, which was shocking, but they think in the next three months, 60% of the American population will have had COVID, including Omicron in their lifetime. 60. I wouldn't be surprised if it's already at that. Popak, because the testing, you know, in places like New York is high, but in Florida, they treat COVID like the cold. And they misreport data of deaths. And so you just don't really know. Popak, this podcast is brought to you by Fiverr.

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That's F-I-V-E-R-R dot com and turn nothing into something today. Here's the deal. Receive 10% off your first order by using my code, our code, my code code, my everything is ours. Me and you wear a team legal AF at fiber fi v er r.com again, that's fiber.com slash legal a I love. You know what holiday gift you gave me for our Christmas episode that you did all of the ad reads. That's a good, that's a good, I'm gonna pull my weight in the new year I promise. I like it and the gift I gave you Pope

Pock most of all was really the Popokian name. Like forever like that there was no pre plan of that. I never had called you Papokian before. If you've noticed, and maybe our Midas, Tetileg, Laepers have noticed, I've harped less on the Papokianness and kind of that stuff over time. I'm gonna bring it back from time to time, but there was getting a lot of comments, and I talked about this on the brother podcast. There's been an overwhelming tide of some anti-ben sentiment on both the brother podcast

and on our comments. I wasn't sure where you were going with that, okay, go. And I tried to read the comments, and I shouldn't, but I also want to tailor it. The people were saying, we really like the legal analysis, but enough of this papokian stuff and whatever. And so I've toned it down. I'm bringing it out a little bit just for this Christmas episode.

But I think those are the haters are going to hate. But I'm going to, I'm here. I'm going to, you surprise me with that. I'm going to surprise you. The gift that you have given me, which is a gift that keeps giving, is not only your friendship, but the friendship that I've developed with your brothers,

and by extension, the friendship that I have developed with the Midas mighty. That is a gift that I never saw coming. I mean, your friendship, I did, because we've been friends for a long time. I never thought I would last then. But the, my relationship with Jordy, my relationship with Brad, my relationship with Salty, who's producing for us today. And then this broader network that you, a community, that's a better word that you and your brothers have created and I've contributed to and now the other podcasts that you promote and that you produce.

I never envisioned that and the other thing that I told people gives me so much gratitude and satisfaction is I never thought I'd be involved with something that would provide a safe space for people. Many of them having never been involved with politics or legal issues before, to express their opinions in a safe space. And the fact that I can contribute even this much, small fingers, just a little bit of part part to that. That's how I describe the value of what I do and why you and I do this five to ten hours a week, you more because of the brothers podcast. And if I ever, my energy ever flags, that is what I think on. That we're providing a public service that are followers and listeners really appreciate

and there isn't a replacement for it anywhere else in the podcast or social media universe. You know, I've thought through the label, you know, progressive and you know, might as touch as a progressive pack. I've thought through the label pro-democracy, you know, and we embody all of their views, but truthfully at its core, from a value standpoint, I mean, you know, I think we work really hard. I mean, preparing for these podcasts takes a really long time producing them. We have a great production team who puts these podcasts on

with salty and jordy. They do an incredible job. But from a values perspective, it's not even about Democrat Republican, independent, or what have you. Like to me, what the Midas Touch journey was all about was just really being a good person to kind of calling out bullies and just trying in a world with all this negativity that's out there, just trying to spread love.

Those views align themselves with Democrats right now. So I am a Democrat. There's no other major political party, I mean, we're a two party system, but that's even close. Like I see these images with the Christmas cards of Republican representative Massey and Lauren Bobert with their children holding assault weapons in front of a Christmas tree,

right after a school shooting. And that's not normal. That's not okay behavior in the United States of America or anywhere in the world. I want to associate myself with the political party with friends like you, Michael, with community like the Midas mighty, who say that is wrong and call that type of conduct out. I don't wanna hang and roll with the Marjorie Taylor greens who are stalking individuals who barely survive from high schools that were subject to school shootings and claim that they are actors and they are lying and allow a Republican party to look

at a Marjorie Taylor green, you know, and Lauren Boeberts, and hoist them up when Lauren Bobber talks about makes jokes calling other members of Congress terrorists. This conduct is unacceptable anywhere in the United States of America, and we need to call it out. And how does that segue into the law, what we're talking about here, and might as touch legal AF? One of the reasons we want to empower you with all of this is that knowledge is power as well. You know, the law is one of the most significant levers

of accountability, and it shouldn't surprise you that a lot of these people who engage in this horrible heinous public conduct that I've described also skirt our laws and rules and they think they're immune to it and the Republican Party currently thinks they're immune to it and they're the ones chanting law and order, law and order this, law and order that.

But at the end of the day, they don't give a shit about law and order. We talked earlier in the podcast about the insurrectionists and when one of the insurrectionists was finally confronted and he was questioned about all of his comments. I mean, you know, with this individual had discussed, you know, he talked about he was celebrating how he, you know, harmed the blue or whatever he called it, attacked the blue and celebrated destroying the police officers like we have important symbols in the United States, you know, and important things, you know, you know, police is important, you know,

religion is important to families. Our flag is important. The Constitution is important. All of these things are important, but we have to really believe in them. And we have to really try to make those things actually work. And on the other hand, you have the Republicans

who host all or the host, hoist all those things up back the blue. Here's the flag of America, the Constitution, religion, and they use them as symbols to engage in their misconduct and to justify their bad acts. So I'll stop with that rant on Christmas and we can talk very briefly and finally about Michael Cohen. But I wanted to make sure I just got that off my chest. Oh, listen to it. You say, rants. I mean, if we eliminated ranting from our podcasts, I think we wouldn't have a podcast left. So there's two, there's's two Trump related suits. It's up to you. You want to talk about the

Oh, when you talk about Trump first and you know, and I think we do short shrift on it because it's a really dumb lawsuit against his James. All right, I mean, it really is beneath content. So but why don't you briefly talk about Michael cone? Yeah, then we can do that we can end today with Michael Cohen tonight. Michael Cohen. and talk about Michael Cohen. Yeah, then we can do that. Then we can end today with Michael Cohen. Tonight with Michael Cohen. So, let's start with how this starts. Trump having run out and exhausted the supply of legitimate lawyers and law firms and kind of preeminent constitutional scholars

is left with a three lawyer firm in bed, Mr. New Jersey, near his golf course. And whenever he wants to file one of what I call a public relations stunt masquerading as a lawsuit, he goes to this little firm and I think he's like writes it himself or they help him write it and they file it. And you know, they file here the Northern District of New York, which is towards upstate New York, trying to get a more favorable judge. And what they're trying to do is to cut the legs out from under the Attorney General for the State of New York,

Patricia James, and try to argue that she's so biased, that she's so against them, that she's so committing prosecutorial misconduct by continuing to investigate him and the Trump organization, which by the way has already led to two convictions. Because remember, the Latisha James as New York Attorney General's office

is working hand in glove with side vans soon to be Alvin Bragg's Manhattan District Attorney office. There, the Manhattan DA is taking the lead on the prosecutor's side. The New York Attorney General's Office is taking the lead on the civil side and they're sharing investigators and information and overlapping. So, you know, that alone, the fact that already two members of the Trump Organization, the CFO and the CAO have already been indicted or the brother-in-law of the CFO have already been indicted, speaks volumes.

But this was just, he's not getting enough attention. He wants to try to pillory and attack Tisch James in the public for his own fundraising purposes. So he gets this little tiny firm who operates out of a wee work or a regis office complex. I looked them up here in New York to file this lawsuit to stop her, the New York attorney general from continuing to investigate him or prosecute him because she's got a vendetta against him.

This case is going to die. There is no sitting federal judge that's going to enjoy the New York Attorney General from continuing to investigate. Now, having said that, do I personally think that the New York Attorney General talks a little bit too much about how she wants to go after Trump and all the lawsuits that she's brought against him in a little bit of a self-endgrandizing way, I do. If Merrick Garland is attacked for not saying a word about what he is doing behind the scenes against the former Trump administration and its officials,

Tish James is sort of on the other extreme where there's not a news appearance, news conference, press conference, podcast, late night appearance, you know, with Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel or any of them, where she doesn't brag about the notches on her belt going after the Trump administration. She could frankly tone it down a bit. Does it cross the line into prosecutorial misconduct

and bias so that she has to step down from doing all investigations against Trump not on your life. And Trump knows it. That's why he can't get like a real firm to file the suit. He gets this little firm in his town to go do it for him. He gets a two days of media coverage related to it and then it'll disappear and she'll continue with her efforts and all of her investigators in conjunction with the district attorney of Manhattan to try to bring down that organization.

And it's and it's officers and directors, including the children and Trump. What do you think? I think of the show billions, right, with the kind of prosecutor and the billionaire. And they're both like really, really, really smart. And they make these very intricate moves against each other. This is not one of those. It's not that episode. This is not one of those intricate moves. But in many ways, when you think about how the big lie,

as especially as that was known with Nazism, a small lie, you know, fails, but a big lie can travel around the world. And people were more likely to believe a big lie than a small lie, you know, the big lie that we have, that Donald Trump spread about the election, but the audacity of his approach of doing things that are completely insane, like filing these lawsuits that aren't legitimate lawsuits. It's a version of like,

it's a big fraud on everybody, and it's so big and the stuff is so crazy and has no precedent in anything that Trump is actually trying to lose the case. Like that's what you should realize. Trump knows he has zero chance of winning the case. The case is not, and I'm talking about the civil lawsuit, the injunction that he's filed against him. He has no chance of winning that. He wants to lose

and then he'll blame the judge and then he'll blame Tish James. He'll blame the legal system. And he'll raise $10 million. Exactly. Every lawsuit he'll make $10 or $15 million in fundraising related to or the RNC will, which gives him power to try to select the next round of senators in congressmen. You know, he's as crazy as a fox when it comes to self-angrandism and commercializing, if you will, his name and his name brand. We laugh at his brand, but in his world of the 45% or more of America that still thinks he should be the president of the United States. He has found a way to turn his craziness into cash. You said before, it's the audacity of whatever Obama used to call it,

the audacity of hope. This guy, it's the audacity of dope. But in his world, he remains king. And for every crazy lawsuit, it's just kaching. It's just another, hey, what what what what are the coffers look like in my political action committee? Oh, we're down. We need another 10 million fundraise. Great. Get that little firm to file that lawsuit. Let's collect money off of it. Oh, Pak, Spanon. Now, let's talk about Michael Cohen's new lawsuit against the DOJ.

Let's talk about the timing of the lawsuit because the Trump administration is also no longer in power, but it is nonetheless against Trump administration officials like Bill Barr. And this lawsuit, and the current euro presence. Yeah, and it alleges retaliatory arrest. So Pope, so Pope, Cohen was released on, you know, when people were being released from their sentences because of COVID. And so he was under house arrest while he was serving his term.

He shows back up to court and basically doing his normal paperwork. And as he shows up filling out his regular paperwork, they basically say, you need to sign this non-disclosure agreement that says, you can't talk at all. Prevision services to it. Prevision services hand this to him. And he's like, what the hell are you talking about? And give Cohen credit. You know, Cohen's like, what the hell are you talking about and give Cohen credit?

You know, Cohen's like, I'm not signing this document. I'm not waving my right to write a book or talk on a podcast. The Michael podcast with minus touch or do anything like that. Like you can't take that right away from me and they threw him in jail. They threw him in jail. Yeah, the revoked. And they revoked his home. So look, Michael Cohen is a fascinating character

that we of course support here, at the mightest touch, legal AF, for many many reasons, including he's a fellow podcaster in the family. But I met Michael on a number of occasions, we're in the same neighborhood here in New York. But Michael served, you know, Michael served his time. He had a three year sentence for tax evasion, campaign finance,

violation, and also, as we talked about earlier tonight, the podcast, lying to Congress, that was, that was one of his charges. And he, you know, he was a year or so into his sentence, the pandemic hit, he along with thousands and thousands of other white collar nonviolent people were let out of their cages, let out of their prison cells and allowed to finish their term on home confinement. Well, while he was home, he was writing a memoir. It's been published. He was working on his podcast and he went in, as you said, to like fill out paperwork,

to continue his home confinement and all of a sudden the probation department combined with the bureau prison says you got to sign here on the dotted line you can't you can't be we got to gag you you're not going to be able to exercise your first amendment rights while you're out on home confinement and he said absolutely not and they literally took him away that moment in handcuffs back to jail. It's. The guy thinks he's going home to finish his term that afternoon. He's instead of got to call family and said, I'm in handcuffs, heading back to federal detention center and back to serve my term. So, look, he sued the Trump, he sued Trump personally a couple of times. He lost recently, I think we touched on it. He tried

to get his attorney's fees paid by the Trump Organization under an agreement. Some judge in New York said, no, we're not finding that agreement against the Trump Organization. You might have had it with Trump personally or somebody else. So he didn't get his attorney's fees. Now he's suing for intentional inflection

of emotional distress and other violations of his First Amendment rights and constitutional rights, seeking damages against Bill Barr, the then Attorney General, Trump, the Trump Organization, and the Bureau of Prisons, which is an existing organization now. Now, he's got one thing, which is a really good thing in his favor for this lawsuit. When that happened to him, but he went to jail back to prison, he actually got released again. He went before a federal judge,

Alvin Hellerstein, here in Manhattan, in July of 2020 or so, and Judge Hellerstein sided with Michael and decided that the Bureau of Prisons and probation had improperly retaliated against Michael Cohen because he was about to publish a memoir that was gonna be flattering to the president at the time, Donald Trump.

And that's a finding of that, that the federal judge made using that finding and he got released, he got sent back to home confinement to finish his term. Using that finding, which I think is half the battle, Michael's now going to try to sue and say, I should not have been made a political prisoner in retaliation by a president. He should not be able to use the bureau of prisons and the probation department as a club against his political adversaries. I'm not sure he's wrong about that. What do you think, Ben?

Cohen's 100% right. This is an absurd situation. And why this lawsuit is incredibly important. And I think more important than just Michael Cohen filing a lawsuit. And this was broken down by MSNBC, you know, following Cohen's interview with Rachel Maddow about the situation. This is one of the steps of a desperate throwing your political enemies in jail and utilizing the Bureau of Prisons and utilizing all that to squelch free speech is something that is so enathema to what we stand for in the United States of America.

And again, this is why, let this episode go full circle, as we close, this is why the judiciary, though, is so important, you know, and having judges who are qualified, they're going to always be presidents from different political parties, but one of the things that Trump tried to do in his administration was to appoint unqualified judges and succeeded. In a lot of sense, a pushing people who bipartisan groups said these judges were entirely unqualified to be judges,

but having qualified respected lawyers as judges and this judge in this case said, you know what? In 21 years of being a judge, I have never ever even seen anything close to this happen and called the Trump administration out on this and ended, you know, and made those findings that you talked about and now Cohen is filing his lawsuit. Yeah, the question is, is the is the Biden administration going to try to step in because they don't like the precedent. having this kind of lawsuit, even if it has merits, sort of what they did with EG and Carol. We'll have to say, right now they haven't tried to intervene.

No one's made that argument. Bureau of prisons may, somebody may. But I think you're right on the merits, especially with the federal judge sending him back to home confinement, finding retaliation. I think he's got the makings of a good suit. You're right. It was a good interview that was gave with Rachel Maddo.

That Michael Cohen is goi the Midas Touch Brothers. will be featured in a two touch special over the hol make sure you have watcht Cohen or will be be watching the Michael Cohen might as touch interviews with myself, Brett and Jordi, Michael Popo, always a pleasure

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