Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Judge Hits Musk With Surprise Order He’s Been Dreading

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

In breaking news, the first federal judge has ordered Elon Musk to give sworn testimony under oath about DOGE and his role in destroying the federal government, including decimating the federal workforce and cutting billions of dollars in funding to the States. Michael Popok dives into the new order, contrasts it to another order from this week finding DOGE subject to federal public records law, and explains why Judge Chutkan is the right judge for the job. Get 20% off all IQBAR products. Text LEGALAF to 64000. (Message and data rates may apply) Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for total fund savings adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. For the first time ever, a federal judge has ordered Elon Musk to give sworn testimony testimony under oath about Doge, his role, what it's doing secretly behind closed doors to decimate the federal workforce and federal funding. And I can't think of a better judge to have ordered it than Judge Tanya Chutkin, the judge in the DC Circuit Court who presided over Donald Trump's election interference criminal trial. I'm Michael Popock.

I'm here for it. So are you on the Midas Touch Network and Unlegal AF. Let's get to Judge Chutkin's new order. Now in 24 hours, two different judges in the same courthouse, Judge Cooper and now Judge Chutkin, have ordered that Musk and Doge disclose their documents and information and testimony ultimately to the American people. Earlier in the day I did a hot take about a Judge Cooper. Judge Cooper was the first judge who ordered that Doge,

the Department of Government Efficiency Services, whatever that is, is a quasi-agency of the federal government, not a special advisor, just a special advisor to Trump, and ordered that documents and information demanded by a citizens and ethics group be disclosed to the American people under a Freedom of Information Act FOIA public records request. That's a big deal. It's the first time a federal judge announced that Doge was an agency exercising

independent agency power, and therefore was out from under the executive privilege and had to provide documents pursuant to a public records request. We operate or are supposed to operate government in the sunshine. Sunshine being the best disinfectant, give us the documents. But then on the heels of that, Judge Chutkin went further and is the

first judge to order that Elon Musk give sworn testimony under oath in the form of an interrogatory, although she didn't order depositions, which is a live question and answer period like court testimony, she did order that Musk himself respond to these questions under oath signed under penalty of burglary. It's a big deal. Let me break it down for you. There's a case that we've been covering closely for the Midas Touch Network and for Legal AF brought by the state of New Mexico and a series of other states and for legal AF brought by the state of New Mexico and a series of other states, arguing that Elon Musk, on behalf of the government and Donald Trump, was illegally and unconstitutionally

cutting off funding. They as states claimed that they were injured and harmed as a result, and they moved originally for a temporary restraining order to stop this cutting of the funding. The judge had some doubts at the time. We reported on them about whether they had the requisite, what we call in the injunction business, irreparable harm, meaning that if the injunction was not put in place, things were going to happen that couldn't be fixed

with money at a later time. So the judge needed to block or enjoin it. Now, some people who were more casual watchers of legal and political news or developments may think that injunctions are easy to get, because there's so many that have been obtained against the Trump administration. I will tell you as a 35-year practitioner, they are hard to get over that threshold. They are extraordinary remedies that judges don't just hand out. The reason there's so many injunctions that have been handed out, more than 30, by judges is because they find that it's more likely than not that Donald Trump and his administration

have violated the Constitution or the Administrative Procedures Act or both, and they have enjoined temporarily, preliminarily, permanently, depends on the posture, administrative stays, you name it, that's what's happened. But Judge Chutkin, just because you don't win a temporary restraining order doesn't mean you can't win on the ultimate merits of the case. And now we're into the merits of the case and the preliminary injunction phase of Judge Chutkin's case.

And the other side, State of New Mexico and others, said to the judge, we have very limited questions and requests for information we want from the other side in order to prove our case. And the judge says, well, what are they? And we call that phase, there's a little bit of a legal AF breakout session here, we call that phase in a case, the life cycle of a case,

discovery. Discovery is the exchange of information between the two litigant parties in advance of a trial or a hearing. It can take many forms. The ones that are in play here are the classic ones. A request for production, meaning I make a request to you to produce documents, information, digital or hard copy format by category, an interrogatory, which is the the new order against Elon Musk for the first time, that's sworn testimony under oath in writing. That's an interrogatory. Then you have a request for admission, which is not technically discovery but close to it, where you ask, you make a series of statements, and you ask the other side to admit or deny it.

There's a reason for that, we'll talk about that another time. Here, the plaintiffs were ready for Trump and Elon Musk, and came to the judge with a very meager request. Only six requests to produce. I've been in cases where there's hundreds, only five interrogatories, only five requests for admission. And they asked for depositions, two of them only,

and the judge, and Donald Trump is also a party to the case. The judge, and I'm gonna read to you from our order in a minute, said, I think the discovery is surgical. I think it's limited. I think it's appropriate. I think it's appropriate given the preliminary injunction and trial on the merits that I'm going to do in the case about whether this funding cut was lawful or not. And I'm going to, with some modifications, I'm going to grant the motion for expedited discovery.

Donald Trump filed a motion to dismiss, his administration did, of the same case. Judge says, yeah, I'll consider that too. But we're gonna wrap all this together in one sort of proceeding, let you guys brief it the way you've proposed, but we're gonna do this limited discovery with one exception.

The judge for now said, I'm not gonna have Donald Trump himself as president be subject to these discovery requests. Why? Because the judge was concerned that this would automatically implicate the separation of powers executive privilege, and she wanted to tiptoe around that minefield. She'd been sort of burned before by the Supreme Court

in how she handled the immunity aspect of Donald Trump's criminal prosecution. And I'm sure she's being very mindful of that and of the case law and said, you know what the way around this is? The other side's not asking for emails and communications between the president and Elon Musk. So I think we're out from under the executive privilege issue,

but that is where we go next. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack sponsor. IQ Bar is the better for you plant protein-based snacks made with brain boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash. IQ Bar is totally free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial sweeteners for a natural anytime snack.

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Message and data rates may apply see terms for details as we've reported on legal AF on a number of occasions Including this past weekend with Ben, my salads and me We said that the fight that's brewing and that's gonna spill out into the public really quickly and now even more with more accelerant on it because of Judge Chutkin's order, is the Trump administration arguing that Elon Musk is just a mere advisor, as we've heard his lawyers say in court and his press secretary say out loud.

And it's just giving Donald Trump advice, but the decision-making is being done at the agency level or by Donald Trump. We know that's a lie. We saw in the way that the earlier order by Judge Cooper in the day methodically went through all the press reports, all the social media posts, all the speeches and shout outs by Donald Trump to show the role of Elon Musk, that he's exercising independent agency judgment. He's not just a special advisor.

So here in another way, we're watching two different judges sort of handle a similar problem, right? The 800 pound gorilla in the room, which is what do we do about executive privilege? We know that Donald Trump's gonna raise it. So this is the way that Judge Chetkin tried to avoid it. No emails, no communications to the two of them. And Donald Trump's not subject to this

particular set of requests. And I'm not going to allow the depositions, which are question and answer under oath as if you're in a courtroom, that live testimony thing, at the moment. There, because there she has less control over questions asked and answered. And so the way the judge has analyzed it, as I'll summarize on page four of her order, the court concludes that granting expedited discovery is in the best interest of all parties. Plaintiffs discovery requests target information necessary to resolve their forthcoming preliminary injunction motion. The court recognizes that discovery into the executive, particularly the White House and senior advisors, imposes a heightened burden. Accordingly, the court does not authorize all

the discovery. The plaintiff's request imposes several additional restrictions on those scopes and extends defendants time to respond. With those adjustments, the court finds expedited discovery is reasonable and necessary to evaluate the plaintiff's request for injunction for leave. In other words, she needs this information in order to make her decision as a judge over the merits of this case. So then she says on page seven,

or she declares on page seven, that plaintiff's document requests seeks information regarding Doge's and Musk's involvement in eliminating, this is the document side, right, information side. They're seeking the categories of Musk's involvement in eliminating or reducing the size of federal agencies, seems reasonable, terminating or placing federal employees on leave, we know he's doing that, canceling, freezing or pausing federal contracts, grants, or other federal funding, that's at the heart of the matter,

and obtaining access, success, using, or making changes to federal databases or data management systems. Seems like the core issues that are implicated by Elon Musk and Doge's actions. The judge went on to say on page eight, evidence that defendants eliminated agencies that work with plaintiffs, terminated employees

responsible for managing programs with plaintiffs, the plaintiffs again are states, or canceled contracts with plaintiffs, is relevant to whether defendants exceeded their statutory and constitutional authority. Then she goes on to the bombshell, which she kind of slips into the back end of her order. She's going to make Elon Musk sit or respond under penalty of perjury and give testimony in the form of an interrogatory response.

Um, and so she says on the interrogatory side that, she goes through the analysis that the information that is sought from Elon Musk on those very same categories also will assist her in her ability to determine whether the injunction is appropriate or not. And so at the end of the day, she then says, you want to do your motion to dismiss Trump? You can do your motion to dismiss. Now let me just tell you quickly why this is so important. Elon Musk has not yet had to stand and deliver under penalty of perjury in a courtroom through a discovery process and state

what we've all seen is the obvious, what his role is, the acts that he's swinging, the worlds that he's destroying. He'll have to now. Except we know the Trump administration is going to argue, is going to move to reconsider this, is going to move for an, try to take an appeal to the DC Court of Appeals, arguing executive privilege, executive privilege, executive privilege. And that argument goes something like this. Musk is just an advisor. The president needs to operate and use his executive action and executive function with advice of people around him. He's getting advice from Musk. There's a privilege around that. And therefore, Elon Musk should not be compelled to testify

either in deposition or here in an interrogatory or in a courtroom. Executive privilege, executive privilege. And I think my belief and my judgment is that Judge Chutkin has done the right thing about how she's tailored and narrowed these discovery requests. But now the fight, the rubber meets the road on Musk's testimony. And I think we're going to see a quick appeal to the DC Court of Appeals. I think it's going to be a win for the states. I think they're going to support Judge Chutkin. Now we're going to see what Justice Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett do. They're the ones that matter in this.

Anything related to presidential power, presidential executive privilege, and the separation of powers is going to go, of course, to the full court. But the only two that really matter are going to be Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. We know that the three moderate members of the court are going to rule likely based on their prior jurisprudential approach. they're gonna rule that Musk's gotta give testimony. The other four on the right right wing are gonna rule opposite. And so now it's up to Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts. My gut is that there's not five votes to find that Elon Musk can operate the way he's operating, post things on social media, be shouted out at joint sessions of Congress, have Donald Trump give him the power

that he's given him, moving at a speed, a velocity, and an opacity. He can't see it, and it's moving too fast. This is all obvious. This is going to lead the Supreme Court to force him to testify and get him out from under executive privilege. We see it with our own eyes. Now it's up to the Supreme Court to do their part. But the first step is judges like Cooper, judges like Chutkin making the rulings today. On one hand, Doge is an agency for the purposes of Freedom of Information Act request, FOIA Public Records Act request. That's big. That's important. Now Judge Chutkin making Musk stand and deliver giving sworn testimony subject to appellate review. I'm Michael Popak. You're here on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network.

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