Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF 10/15/2026

Episode Date: October 15, 2026

The award winning Legal AF podcast is back with Popok and KFA to update the audience on new developments in the Trump attack on the media resulting in a brand new injunction against Trump; Trump’s neophyte press secretary being accused of crimes associated with her lack of a law license; Judge Reyes ripping the Trump Administration a new one for violating her orders; son in law Jared Kushner being sued to stop him from being an unconfirmed diplomat negotiating with the Iranians, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Dose Daily: Dose: Save 35% on your first month of subscription by going to https://dosedaily.co/LEGALAF or entering LEGALAF at checkout. Select Quote: Get the right life insurance for you for less at https://SelectQuote.com/legalaf today! Boxie: For a limited time, get 40% off your order when you head to https://Boxiecat.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF Laundry Sauce: For 20% off your order head to https://LaundrySauce.com/LEGALAF20 and use code LEGALAF20 Legal AF Substack: https://michaelpopok.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=77cac1f8 Check out The Popok Firm at: https://thepopokfirm.com Follow Legal AF on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/legalafmtn.bsky.social Follow Michael Popok on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mspopok.bsky.social Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: https://meidasnews.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Export Development Canada, Canadian businesses are competing, leading, and winning in more international markets. Like how agri-food businesses are strengthening global food supply and critical minerals are powering industries of the future. Their ambition can't be contained. And with EDC behind them, neither can their growth. Export Development Canada is the financial partner for Canadian businesses going global. Visit EDC.ca for more. Welcome to Legal A.F. at the midweek, and the emphasis is on the F and the AF. You know, you've got an administration that has gotten enjoined temporarily or permanently or preliminarily three times in less than 48 hours.

You've got a one of them about CNN and other mainstream media's access to the White House on the heels of a disastrous press secretary performance. which was a crime against humanity, but more importantly, it looks like it may have been a crime in practicing law without a law license for Katie Zacharia. So we're going to tie all those things together. Judge Rochon in the Southern District of New York has now, as we came on the air, extended her temporary restraining order. So we won't have to have our eyes bleed watching Trump ads, the Love Me ads, between now and the midterms. Although I think they've backfired. I want to hear Karen's opinion in a moment. Don't think they're making and manufacturing any new Republican votes anymore.

I think that's sort of over when your president and the head of your party has approval ratings with the margin of error in the 20s. I think it's all backfiring at this point. I would like the ads actually to run because I think they are indicative of the electorate running away from Donald Trump, you know, and his and his, and his efforts to try to put himself on the ballot through these ads with our taxpayer dollars, I think will backfire, and Judge Rochon has stepped in. We'll talk about that.

Judge Reyes is none too pleased that work is continuing or had been continuing to fell five. I hate that picture. I mean, I love the picture for what I'm illustrating what we're talking about, but it breaks my heart to see, you know, viable, healthy maples and oak. be felled by the Trump administration as they try to reimagine the historic municipal golf course in DC to look like some 36 whole professional course that you know Trump if he owned it would love but he doesn't own it it's a historical golf course and they violated court orders and judge Reyes is not

pleased she just issued her 21-page order today we all know what happened at the hearing and you'll know what happened at the hearing when we get Karen together with me here and then as we came on the air Jared Kushner sued along with Steve Whitkoff because they're phony special envoys and they're playing the special envoy home game, the cosplay. They're not properly confirmed by the Senate. And yet they're, you know, Donald Trump's, you know, lead diplomats with no experience in Iran. No wonder we've lost hundreds of servicemen and women and have blown through. billions of dollars of cost that have made us less secure. We got two Income poops who are playing

diplomat. So let's bring in Karen Friedman. Echnifalo. Hi, Karen. Hi, Popak. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. What's new? What's new in your world? What's new in my world? Just, you know, practicing law, living the dream, as they say. I'm just horrified by the fact that our country is going to be live streaming public executions at this point. I can't even fathom what we're turning into. Yeah, I think it all backfired. When you're 20 days, and we're now at the 20-day mark here, when you're 20 days before the election

and people are already starting to vote, I think the die is cast here. It could be wrong. I think a combination of blue wave voting and enthusiasm, willing to stand in line or stand on broken glass in order to vote combined with the red undertow where the reds the red voter just goes meh meh i'm staying home i think that combination leads to a lot of good things like the house in the senate and even the senate turning uh turning blue but i just think all of these things we're

watching as donald trump is um desperate and that he look he has this stench of desperation along with scandal on him. As we reached the 20-day mark, people can't stop understanding the immutable facts about their daily life under Donald Trump. They know what's happened to them at the supermarket, at the gas pump in their schools, caring for senior loved ones. They know they can't make ends meet. They know that there's a lack of dignity in living right now.

I don't know if you caught this, Karen. And the New York Times or at the Washington Post was doing an interview with trying to figure out who was the model candidate that would turn this election. In other words, years ago was referred to as the soccer mom. And what is it now? And they came up with a through one of the voters in Colorado. They came up with a great, I think two great phrases for it. What's going to impact this election and turn it, I think, blue. One of them was the overtime moms, meaning families.

and especially single mothers who have to work two jobs in order to make ends meet or four jobs in order to make ends meet in this Trump economy. And then the other one I loved was, because this is a Hispanic voter in Colorado, steel toes and tamales. Steel toes, meaning they're doing the dirty jobs, they're doing the construction work, they're doing the,

you know, they're up on the roofs, they're in the fields and tamales for their, partly for their heritage. And if that is the voter in a lot of these places, I think Donald Trump is dead. So is Maga. Yeah, I everybody I know, almost at least, everybody I know who voted for Donald Trump is saying they regret it and that he's destroying our country.

And I think people see it. They feel it. They see it. And they can try to gaslight us all they want. People know exactly what they're living and what's happening in the world and what's happening around them. And I think there are people are craving somebody who's just going to be honest.

with them and straightforward and actually try to make life better for the American people. And that's not what this administration is doing. And I do think people are frustrated. And I think that's going to play out at the ballot box soon. And hopefully it'll be a title wave. But I do think it'll be a blue wave. That's my prediction.

Yeah. And I have a friend who's a podcaster. She lives down here in Miami, remain nameless for now. But she did some great reporting in her own substack about her interact. her interactions with Republican pollsters. And they told her that they're fucked, that they've seen the numbers,

the internal polling numbers, and they are very, very scared. They don't know what the Trump administration is talking about. They're whistling past the graveyard. They think this is gonna be an overwhelming wipeout. But the only way to make that happen, it's easy for you and I'd talk about. It's talk is cheap.

But elections have already started you know the election has started voting has started ballots have been cast and returned i'm i'm waiting for monday when i can start early voting in florida you know for the from october 19th until the first of november and i've had on on legal a f and it's coming up this week i interviewed a lot of people this week um i interviewed the the chairperson of the democratic party in florida nicky freed and she's got to a chart in her office of like 40 seats, congressional seats, that she thinks that she can flip, you know? And this is where it happens for people that are thinking, how do we get to 218 or

220 or 230 in the House? It's places like that. A flip here, a flip there in places like Florida, and suddenly we wake up to, you know, you and I be able to announce the Democrats to 230 seats of the House today. But this is how it happens. Precinct by precinct, Congress. district by congressional district. I even interviewed Elliot Rodriguez, who's running for Congressional District 27, which covers where I live in Coral Gables in South Florida. It was once held by Donna Shalala,

who had been in the Clinton administration, but has long been a Republican stronghold, and was bright red about six months ago. And now it's a toss-up. And the Democrats are pumping money to get Elliot Rodriguez, a famous former CBS, a local news reporter here to get him elected. And this is how it happens.

It's rolling up your shirt sleeve. It's shoe leather. It's knocking on doors. And it's making sure that we don't just talk about voting, but that we ensure that we've done everything we can to leave it on the field. And so when we wake up on the 4th of November, whenever the counting is completed, we can say, you know what?

Win, lose, or draw, we did our best to protect democracy in the rule of law. That's what we're all about here. on legal AF and on the Midas Touch network, right? Yeah, and I agree, but also the voting turnout has to be huge. It has to be strong because they, the Republicans are going to try and steal this election. I know that's a term that is thrown around a lot by the Republicans, but they are going to try and do everything they can to make it so that certain votes don't count, make it so that people aren't able to vote, whether it's executing search warrants and taking ballot boxes,

whether it's not having ICE agents at the polls to try to deter people from going, whether it's not delivering mail or rejecting mail that is delivered, who knows what shenanigans they're going to try to pull in order to make it so that your vote doesn't count. And so what we want and what we need to do is have people win by a landslide so that if, a few votes don't get counted, it won't matter. Don't make it a close race. And so everybody has to go out and vote. And every vote counts at this point. Absolutely. Let's turn to the law part because the rule of law and accountability is on the ballot. Protecting the rule of laws on the ballot. And Donald Trump's track record is on the ballot. And so let's pick up with an update about Judge Kelly, who was a a Trump appointed judge in the first term and his new preliminary injunction in favor of the free press,

at least CNN, MSN, and Politico. Before I turn it over to you, let me just tell people what it is and what it isn't. This is not about the press pool or who gets to be in the press pool to cover the president or the attempts to cut these mainstream media out of the press pool. It's not about Air Force One. It's not about the Oval Office or Marine One or the tarmac or catching Donald Trump when he's walking in and out of a sporting event or at a rally. Those are for other lawsuits in another day. This is basic bread and butter. White House correspondent, White House staffer for mainstream media. Do they get to keep their press pass to walk in the front gates of the White House or don't they? That's all that this is about.

It may end up being about other things that we've seen Donald Trump do as he continues to attack and bash and limit the press. But that's what this was about. It started as a temporary restraining order that was really focused 100% on the Fifth Amendment, which is a due process right that if somebody tries to take your liberty or your property, you have to get notice in advance, an opportunity to be heard. You get to know what the standards are. that you're not meeting so that you can address them

and an opportunity to get them back. None of that happened in the case. So it was relatively easy for the judge to stay on the Fifth Amendment path. But the First Amendment was always looming in the background, especially on the preliminary injunction. Why don't you take it from there, Karen? We can talk about how the judge ruled.

Yeah, so this case is moving at lightning speed, right? September 18th, Trump announced that CNN, MS Now, and Politico were banned from the White House, right? And his own words were, they're covering is false, it's unfair, I get negative reporting, that's what he said. And so the next day, the reporters had their entry denied and their hard passes or their credentials were confiscated. Two days later, these three news organizations filed a lawsuit, and they asserted First Amendment, free speech and their ability to report at the White House, right? And Fifth Amendment, due process,

meaning there was no process to revoke this. And three days after that, Judge Kelly granted a TRO, a temporary restraining order. And yesterday granted the preliminary injunction, allowing them basically saying you get to have your access. And in a prior ruling, the same judge, when Trump did this to Jim Acosta, he only found the Fifth Amendment due process violation,

meaning there wasn't any sort of process in place, that was clear, that there was notice, that there were standards governing, how you could have your press pass revoked, et cetera, and didn't touch the First Amendment part of this. And so this particular preliminary injunction, this particular order is, I think, significant because not only did Judge Kelly find that, again, the process wasn't, there is no process. And so their due process rights were violated, but also said that this is a First Amendment violation, that this was retaliation, and this was retaliation based on protected speech, that there was government action that is sufficient to deter an ordinarily, you know, an ordinarily a person who would speak firmly or would

speak openly, this will deter that. And this could deter journalists from exercising their First Amendment rights because a White House pass is essential to their work. And the fact that the government tried to say, oh, national security after the fact, the judge said, no, no, no, I'm looking at what Trump actually said. You can't cite national security after the fact to cure what's clearly the reason Trump is doing this, which is because you don't like their reporting, which gets to the other First Amendment violation that he found, which is viewpoint discrimination, that essentially they're being punished because of their viewpoint. And they were selected because the president didn't like their coverage.

And so that was a pretty, I mean, again, as you said, Kelly is a Trump-appointed judge who found that the president of the United States has a pretextual excuse for doing this. It's a pretext saying that, oh, it's national security, that the president did this because he doesn't like their viewpoint. he's violating their First Amendment rights and violating their Fifth Amendment rights. So I think it's a pretty significant order that happened yesterday. Yeah.

Agreed. Came out late last night. We've been waiting on it. The only part about it I didn't like, and I'm up on the videos saying this, I didn't like the fact that he threw a one-liner in there. He felt compelled, maybe because he's a Trump-appointed judge, to throw a bone to the Trump administration. He said, I don't want anybody to, I'm paraphrase.

I don't want anybody to think that this order has anything to do with whether Donald Trump has legitimate gripes about the negativity of the free press and coverage or national security interests, just in this case. Like, you know, no Democratic appointed, no Democratic-appointed judge would have written that one line in there, which was obviously, don't hit me again, you know, some sort of protective prophylactic line by the judge. you know he doesn't have to then what then Stephen Miller is then going to run and oh no see even this judge believes there was negative press cover they'll distort that for on social media for their own purposes they've already now appealed which is no surprise we knew the kind of appealed this up to the DC appellate court see they want to overturn two principles two cases that have that that that are the controlling authority for Judge Kelly and anybody in the D.C. federal court, a case called Shirel and a case called Karam. They have to do with press passes and when they can be taken away or not taken away. And the judge says in his order, you want to overturn Sherrell, you want to overturn Karam, that's above my pay grade. He literally said it's above my pay grade. You want to go do it at the courts, go do it at the court. So, of course, they took them up on that invitation,

immediately filed. And now we're going to have to see what happens next. And unfortunately, it's going to have to do with who gets appointed, who gets put to the three judge panel. There's three Trump judges. I said Trump judges. Tatsis, Rayo, and Walker. One of them end up on a panel. It'll go in favor of the free press. Two get on there.

It'll go two to one in favor of Donald Trump. I hate to be right about these things. And it's not a predictive market. We're not Kalshi or whatever, but that's what's going to happen. And once I see the panel, then you and I can report on what the next thing that's going to be. And the loser is going to take it up to the United States Supreme Court, likely on an emergency docket. And just as a side note, even though the court is now in session, for the Supreme Court, they still take these emergency petitions, which are really not great for democracy or for the rule of law, because you only get a short amount of time, a short track. no oral argument, two briefs instead of three,

doesn't give enough time usually for the abacus briefs to come in from friends of the court that can up sway the judge's mind. It's really, it's no way to run democracy or a constitutional public. But that's what's going to happen. But it had to start with Judge Kelly saying, preliminary injunction, likely enough success on the merits, irreparable harm, and the rest. We're going to, I'm going to do that until the,

until the case is fully tried, is fully considered. Now it's going to be up to whether there's going to be a stay, an emergency stay or an administrative stay of his order. He may stay his own order. We'll have to keep an eye on that on the docket overnight. If he doesn't stay it, they're going to have to go and ask the appeals court to do it. They may stay it temporarily, but I don't think so when you're talking talking about the first Amendment and the access to the White House, I think they're going to deny the stay.

They're going to do some sort of fast briefing schedule and allow the White House correspondence and staff to do their job in the meantime, you know? Interestingly, Popak, I'm sure you notice this, when the new press secretary, who we're going to speak about in a moment, Katie Zakaria, when she did her maiden voyage press conference, she only called on Fox and Newsmax and Breitbart. she didn't call on and only took like three questions. And I think they're going to have an argument eventually that they're essentially freezing out these reporters

that they don't like by not calling on them, by not allowing them to ask questions. And just be like, well, you have your press pass, you're here, but no one says I have to let you speak or that I have to answer any of your questions. I just wonder if there's going to be sort of this kind of subtle way of freezing them out, even if they're in the room that will then bring another claim.

Yeah, that's why I started with. There's so many things that are not on the table in this lawsuit. They're going to start getting banned and blocked for the Oval Office. He's already gone after Caitlin Collins. Like, what are you doing here? Stop asking me questions. You're not supposed to be here. We've seen him do it over and over again.

Yeah, and of course, in her 14 minutes, nine of which was her twirling her hair and nervously giggling. I'm getting confused between her husband and Donald Trump. I'm not making this up. Oh, so I want to spend time with my children and Donald Trump. I mean my husband. Okay. She only had four minutes or five minutes of questions, and you're right.

They only went to right-wing and mainstream right-wing media. So there are going to be other lawsuits about the Trump administration decided they only want to be covered by friendly, cushy media that's going to throw them softballs and be part of their propaganda apparatus. I just think when that eventually gets to the Supreme Court on a broader case, even the Supreme Court is in favor of broad First Amendment protection for the press because they're afraid that in the future, when the tables inevitably, invariably are turned, they don't want MAGA and Republicans in federalist society people to be bound and gagged and not have access. and that's what they're they are worried about a long game that goes beyond Donald Trump. So, you know, we're going to have to see what happens with the state. So the next events are going to be the panel, the stay, if it's going to be granted, who's going to be the loser at the D.C. appellate court and who's going to take the appeal to the United States Supreme Court?

But, of course, you know, this is a fight that has to be, has to be waged by mainstream media, right? Absolutely. So the press secretary, I joked at an earlier video that's going up soon, that her press conference was a crime against humanity. I mean, I've never seen one person do so poorly in such a short amount of time than Katie Zacharia. But what we all latched into very, very quickly has been her claims over the last 10 years that she is a practicing lawyer. I mean, I have a video going up really soon in which I pulled together all of the clips in which she has said, I'm a lawyer, as a lawyer, I'm a lawyer, I'm going to comment on that. I've been a lawyer for the World Bank.

I've been a lawyer. I'm in a general counsel. Her LinkedIn still says she was a general counsel. And there's a problem with this. There it is. Right. Right. The problem is she's not a lawyer.

She's a law school graduate. which, by the way, for all those people that went to law school and didn't take the bar, kudos to you, but you can't hold yourself out as practicing law. You can say, as a law school graduate, I will tell you, or as a person who went to law school, I can tell you. But what you can't say is I'm a lawyer. See, that's reserved for people like Karen and me

who actually took a bar exam and went through an admission process and got sworn in. That's our profession. It would be the equivalent of a doctor, or a person who graduates medical school, doesn't take the boards and starts practicing medicine without a license. We have a word for that.

It's called a crime. And so when I saw very quickly that she was lying, Karen, about her background, because it's one thing to go on a little watched podcasts, and I mean like 200 people watching them. I had to go find some of these. Like, who is this guy? But in any event, it's one thing to go on there

in the backwaters of podcasting and YouTube and make a statement you hope nobody will hear. It's like a tree falling in the woods. If nobody's there to hear it, maybe it didn't happen. Well, it did happen. And your LinkedIn says that you're a general counsel, which implies to the public that you're a practicing lawyer when you are not.

So it all came to a head during the press conference because when she was done, giggling her way through the press conference, she said, I've got to go outside. We're taking Marine One to Alaska. Like, okay. So she goes outside, and then the press hounds Trump. with Mr. President, Mr. President.

She says she's a lawyer. Where is she admitted? Which state is she admitted in? And he's like, I never feel sorry for Trump. But this was definitely the moment he decided to fire her. It hasn't happened yet, but it will. He turned to her as a lawyer. Where are you admitted?

And she yells out something, something, something, China. As if saying that she was admitted to the Chinese bar was a Chinese lawyer as the U.S. press secretary actually was helpful. And that was another lie, because she was not a member of the Chinese bar. She went with her husband to China, and she served as a foreign intern or external or paralegal. She never represented the World Bank as a lawyer, right? Another series of lies, which have all been pulled together by a public interest group, Karen, who filed a bar complaint.

against her unlicensed practice of law. So take it from there. Yeah, look, I mean, the complaint spells out pretty clearly that she appeared on Fox News 18 times since March of 2025 with an on-screen identifier as a lawyer. She expressly said in October 5th of 2026, I'm a lawyer on the Greg Kelly show. She identifies herself, as you said,

as the General Counsel of Fix California from January 2024 through March of 2025 and claimed to have served as outside counsel to the World Bank and International Financial Finance Corporation. And there's a California statute that criminalizes someone who, it's called unauthorized practice of law, and you can't represent that you are a licensed person

to practice law. It's a misdemeanor. And I think it's a pretty strong allegation, right? saying that she held a general counsel position while lacking the necessary license is potentially a misdemeanor. And so this is a complaint that's been filed with the California State Bar. And, you know, California State Bar has publicly said they have no record of her being licensed there under either her married name or her maiden name. There's no public U.S. Bar admission that's been identified anywhere. And, you know, meanwhile, she's maintained that she's performed.

legal work. So I think she's, this filing is to initiate an investigation. It's a request for an investigation and we'll see where it goes. But depending on where it goes, there could be a criminal referral here. You paused and said, I think she is, I said under my breath, fucked. You know, because, and I'm going to have the Attorney General for California, Rob Bont to on with me tomorrow. We're going to talk about the one, they just passed or just got to the 100 lawsuit mark for the Democratic Attorney General against this Trump administration. And we were going to talk about it and what it means and what they're prepared to do in the future, especially around voting. But now I'm going to be asking him, get ready, Attorney General Banta,

is the Attorney General in his office is opening up a criminal investigation into the U.S. press secretary? By the way, she's been press secretary for all of 24 hours. But you can tell. I just had Don Lemon on. we're going to have the video up tomorrow my interview with Don. And Don, a journalist, it was on CNN. And at one point I said to Don with the right president, would you ever want to be the press secretary? He said, absolutely. But as it relates to her, Don's position and I agreed with,

which is there's no vetting. This is very easy to vet. They did no vetting. It's just Donald Trump casting a movie. She looks like she could be a, a press secretary. She sort of looks like Carolyn Leavitt. Let me see. What does she look like? Okay, great. You're the press secretary. What do you look like? Oh, you look like from central casting. You're the secretary of war. Oh, what do you look like? I mean, this is how he operates. And so nobody thought,

hey, I wonder if we should check her LinkedIn bio and see if she really is a lawyer when she held herself out to be. And it's not like she was a general counsel illegally holding yourself out for a random organization they didn't know about. The organization was run by Rick Brunel. Rick Brunel is in the Trump administration as a special envoy. He's on the Kennedy board and he was the one that Trump sent to Romania to get the Tate brothers back their passports and their mobile devices. So Rick Rinell is really close to Trump. in fact right now on her lincoln i don't know if my producer can pull this quick enough right now on her lincoln she still lists that she is in the communications department of truth social and the white house press secretary i mean that's honest i mean you should just honestly say you're

you're you're still working for trump under the books or off or under the table doing propaganda on truth social but all you have to do is go down i mean there's nobody that gets hired for a major your job. I went through a background check. I'm sure you did too when you were at the prosecutor's office. I did it when I worked in financial services. They double checked everything in my resume. And this is for somebody like Karen who went through a bar admission process where they do a background investigation. I mean, when I was investigated in Florida, like any other applicant, I was at that time, I was almost 30. And I listed that. They told them. They told you. me to list every job you've ever had in your life and I had started working at 15 and and

explain any gaps so I had in there Karen that I worked at chick-fil-a in a mall in New Jersey when I was 15 and I had a guess on the dates because I I was 15 and I and I put it in there and they wrote me back and said we need to know the I put But Seview Square Mall, which they tore down in Neptune, New Jersey. Oh, no, they needed the physical mailing address. They needed to know who my manager was. And I wrote back sort of snarky as I was getting pissed off after the third degree. Like, I don't know.

The mall was torn down. It's in Neptune, New Jersey. I remembered my manager's name. I said, I had a manager. Al, whatever. But this is the level of proctology style investigation that bar entities put you through. She never got put through that. I mean, some people might say, what's the big deal?

She's not practicing law. But it is a big deal because, as you just said, no one is vetting her. It's like the lights are on, but nobody's home. Who are these people who are working for us? She's telling us what we're supposed to trust her, what's coming out of her mouth. I mean, it's just so alarming that this, it's not just her, but also this administration. They are just not qualified. There's nobody qualified in this administration.

and they're not making sure that people are qualified. It's really such an alarming, alarming fact, in my opinion. Here's how our friends over at a campaign for accountability. Here's how they ended there. Here's how they concluded their bar complaint. Ms. Zacharia now speaks for the President of the United States from the White House podium. She's relied on her legal pedigree to give her credibility,

both in that role and to her statements as a television legal, legal commentator. The public is entitled to rely on the representation, turn the page, I feel like Katie Zacharia now, turn the page, that a person who calls herself a lawyer is in fact licensed to practice law. California law protects that reliance by making it a crime for an unlicensed person

to hold herself out as entitled to practice. The protection means little if it's not enforced against prominent figures who make such claims to millions of viewers. And for those to think we're being too hard. Like I saw Sean Hannity say, you know, this is all because she's a white, good-looking girl. That's what he literally said. He said, they would never do this against Biden's press secretary.

By the way, they did it against Biden's press secretary, including Sean Hannity, on a regular basis. So he's making this a black-white thing. But white in the other direction, oh, poor, over-privileged white girl getting picked on by the media. No, she's an incompetent. And suppose it wasn't lying about being a lawyer. Suppose she lied about having a doctorate or being a medical doctor. Why wouldn't that be relevant to whether she can hold a job? How did she get, all right, here's another one, Karen.

How did she get a national security clearance? See, I just thought of something I never thought of. She's going to be dealing with the White House briefing book. She was asked questions about, are we cutting off national intelligence and sharing it with the Ukrainians? Of course, she didn't know the answer to it. But in order to be brought over the wall to answer these questions, she's got to have the basic security clearance.

How did she get a security clearance? The answer is, I am sure she did not. And Donald Trump just waved his magic presidential wand and gave her the job without doing even the most basic protection. So now we've got not only looks like not only an incompetent in the position, Not only somebody who's lied about their profession and their background, but somebody who doesn't have a national security clearance given out national security information at press conferences.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, that's it. Okay, good night, everybody. All right. So when we come back, I'm glad you're all here with Karen Freeman, Ignifalo and me on Legal A.F. We're going to talk about now another temporary restraining order to take those terrible ads off the air by Judge Rochon in the South. District of New York, Judge Reyes, about trees and golf, but it means so much more than that,

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at selectquote.com slash legal a.F. Go to selectquote.com slash legal a.f today to get started. Welcome back to LegalAF at the midweek. Thank you for supporting us and our pro-democracy sponsors. Let's kick it off, Karen. Judge Rochon, who you and I know from the Southern District of New York, she had been a, just to give her a little bit of a background, not only the General Counsel for the Girl Scouts of America,

but she also was a law clerk 20 years ago for Donald Trump's sister, who some people forget was a federal law clerk in New Jersey, Marion, the late Marion Trump Barry. But she was appointed by Biden. She got to sign the case about the ads. She made it pretty clear on Sunday night that no more ad should be shown and why were over a thousand ads shown to try to convince the American people that all is right with the Trump administration

and to try to sway voters using your and my tax dollars or at least the $20 million allocated by the Department of Homeland Security. So there was a hearing today about it, and what can you tell our audience, Karen? Yeah, I mean, there was a hearing because she had ordered them to stop, right? To stop running these ads, these taxpayer ads. But the plaintiffs submitted kind of an amendment to the judge saying there were 570 advertising. spots that were aired after her order saying to stop continuing them on October 11th, including some into October 12th. And today at the hearing, the AUSA, who this is a civil case,

basically said, yeah, sorry, I made a mistake. I went to the theater and I was at the theater on Sunday and forgot to call the client to confirm that the ads had been stopped and explained that essentially, you know, they didn't see the, DHS didn't see the email explaining that you have to stop that until Monday morning. And but the order said immediate action. It required immediate action. And so I just, what's bananas to me is I can't imagine an AUSA going into court and saying that on the record, right? They are usually so buttoned up and to be able to go in there and say, oh, yeah, there's a, order that required immediate action but I went to the theater and so I didn't send an email and therefore 570 ads kept going so I don't know the the judge was not too happy with this that's for sure so it's it's crazy and I have up um now on legal a f YouTube channel an interview

with Brendan Ballou is one of the lawyers that brought the case on behalf of common cause and some labor unions along with democracy forward sky Perryman if you want to see sky and me I have that up from yesterday and Brendan right now, or you know, right before we got on the air. And his the takeaway was the judge, being none too pleased, has now ordered discovery so that the common cause side, the plaintiff's side can get to the bottom of how the order got violated, how many times it got violated. He also made a very good point. He said, you know, because I look at the order and the order was so specific.

It was like not just an injunction or a temporary restraining order against the trial. Trump administration, like, you shall not issue those ads. It went down to the molecular, the granular. It was issued to, like, the vendor, like you, ad agency, you are not, you're enjoined. And even though they weren't really a party, and the, and the, not the procurement clause, the purchase order, that's enjoined. So if this just comes from watching the Trump administration in action and realizing that even if you give an order to the Trump administration, you're going to get bullshit like I fell asleep at the movies. It was a really good movie, Your Honor, or some other bullshit.

And so the discovery is going to be the start of how the judge gets to the bottom of how it happened. But she's already extended the order till well after the midterms with a preliminary injunction hearing sometime after the 4th or the 5th of November. And we'll cover it all right here. But this is yet another example of how different federal judges have to use what's in their bag, their tool bag, to rein in and out of control Department of Justice that sends these people in who think it's appropriate. I mean, I've been doing this for a long time.

So is Karen. I can't imagine saying to a federal judge, I would have complied with your order, Judge. But I had great seats. You know, I got to see whatever. Exactly. Gives a flying fuck. I mean, yeah. If a judge orders you to do something immediately, you do it immediately.

You don't wait. You don't, I mean, I just can't believe it. It's shocking to me. So the discovery is going to bear it all out. And fortunately now we shouldn't see the ads. If for some reason you see the ads, let me know. I'll let Brendan know, and they'll go running back into court on yet another violation. Well, Trump says he's paying for them himself now, that they're no longer going to use DHS funding.

He said that three weeks ago, and that wasn't true. I know. That wasn't true. Just like he said, there's a ceasefire. in Ukraine between the Russians and the Ukrainians over energy bombing, energy facility bombing, which was news to the Ukrainians who just had their energy facilities bombed, as Donald Trump was saying it. You can't believe a word, he says.

He's up at a rally while we've been on the air just earlier. And he's saying some really crazy shit. He just, as our producer, I'll paraphrase our producer, he just ups his game every time he goes out. It's just crazier and crazier shit. He said tonight, traitor, leakers should be shot. He said he picked a senator candidate because they were good looking, not because they were smart.

This is the shit he says out loud, let alone how he runs the government. And is there any wonder why the party is running from him? He's made a murder-suicide pact with that Republican Party. You know, he's going to go out, he's going to go out in. flames and he's going to take the party with him. You know, he's just tied himself to the party and that he won't let them go. They're in another chokehold by Donald Trump. I mean, I'm here for it.

I appreciate it. I like it. But they're trying, normally when you have such an unpopular president, the party tries to salvage whatever it can by running away from the president. But Donald Trump is gang tackling them and not letting them run away. That's great for the Democrats who are taking full of advantage of it. Let's talk about Judge Reyes and the historic East Potomac golf course and the cutting down of trees. It's not about the trees. It's not about the golf course. It's about much greater things.

What was your takeaway from the judge's reported reaction in the courtroom to her orders being violated and what she's done since in issuing her new order? Not very happy. Let's just say that. Judge Reyes, basically stopped the Trump administration from cutting down any more trees and is really was pissed off because the judge warned government lawyers that she wanted advanced notice before any work was being done and specifically said this is on a prior occasion by the way specifically said that if any work is done you know substantial work and she writes she mentions such as removing 10 or more trees That's the kind of thing that I want advance notice. But then on Friday, October 9th, the National Park Service notified the court around 5 o'clock in the evening that it was going to remove 529 trees. And then by Saturday morning, 430. These are like mature 100-year-old beautiful trees had been cut down.

And so the judge ordered an emergency hearing on Monday and basically said, are you joking? Like, this is ridiculous and was very sharply criticizing the lawyers for the late notice. And again, another DOJ attorney said, you know, I did my best to notify you. And the judge says, you did not do your best. You did your absolute worst. And she basically told them, you know, what's happened has cost the government all its credibility with me in this case because she's concerned that they deliberately delayed notification until the night before on a Friday night at 5 o'clock until the.

the plaintiffs had any opportunity practically. I mean, courts closed at 5 o'clock on Friday, right, to seek any relief before they removed over 400 trees. And so this judge is very pissed off and essentially says, I don't trust you. And that's essentially what she's saying is, I don't trust you. And you are not to do anything else without at least, you know, 10 days notice or whatever. I can't remember what she said exactly what the timing is.

but I want notice and you know, and I don't trust you. You've lost credibility with me. It's a very sharply worded, worded opinion. Yeah, she's extended her temporary restraining order until October 23rd. She set a quick briefing schedule for the preliminary injunction. Democracy Forward and Sky Perryman's group filed their preliminary injunction as we came on the air

briefing over the weekend. And I think a very quick preliminary injunction sometime, early next week, and we'll continue to follow it all right here on Legal AF. So when we come back, we're in the home stretch of our Legal AF podcast. Thank you for being here. Being so generous with your time and your support for all that we do on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal A.F. We'll talk about Jared Kushner getting sued today.

That was a long time in coming, but we now have the new case that's been filed about his unvetted, unconfirmed role in foreign policy. who is he? Who is... I was going to use a crude comment about how did he get that job, but we'll leave that for another time. You can fill in the blank

about what you thought I was about to say. In any event, Eric Kushner sued, we're going to cover all of that and so much more when we come back to the LegalAF podcast. Thanks for being here. You want to help the show. Help out the show. See that?

Help out the show. Download the audio of LegalAF, the podcast. Leave a five-star review as well. Come over to LegalAF, the YouTube channel. and help us get to 1,300,000 subscribers by the time. Time is up for the midterm election. I think we're gonna do it, along with one billion views. And then come over to Legal AF Substack,

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where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. It's time to make Laundry Day the best day of the week. Welcome back to Legal A-F, the podcast, Michael Popak with Karen Friedman, Echnifalo, came on the air to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington,

known as Crew, suing Jared Kushner. Okay, well, we always thought it was disgusting that Jared Kushner was like on one hand trying to raise billions of dollars from the Arab world and the United Arab Emirates and Dubai and Saudi Arabia for his private hedge fund and investment fund. at the same time and at me often at the same meetings where he was trying to do some sort of foreign policy for the uh for the american people and donald trump like in particular he was he's the special envoy with steve whitkoff donald trump's golf buddy and uh fellow middling developer

and and cryptocurrency uh partner in uh the iran negotiations there's any wonder why we're a year out A more like since the Iran war was supposed to be ended in a day and and we're still hundreds of people injured and killed, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted. No end in sight in the Iran war. It's because you've got two incompetence who have no diplomatic experience, no nuclear disarmament experience, no diplomacy or negotiation experience. This isn't a land deal. That's how they're treating it. like, well, dad, I'm putting up a condo where Iran used to be. And then while they're doing that and laughed at, you know, we've had reporting that the

Iranians jokingly referred to Kushner as the son-in-law. And that's not a good thing, you know, and that they can't be trusted and they're not negotiating. That's why there is no active negotiations really going on right now. At the same time, he's out putting money in his pocket by saying, hey, will you help us with Iran? Oh, by the way, can you put a billion dollars into my investment? Fund and all this without being confirmed by the Senate.

And so, Crew has now filed this lawsuit in D.C. I'll just start it from the back and then I'll turn it over to Karen as this ambassador at large thing. And they say in their request for relief on page 43 that Kushner is unlawfully serving as an officer of the United States in violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, and they want him and join in everybody around him that enables him, like Secretary of State, and Steve Whitcloth and Heggseth from empowering him. They want a finding that Kushner is nothing more than a private citizen and is subject to the ethics clause and hasn't provided financial information required by the ethics disclosures, which would reveal all of his entanglements,

his unholy entanglements with all of the parties that he's negotiating with, allegedly as a diplomat. Karen, what are you making of the new lawsuit? Look, I mean, the allegations here are quite significant. And on the one hand, what crew is saying is that not only is this a violation of the United States Constitution, the Appointments Clause, but also a statute, the Ethics and Government Act. And so essentially what they're saying is the Constitution specifically says that if you're going to appoint someone to a senior level position, they have to be confirmed by the Senate, right? And he's essentially installed his son-in-law as a senior foreign policy official while avoiding this congressional scrutiny. And on top of that, not providing the financial transparency ordinarily that you'd have to give in order to be confirmed.

And, you know, as you said, he's negotiating with Russia and Ukraine. He is doing diplomacy with Iran. With Iran, he's negotiating with Gaza, you know, in the Gaza conflict and Israel. and all of the broader Middle East relations and having these direct meetings with foreign government officials on behalf of the United States. And again, this is not just a private citizen,

basically giving informal advice to the president. That's a situation where you would not have to be confirmed by the Senate. This is Kushner performing and continuing to perform governmental functions involving substantial diplomatic authority. And there are laws that say you can, can't just do that. So Article 2, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution, requires the President to nominate and the Senate to confirm principal officers of the United States.

Congress can authorize alternative methods for the appointment of what they call inferior officers. So one question here is going to be, is this an inferior officer or is this a principal officer? That's going to be something that they're going to have, that's going to be, I think, looked at in this. And the distinction here is basically whose appointment must satisfy the Constitution. And is he, does he fall within that? And so, you know, look, I think the biggest issue here is the lack of financial disclosure and the entanglements because of the potential conflict of interest, right? Let's say he's out negotiating and discussing things that would be best for the United States, but again, his own financial interests.

What's he going to do, right? Is he going to put his own financial interest first or is he going to put the United States first? And we shouldn't even have that question. He shouldn't be in that position. In P.S., his private investment firm manages more than $6 billion, 99% of which comes from foreign investors, including the sovereign wealth fund associated with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.

So this is to me... Can I make a point about that? Yeah. When this administration started, that number was $2 billion. He has put $4 billion into his got investors representing $4 billion in less than two years while he's been the son-in-law and the special envoy and the chief cheerleader for his investment fund all simultaneously at the same time. That's why the numbers are so eye-popping.

You know, it's not just the $3 billion that Donald Trump has personally made while he's been president. It's not just the $7 billion that his children, and we haven't even looked at Ivanka and Jared yet, the two sons have made. It's the several billion dollars that Kushner and Ivanka have made. I mean, I know she's dodging by acting like, well, I'm just a mom and a housewife down in Florida. Fuck that. We're talking already at the two-year mark of $20 to $30 billion. grift by the Trump administration, and it will only go up from there, especially when he loses the House in the Senate, and he's got nothing else to do but say crazy shit out loud and put money

in his pocket. And pardon everybody on his way out the door. And, you know, it would be one thing if the American people could say the same thing, right? If suddenly we had, you know, that amount of increase in our bank accounts, if our wealth had gone up, if prices had gone down for us, if affordability became, was not such an issue, Right? It would be one thing if that were the case for the American people. But why do we just see Trump, his son-in-law, his inner circle, and everyone kind of in his orbit? Why is their financial status going up and up and up and up and up?

And all the rest of us are going down, down, down, down. And so it makes you wonder, are people putting their own financial interests first and putting the American people second? And I think the answer is yes. And it is arrangements like this without transparency, without following the constant, and without following the law that really make it problematic. And this one really, I think, I'm so glad crew filed this lawsuit. And I really hope that we get to the bottom of this because this is, we can't continue like this in the situation we're in in this country.

Absolutely. And we're glad that there are groups out there that file these types of lawsuits and get to the bottom of it. Just like, you know, what was Elon Musk's role? You know, there's new reporting coming out now about Starlink and things like that. And these are the things that need to be examined in real time in the courts right now, not just looked at in the future by historians. We need to know it now, especially when people are going to the polls to decide who they want to lead them and who they want to use to be a counterweight against an out-of-control, lawless, immoral, illegal Trump administration.

That's what we've been watching through and through. And one of the things that I can count on, and Karen can count on, is the support and the power and the weight of just people here. People who are part of our community, part of the fellowship, part of the union that we've created on Midas Touch and Unlegal A-F. You know, the power of ordinary people, forget Karen, me, Ben, whatever, podcasters talking a glass and microphones, that alone is not going to turn the tide, right? Even under the hummingbird theory, it's what ordinary people who care about this country,

who consider themselves patriots, what they do to defend the rule of law, our constitutional republic, our way of life, and make, and the vote. And without that, all of these institutions that Karen and I talk about on the show would crumble if they didn't have popular support. This Saturday, another No King's Day in this country. I'm expecting five, eight million people, if not more. This is the last one before the midterms. Some would say the most important one.

The right is freaked out about it. They start or they're already bashing it. A bunch of left-wing radical. I mean, eventually, when they lose and lose big at the midterms, it's hard to just write it off to a bunch of Marxist socialists out there, you know, unless you're going to say the whole country turned that way, we'll have a live feed of the No Kings Day events on Legal AF, the YouTube channel on Saturday as well. But that's where we are. Karen, I was like giving you the last word here on Legal A.F. What do you got for us?

Oh, my God. I should be prepared for this because you do give it to me every week, but I have nothing other than go to No Kings Day, March. vote, do all the things you know you need to do. We're almost there. We're in the home stretch. And now's not the time to run out of gas. Now is the time to fuel up and be energized and be excited because we're going to turn this country back to what we know it can be and what it was. And we're going to wake up from this nightmare because we're really in a nightmare.

So great seeing you, Popak. And just thank everybody for being here as always every week. Thank you, Karen Freeman, Ignifalo. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal A-Fers.