Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF 10/8/2026

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

The award-winning Legal AF podcast, with Karen Friedman Agnifilo joined by Lisa Graves filling in for Michael Popok, provides searing commentary in real time on the biggest breaking legal and political stories. Together, they break down the latest developments in the Epstein files fight, including the Trump administration’s refusal to produce the administrative record sought in the Sullivan case, the lawsuit brought by Marsha Blackburn and the judge’s decision to step aside, tomorrow’s preliminary injunction hearing involving CNN and Judge Kelly, and the latest Supreme Court developments, including Justice Alito. They also cover the breaking order requiring the Trump-installed Kennedy Center board to unseal a redacted 163-page report on its $250 million-plus renovation plan and planned two-year closure, and the DNC’s lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of unlawfully using taxpayer money to fund television ads praising the president. Smart Credit: Head to https://smartcredit.com/legalaf and start your 7-day trial for just $1. Delete Me: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com/LEGALAF and use promo code: LEGALAF at checkout! Hims: Get a personalized, affordable plan for you at https://HIMS.com/LEGALAF EllaOla: EllaOla is offering my listeners 20% off your first purchase. Just go to https://EllaOla.com/LEGALAF, discount applied automatically; No code needed. 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

Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal A.F. I am your host, Karen Friedman Agnifalo, and standing in for Michael Popok this week is Lisa Graves, one of our favorite stand-ins who come in and pinch hit all the time. It's so great to see you, Lisa. Pop-Pok is under the weather this week. I'm just recovering from a cold, but I'm going to hold down the floor for him today. We have a lot to cover today, so much so that we were just as we were coming on the air, trying to decide, are we going to cover topics that are breaking as we are on the air? So we'll see how it goes, but we're going to know we're going to start with the Epstein files, where the Justice Department is now fighting in order from Judge Sullivan, requiring it to identify and produce the administrative record behind its handling of the files. This is the Katie Fang lawsuit. DOJ says there are no material facts in dispute and essentially nothing in that record that isn't already public. So the question is, if that's true, why fight so hard to keep this record from being produced?

That's what I don't understand. Just release the records already. So we're going to talk about that. And what else could it tell us about how many millions of pages that they reviewed? How did they categorize them? How did they redact them? And why were they withheld? So we're going to then, after we talk about those Epstein files, we're going to talk about former Special Counsel Jack Smith, Senator Marcia Blackburn. has sued Smith over his office's seizure of her phone records during the Arctic Frost investigation, raising what she claims are serious speech and debate clause and separation of powers questions. So all of the active federal district judges in the Middle District of Tennessee, which is where she filed for lawsuit, have recused themselves from the case.

So there's four judges there, and they all recuse themselves. And we're going to talk about why that is. and some of it were just going to have to speculate. And another wrinkle talking about Jack Smith is he was photographed this weekend wearing a No King's T-shirt, something his critics are already pointing to in challenging his claims of political neutrality. We're also going to preview a big hearing in Washington

tomorrow where CNN, MS Now, and Politico are asking Judge Kelly to convert his temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction. that prevents the Trump administration and the White House from excluding them from the White House. And Judge Kelly's already found that the news organizations are likely to succeed in their due process claim, but tomorrow we'll see whether he goes further and turns this temporary restraining order into an injunction, which is permanent. So there's also the question of First Amendment, and is he going to address that, or is he just going to address sort of the procedural due process?

They weren't given any sort of process in making that decision. Then I would be remiss if we didn't talk about the Supreme Court with Lisa Graves, who is a Supreme Court expert. So I love talking to her about the Supreme Court. A new term has just begun first Monday in October. And there's some major new cases involving executive power, immigration, guns, voting rights, religion. And of course, there's the shadow docket or the emergency docket that plays a huge role in this

administration's litigation. And we're going to talk about the growing speculation about, is Judge Alito, is Justice Alito going to retire? He's now acknowledged that he's been considering retiring and what that will mean. And finally, we're going to look at the Kennedy Center and all that's going on there. A federal judge has ordered that the Trump board has to make public, you know, the Trump appointed board has to make public with security redactions because, of course, Trump always says national security, national security, and I guess there's something national security about the Kennedy Center, but with appropriate redactions, if there is something that truly has security concerns, that they're going to have to turn that over. This renovation plan uses about a quarter of a billion

of federally funded taxpayer dollars, and the board decided to close it for two years. Now, this litigation is becoming more than about construction. And it really is raising questions about how the money is being spent, whether a complete shutdown was actually necessary, whether the board independently evaluated the evidence before approving the decision that Trump had made had already announced before, and then they sort of justified it after the fact. So a lot going on, as I said, stuff breaking hot off the press.

Maybe we'll read up about it during the commercial breaks. Here's one, the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, filed a lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of unlawfully using government money to pay for video advertisements. This is those those advertisements that that he's putting out and they were essentially campaign ads that he used for his campaign is now paying using taxpayer dollars for airtime. And so they are suing the Trump administration for that. He did later, after all the backlash, say, oh, I'll pay for it going forward with private money, but it was already paid for, and that's what they're getting sued for.

Those are the money they've already used. So we got a lot going on, and let's jump in. Lisa, how are you doing today? I'm doing all right. It is the case that every day there's just more news and more sort of craziness in some ways out of this administration, but there are some really important stories breaking, So I'm thrilled to be on you, Karen, and happy to stand in to best of my ability for Popak today. Great.

Wonderful. Welcome, as always. So let's start in the Epstein files because this is just to kind of remind everyone where we are. This is where Katie Fang, who is a reporter, sued Todd Blanche with the Attorney General of the DOJ. And she brought this as a journalist, basically. alleging that the Administrative Procedure Act, so not the Epstein Transparency Act, but that the Administrative Procedure Act that the DOJ failed to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act when it released and redacted Epstein-related materials. So it's in front of Judge Sullivan.

Judge Sullivan previously ordered the Department of Justice to produce the administrative record underlying the challenged agency action. And he set very specific deadlines. October 1st, the Department of Justice had to file a certified list of the contents of the administrative record. And Lisa, I look forward to you explaining to everybody what an administrative record is because it's different than the actual Epstein files themselves. So they were supposed to turn over the administrative record by October 1st. October 15th, the DOJ had to produce the actual administrative record to Katie Fang.

However, the DOJ did not produce the certified list on October 1st. Instead, it filed a motion seeking relief from the requirement to produce this record and simultaneously filed a motion on the pleadings. Essentially, it's a 12C motion which basically says, judge, it's a motion to dismiss on the pleadings. Like, we don't need a trial. I want you to look at the law and the allegations and we think we could win on the pleadings. And DOJ is essentially saying we don't have to produce this administrative record. Katie Fang is using the wrong law. It should just be under the freedom of information law.

The Administrator's Procedures Act doesn't apply. And the DOJ is saying, well, why don't you decide our motion to dismiss first? Because if you dismiss the case, then there's no need for us to produce all these records. But the judge didn't set those deadlines. The judge set the deadline that you have to produce these records. So it's kind of a big deal. And just to kind of talk a little bit about what would be produced in this administrative record, right? It would be documents reflecting DOJ decision-making, which Epstein records fell within the act.

What searches were conducted? What categories were excluded? Who established the protocols for a review and redaction? What instructions did the reviewers receive? Why were particular names or documents withheld? How the DOJ treated these foreign language documents? How did it determine that certain FBI interview notes were duplicative? And what was the factual basis for DOJ's assertion that it had completed its statutory obligation?

So that's what this is kind of about. This has a fairly contentious procedural history, because Sullivan, Judge Sullivan, has already ruled that the DOJ's missed deadlines to answer the complaint, that they fail to properly seek an extension. But I guess he's letting this kind of play out anyway. And so, you know, this is a lot's going on in this case. What are your thoughts and takes on this, Lisa? Well, that was really a great summary of this very complex procedural history and the situation regarding the APA process.

I think most people have heard of FOIA the Freedom Information Act process, but this statute that Congress passed does not, it's not about FOIA. It basically says even though the administration in essence was claiming in some ways a FOIA basis and other claims to not release the Epstein Files, Congress said, we're done with that. We're going to create this new statute that compels you to produce these documents and only have a very limited number of exceptions to that requirement. So not the rules that apply for FOIA. So in fact, a much broader command to release the documents. And this APA procedure, because it's not really in FOIA, under FOIA in that way, that's part of what's happening here is this question of, well, what were the procedures where Todd Blanche claimed that,

hey, we're done, even though when the members of Congress went to view the files, went to do searches within those files, they found numerous files that had not been released, that were not duplicative, including files that named Donald Trump or mentioned him by name. And there's been a whole set of investigative work by journalists going through the files that have been released to show gaps in those files with, and in some instances, once those files were later revealed, they directly were files involving allegations against Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, just this past week, there was a major. reporting of basically a whistleblower, someone has come forward to the press to reveal the training videos over at FBI about how they were instructed on how to process these files, including specifically a requirement that if Donald Trump's name was mentioned or other VIPs, that the supervisor had to review that redaction. So there was a special treatment for Donald Trump's name in at least two of those videos. Now, we don't know what kind of training videos came out or were produced by the Justice Department, whether the FBI videos were part of that process.

And so this question of what this process was is a really important question under the federal rules under the Administrative Procedures Act. I myself did not work on those APA issues, but I worked in the team that had that responsibility. So within the U.S. Department of Justice, the Office of Legal Policy, the Office of Policy Development, had three lawyers who we used to call the reg guys

And their job was to make sure that these records were properly assembled, that the rules were followed for when you propose a rule, when you're taking action in response to a congressional statute, that this process is followed, and that there's a clear record that the process was followed, not just that it is followed, but that that was well documented. And so I really appreciate the litigation that Katie Fang is pursuing. I think it's really important. And quite frankly, I don't trust Todd Blanche. There's every reason not to trust Todd Blanche based on his longstanding effort. For thousands of hours he spent trying to keep Donald Trump out of jail, which Donald Trump readily acknowledges. He was then rewarded with a job as Deputy Attorney General and then became the Attorney General this summer when the Republican-controlled Senate approved him. During that hearing, he expressed enormous sympathy for Galane Maxwell, who, as everyone knows, was transferred. you know, to a better location, despite her conviction as a sex offender. And he was very reluctant

to meet with the survivors of Epstein. Only did so after intense pressure from some senators. And then when he did so, a number of those survivors said that he was very disregarding of their concerns. So you have a situation where the U.S. Department of Justice has been accused of not following this statute, this bipartisan, nearly unanimous command of Congress. And, in which the person who's administering this has deep and close ties to Donald Trump. And in fact, has said in so many words and in some ways very directly that he serves Donald Trump, that that's who he serves. But the head of the just moment is supposed to serve the law.

It's supposed to serve the people. It's supposed to serve and help support survivors of violence. And in this instance, this just moment has said that they will pursue no further investigation of anyone else whose crimes may appear in those files. And Todd Blanche, when he announced that there were going to be no more files released, said that they, of course, redacted any child pornography that may have been in there, any evidence or photographs of assaults or torture or death. So there are materials that have not been disclosed, some of which legitimately under the Epstein Transparency Act,

some of which have not been disclosed and this department has not complied with a statutory requirement. that it explained its redactions, that it explained why certain things were not, you know, on a very specific basis, why certain things were not revealed as commanded by federal law. So it's an important case. Judge Emmett Sullivan has a reputation for fairness.

He's a rigorous district court judge. He's been on the bench for nearly 30 years or more than 30 years now. And he is someone that does not brook the kind of refusal to comply with court orders it seems that we're seeing from the Justice Department that has missed deadlines and basically has tried to drag its feet and not do what the judge has ordered. Yeah, I mean, just to understand kind of the volume of records here, there's about six million files, correct? And I think they've released about three and a half million of the files.

So there's serious questions about how they made the decisions to not release almost half, right? and that there's so many more files. So I can understand why he has questions. Go ahead. Yeah, and I was going to say this brings up the new suit that was filed by the Attorney General of New Mexico about the Zorro Ranch and the obstruction that the New Mexico Attorney General is claiming that he has received over and over again from the Justice Department as it claims to the press that it's fully cooperating, that it's helping.

In fact, the attorney general, the top law enforcement official in that state has said that the department is not and it is obstructing him. And one of his examples is that there were more than 13,000 references to the Zora Ranch that we know of in the files. And yet only, let me get the, let me get the number right, but basically only about 36 pages that were mostly news clips were released. So, you know, what material is there? Why is it just not cooperating with a fellow law enforcement agency and a state who is investigating some of the very serious allegations? that have arisen about the fact that the crimes that have been alleged and the mistreatment and abuse that have been alleged didn't just occur on an island in the Caribbean, but also may

have taken place on this ranch in New Mexico. And so I think that's related to obviously the overall picture here, which is that a lot of people, including numerous survivors, say that they have not received justice and that there are more files that need to be released that shed light on who was involved and how people were harmed by this scheme orchestrated by Jeffrey Epstein and Galane Maxwell and participated in by some very powerful people in the United States and abroad. Yeah, the Zorro Ranch allegation that is coming out by the New Mexico Attorney General is extremely concerning because it's one thing for the Justice Department to say, well, we're not going to release the files to the general public. Now, I don't agree with that. And I don't think

the Epstein Files Transparency Act allows that. But that's one kind of justification that they give. This is a, and as you point out, they have said we are not investigating additional crimes. But here is a state and local DA's office who wants to investigate crimes that happened in their jurisdiction, And they are asking for the files that pertain to their investigation, meaning it wouldn't be released to the public. This is to a law enforcement entity to investigate crimes in their jurisdiction. That is what's head-scratching and kind of appalling, in my opinion,

is that they're literally obstructing a criminal investigation. And again, I could see if they said, we're investigating, it's ours. I wouldn't, you know, and that happens sometimes. You get into these fights between federal and local prosecutors. We saw it in, you know, with the Alex Preddy and Renee Good shootings, right? You know, the local government wanted to investigate the shooting, and the federal government said, no, we're doing it. But here they're not investigating. And so there is no investigation that they could say this is what, that we're going to withhold it because we're investigating and it's our investigation.

And that they're not providing these records. So that... Yeah, and I was going to say, you know, and the question, I mean, the assertion that they were investigating the shooting of Renee Good, it seemed like some of the other reporting indicated they were investigating Renee Good and not the shooter. Well, that's true, too. So they were asserting, you know, from a process standpoint that they could control the evidence that surrounded that crime.

They just had a view of it or a claim of it that was in disregard to, I think, what a lot of people saw with their own eyes about what happened in both of those incidents. But it is the case, as you point out, that there are often, you know, in a general sense, issues where federal law enforcement is pursuing it, they really are the lead agency on a particular thing. State, you know, the state agencies or the state or local law enforcement is, in essence, subordinate to that lead. In this instance, it sounds like from the allegations in that complaint and the public statement so far that there's not, there's not, a, as you point out, not an investigation going on at all that state action. would interfere with, and there's not cooperation of turning over evidence or material that would be relevant to that law enforcement. So we've seen in some ways within this period of this Trump administration, a real breakdown in longstanding practices of information sharing, you know,

even not to the public, but information sharing within law enforcement from the federal officials to the states or the federal agents to the states and limits basically on cooperation. in essence so that you don't have, you know, there are federal agents in every state. There's a bureau office, you know, in every state. Those officers, those agents have relationships with local law enforcement, with leaders within that law enforcement community. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not been privy to all of those or any, even a substantial subpart.

But in general, the perception I've seen from FOIA documents is that there's a lot of cooperation, but we're not seeing that here. I keep wondering when we're going to stop talking about the Epstein files, right? You know, when are they going to turn them over? When are they going to do investigations? When is this going to end? And they're just making it worse. And that's part of the frustration, right?

Like, just what are they scared of? Yeah. Give the files. Yeah, what are they hiding? Like, give the files to New Mexico. Release the files to the public. If they're duplicative, great. Then there's nothing you should worry about, you know?

Let everybody else be. the ones to go through it and say, oh, nothing new here. Yeah, let me just say as someone, like at one point with my previous, one of my previous organizations, we were doing about 2,000 FOIA requests a year at the federal and state level. And I can tell you that in general, state officials and federal officials were not concerned about duplication at all. They were happy to make me pay by the page for as many duplicate files as they could find to send me and often sent me news clips and not actual material from within.

the type of decision-making that we were seeking to find. So this newfound concern about duplication seems to be very specific to the Epstein files and not actually the normal practice, unfortunately by federal agencies and some state agencies. And this duplication issue, in some ways, part of the things that we've seen from the coverage is a summary of a report of meeting with the potential witness,

someone who's making an allegation against Donald Trump, which he denies or anyone else, a summary is not the same. same as the notes. And so, and we, we see that over and over in other reporting. So having the access to those notes of what the victim, the person who's coming forward, the survivor actually said, the person who's making the allegations versus a summary of it, those could be different. And it's important to see what people said, what was recorded at the time. Yeah, no, that's true. And, and of course, tomorrow, October 8th is when Katie Fang is going to be filing her opposition.

And so we'll see kind of what's in that. But, you know, she's talking about redactions of names and identities, withholding names of co-conspirators, the handwritten notes that you're talking about, and the underlying notes, the DOJ's treatment of substantially similar or duplicative information, foreign language documents, and, again, the absence of individualized redaction justification that she says is required under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. So this case is not going anywhere. And if they spent their time releasing the files

rather than fighting Katie Fing and others in court, maybe we could just have the information and not just be talking about this obstruction. Yeah. So, okay, we're going to take our first break. And we'll be back and we're going to talk about Jack Smith and being sued by Marsha Blackburn and everything else that's going on with Jack Smith. You know, we have to take our first break with our sponsors.

We love our sponsors and we rely on them to keep the lights on. So we're so thankful and grateful for them. And so let's take our first break. I'm a trial lawyer, but my two-year-old Francesca is opposing counsel at the dinner table. Vegetables, objection. Negotiations, she wants yogurt. Council would like a recess. That's where Ellaola comes in, a tasteless, colorless,

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slash legal AF to get personalized, affordable care for weight loss, hair loss, sex, testosterone, and more. That's h-i-m-s.com slash legal a. Femns.com slash legal a.F. Weight loss by Hymns is not available in all 50 states. Wagovi is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS. To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wagovi clinical study information and restrictions, visit Hymns.com. We're back. And again, thank you to our sponsors who support our show, who know our point of view, who have no editorial control whatsoever over what we talk about, and they choose to advertise on our show. So we're so grateful to them and grateful really to all the people who are watching the show,

who listen to the show, whether it's audio, whether you see it on YouTube, all of it helps. The downloads help, the watching it helps. It helps the algorithms. And it helps us, again, it really helps us keep this show going. And I often read a lot of the comments that people leave behind in the YouTube comment section. So sometimes I wake up the next day and look forward to reading them. And I appreciate all the thoughtful comments that people make and helpful comments that people make.

So we're so appreciative to all the people who support us, who support the Midas Touch Network, who support the legal AF network, or I should say the YouTube channel, and who watch us every Wednesday and every Saturday with Michael Poppock, Ben Mazzalis, and me, and sometimes Lisa, and others who come in. So we want to talk now about Jack Smith. So there's two things going on about with Jack Smith, really one major thing, and then one sort of thing that people are up in arms about, the right-wing media up in arms about. So the major thing that's going on is Senator Marsha Blackburn is suing Jack Smith in

Tennessee over the Arctic Frost investigation saying that Jack Smith subpoenaed her phone records and was not supposed to. And so in this lawsuit, what she's claiming are multiple different legal theories, but essentially separation of powers, speech and debate clause, First Amendment rights, you know, Fourth Amendment rights, and the Appointments Clause, which is sort of thrown in there la Elaine Cannon, and we'll get to that in a minute.

So she's alleging multiple different things in her lawsuit, essentially saying, I'm a senator, and I have a right. The speech and debate clause protects me, And therefore, that the separation of powers, Jack Smith, who's part of the executive branch, does not have a right to question or have anything involving me being a senator and legislation and, you know, my thought process, et cetera, because that's protected by the speech and debate clause of the United States Constitution. and just to kind of remind everyone, what Jack Smith did was order just the metadata of the phone records, not the contents, not any communications, not voicemails, not text messages, not recordings, nothing, just who called on what date and who initiated the call, who received the call, meaning the phone numbers, and then you have to look them up on your own.

and then how long did the call last for? And this was all in the context of January 6th, and when Jack Smith was trying to figure out who was involved in Donald Trump, who was he talking to during those hours of the capital riots, and who was influencing him or who is he in contact with, and was anyone else involved in this conspiracy to overthrow basically to steal the election?

And so she's basically saying, you had no right to do that because I'm a U.S. senator. She makes a few allegations in her complaint that are sort of interesting. One is that this was not an error that Jacksmith should have known that the speech and debate clause protects me. And how do I know that? Because she claims that I guess she must have two phones, an AT&T phone and I guess Verizon phone. And AT&T refused to give over the subpoenaed material saying speech and debate clause.

And what, but Verizon did turn over the records. And she's saying, see, so you should have known. And so she's asserting that. And also there was an order to a non-disclosure order, which happens a lot. Law enforcement will often ask for a non-disclosure order saying don't tell the person whose phone number it is that we subpoenaed this because it could affect the investigation. And so she's filing this lawsuit and in the Middle District of Tennessee. And interesting, there's four judges, active district court judges in the Middle District of

Tennessee, and all four judges recused themselves from the case, meaning there is no judge in the Middle District of Tennessee who's going to hear this case. and the Sixth Circuit will have to designate an out-of-district judge to hear the case. It's unusual to have mass recusals like this for all sitting judges in a particular district. It made me look up because they don't give a reason and they don't have to give a reason. And I remembered that Jack Smith was actually the United States attorney in Nashville from around 2015, 16, 17 around that time. two of the judges were district judges when he was the United States attorney, but two weren't, because I was thinking maybe that's why they were accused himself because they worked with him or whatever.

They didn't give a reason, but that's sort of an interesting wrinkle in the case. And what did you take from this lawsuit, Lisa? Well, this is an area where I spent a lot of time about 20 years ago looking into the rules regarding national security surveillance, warrantless wiretapping. the obtaining phone records and what are known as pen registers, which is an old-fashioned term for what you were describing the numbers dialed and who dialed you and how long you spoke. And, you know, basically the people who are involved in law enforcement,

the Justice Department at the FBI in local law enforcement know that pen registers are available when there's an open criminal investigation based on probable cause, which there was an investigation into the crimes that happened, in my view, on January 6th, the assault on the Capitol, and Donald Trump's role in it. So there was an open criminal investigation into that action, that mob attack on our capital, that effort to subvert the election results that have the election certified in essence by Congress on January 6th. And when you have an open criminal investigation, then pen register information is available based on the standard of, is it relevant, might it be relevant to that investigation?

In this instance, we know that there were numerous, communications happening between Trump and some of his, some of his close inner circle and members of Congress. Some of those members of Congress actually sought pardons in the immediate aftermath of what happened on January 6th, the violence, the assaults that led to the deaths of Capitol Police, both serious, many serious injuries that day and then subsequent deaths. And the threats that were being made against Mike Pence, against Nancy Pelosi, threats to their lives. And so these were very serious and remained very serious. allegations that Donald Trump was embroiled in unleashing that mob in order to subvert the results

of that election. There's nothing in the privilege for members of Congress for their speeches on the floor of Congress that would prevent them from having their pen records, meaning those phone numbers dialed provided by a phone company, provided by a phone company in an ordinary criminal investigation. Members of Congress are sometimes directly investigated for bribery or other misconduct. We've had a number of people prosecuted over, you know, these many decades from both parties for such conduct. There is no such exemption under that speech privilege for criminal activity or potential

criminal activity. And in this instance, these pen registers are never basically revealed to the people whose records were turned over. I know that from deep, intensive examination of how this process works. Back in the mid-2000s, Bill Barr basically sent a letter over to Congress to say that thousands of times a year, Verizon at the time responds to requests from federal, state, and local law enforcement. I looked up the new transparency report that Verizon makes every twice a year. And it indicates that so far this year, more than 9,000 requests for materials.

That includes, there's a broader set, but the 9,000 is for basically pen-refer. register material, 9,000 requests in the first half of 2026. That's more than last year, more than under Biden, all four years, year by year, half year by half year. And so this is an ordinary practice. The only time people are informed under longstanding federal law enforcement procedures that they've been subject to or kind of caught up in a criminal investigation is when there's an actual warrant for listening to communications, which was not at issue here.

And in that instance, at the conclusion of the investigation, there's an inventory that's done and people are notified that their communications may have been captured as part of that criminal investigation. Like a dry cleaner you called, if it's like a mob or a, you know, a conspiracy investigation and, you know, they're looking at who that person's calling. In this instance, there's every reason to believe that Jack Smith was following all of the applicable procedures. I don't know why AT&T happened to know that that particular number belonged to Marsha Blackburn. The fact of the matter is, is that in general, the communications companies, they don't look at whose information is being requested. They just comply. And so that seems like Marsha Blackburn got special treatment from AT&T that actually isn't commanded by the Constitution, by this privilege. In fact, when you think of immunity, this question that has come up because of the actions of John Roberts and the U.S. Supreme Court in giving Donald Trump unprecedented immunity from criminal prosecution for his official act,

The reality is that there's only one time in which there's immunity in the Constitution, and it's for members of Congress for the speeches they make on the floor of Congress, that they cannot be charged with crimes for the statements they make, which is why, quite frankly, sometimes you hear members say things that are not accurate. There's no chance to sue them for defamation or for other criminal activity based on their statements on the floor of Congress. This wasn't about statements at all. This was about communications with potential co-conspirators of Donald Trump.

And as Jack Smith made clear, these members of Congress were not targeted. Additionally, based on the information that has been provided to the public, there were, you know, in this small set of members of Congress whose pen register, phone numbers dialed or dialed to them were revealed by the telecoms, there were at least four Democrats whose records were also obtained. So this wasn't a partisan witch hunt. This was not about Marsha Blackburn herself. It wasn't about anything she said on the floor of Congress. It was about her communicating with people who were the subjects or targets of this lawful investigation that was predicated on probable cause of crimes. So there's another interesting feature to this lawsuit.

And that is she is trying to claim that in addition to that the judge should rule that the Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed, that the special counsel was unlawfully appointed. And if that sounds familiar, that's because Judge Eileen Cannon in the Mar-a-Lago, the other indictment Donald Trump was indicted for, that will never see the report, will never see the light of day because she has said it can never see the light of day. She ruled, if you recall, that that a special counsel is not lawful and that's illegal. Now, no other judge has ruled that way. It's a very aggressive, unusual ruling that she made.

But I think they're trying to get more judges to say the same thing. And so Senator Blackburn put that in her lawsuit as well. What do you think about that? I just think it's a ridiculous argument. The special counsel regulations for the Justice Department have been on the books for decades. They've been applied in administrations from Democrats and Republicans. They have never been challenged or, you know, they've been challenged, I suppose, in this instance. But no judge other than Eileen Cannon who was appointed by Donald Trump to the district that includes his primary real residence, Mara Lago.

This person who was an AUSA for a number of years but did not have any previous judicial experience, but has proven to be quite open and receptive to Donald Trump's arguments since she was appointed by him just a few years ago. Only she has made this argument along with Clarence Thomas, who put it in his claims about this in his views on the immunity issue where the U.S. Supreme Court gave Donald Trump immunity for his official acts. This notion that that wasn't a concurrence, right? Yeah, that wasn't a concurrence. It wasn't in the majority opinion. And this was just another extremist view put forward by Clarence Thomas, who, you know, there's a cloud of corruption that surrounds him based on his, you know, many trips with these billionaires that have sought to influence the court and sought to influence public policy and elections. But the reality is that it is such an outlier argument. But I think it's, I think it's really important that you pointed out the fact that she is trying to get other judges to join in this assertion, that not just Jack Smith was illegitimately appointed in ethnic. in essence, was exercising illegitimate power as a special counsel,

but that the very notion of having a special counsel is in violation of the law or the Constitution. And the fact is that those special counsel rules came into play in part because of the extremism and lawlessness of the Nixon administration, which, by the way, this Justice Department under Donald Trump is now trying to reclaim Nixon's reputation and claim he, I guess, investigate the idea that he really didn't do anything wrong and shouldn't have been impeached and shouldn't have resigned and disgraced for the crimes that were reported and were being and were being investigated by the grand jury in the District of Columbia. So you have this very right-wing sort of nest of conspiracy theorists of right-wing distortions, in my view, grotesque distortion of the law,

assailing this process for having a special counsel. The reason for a special counsel, the reason for a special counsel is to try to prevent having the attorney general of the United States who is appointed by a president exercise undue influence over whether a crime has been committed or not. That's why these special counsels have been appointed. And in general, in my observation, in watching this unfold over the years since the independent counsel statute expired, that was the statute that Ken Starr and Brett Kavanaugh were operating under when they sought to impeach President Clinton. In the years since the OIC, office was eliminated, most of the people who have been appointed special counsels, whether

it was a Democratic administration or Republican administration, have been Republican prosecutors, former Republican prosecutors. And so it has been used widely. And it is just, I think, a really, I think it is just an outlandish argument that Eileen Cannes made. And in addition to her effort to suppress the results of that investigation, the investigation in that instance is the one involved how Donald Trump took these, took numerous files, classified materials, materials that were for the eyes only of the United States top officials and top allied governments and kept them in a bathroom in Mara Lago, ported some of them purportedly on planes or talked about and talked about them to biographers

and others. And there are other allegations that were very serious about how these materials were handled. And whether any of them were leaked or were obtainable in the unsecured facilities that they were in, in Marlago, in a resort area in the bathroom. And so, you know, the notion that we will never see the results of that investigation, even though she's barred the investigation from going forward, that also is a real, you know, travesty of justice in my view. Yeah, I completely, completely agree. So much we could talk about there, right? So let's pivot to tomorrow. There's a big hearing in front of Judge Kelly, where Judge Kelly will hear whether or not CNN, MS now, and Politico, whether their motion for a preliminary injunction should, whether the temporary restraining order, which expires tomorrow, should be essentially converted to a preliminary injunction. And so if you remember, the White House banned CNN, CNN, MS Now, and Politico on September 18th from the White House, and the outlets immediately

sued and sought emergency relief. And Judge Kelly, who was a Trump appointee, interestingly, granted the restraining order on September 24th. He basically said that he made a fairly strong preliminary finding about the government's case, concluding that the outlets had shown the likelihood success on their due process claim, Fifth Amendment due process claim, and he relied heavily on two binding D.C. Circuit cases, and those cases established that a White House correspondent has a bona fide white house correspondent, has a protected liberty interest in a press pass, and you can't just revoke it without a

constitutionally adequate process. And so what Kelly did not rule on, though, was the First Amendment question, right? You're not allowed to make, you have to be content neutral. You can't make viewpoint discrimination decisions. And so what will be interesting tomorrow is to see whether he, A, converts it to a preliminary injunction, which I think he will, especially, I mean, all he has to do is ask the question, if the TRO, you know, the temporary restraining order expires to the administration, are you going to let them back in or not? And if he says, if he says, no, if they say, no, we're not going to let them back in, you know, they can show a reprimable harm, likelihood of success and all of that. And the interesting question will be, will he just

focus on the lack of due process that they received, or are they going to, is he going to touch the First Amendment issue? What are your thoughts on that? You know, I think this is a case where, again, we have an executive, you know, a president who is acting in disregard with the longstanding legal precedents in this area and with the longstanding practice, which under the first amendment issue is that you can't, the government is not allowed to engage in viewpoint discrimination. Donald Trump's statements for why these outlets were excluded were specifically viewpoint in which he claimed he didn't like their reporting and that they were too negative and attack them in these other. ways. Later, they try to assert some sort of national security basis that because they were everything is national security, by the way. That's how he gets, that's how he tries to justify all his unlawful actions, right? National security. I want a ballroom. I need a ballroom. National security. You know, everything is national security. Yeah. Exactly. Right, right, the arch. Exactly.

Yeah. It's, it's absurd. And there's, you know, there's, there's no national security basis for excluding these particular outlets. This is purely due print discrimination. It's purely retaliation for not liking the coverage or the questions that he gets. That's what the first amendment was supposed to protect. Donald Trump, you know, with his hand hovering above the Bible on, on inauguration day last year, as John Roberts swore him in after giving him immunity, pledged to, you know, protect and defend the Constitution. But he has been trashing the First Amendment in numerous ways, and this is just one of those. The other thing that I think is worth people remembering is that it's not just that in this instance, Trump has kicked out these reporters. It's also that this is not the first time this has happened.

We've seen efforts by the Pentagon to exclude reporters or have new rules for handholding by them. While, meanwhile, they've allowed Mike Lindell's news streaming something, something that calls itself a news outlet to be one of the reporting entities within the Pentagon. So you've seen a way in which they've played footsy and favorites with right-wing newly invented supposed outlets and then have tried to exclude traditional media. Meanwhile, on the big picture, you've seen the Trump administration clear the way for these mass mergers, a massive mergers, pardon me, of these communications, you know, entertainment firms so that he could try to get CNN in the hands of one of his donors and funders of a family that has, that's, that's, because he doesn't like the coverage of CNN, despite the fact that it routinely has right-wing commentators on, along with progressive or moderate commentators on, to talk about what's happening in the news.

And so this is an effort by someone who has these authoritarian tendencies and, you know, a disposition to try to control coverage, both in who's in the room at the White House, who can ask questions from these traditional outlets, but also in who actually controls these stations, not just CBS, but also now with the clearing of the way of that merger, that big merger between these Hollywood firms controlling CNN. And so there are things Donald Trump

can't control. He wants to control how he is covered. He wants, in my view, you know, my personal opinion, he wants stenography. He doesn't want hard questions. And he, as we've seen, particularly if a woman asked a question or a person of color or a woman of color, in particular asked the question, he is profoundly disrespectful to people who ask him hard questions. Yeah, that's for sure. You can't handle the truth. Yeah. No, that is absolutely the case. So let's turn now to the Kennedy Center and what's going on there because a federal judge ordered the Kennedy Center's Trump installed board to unsealed this 163 page report with redact. of necessary on the taxpayer $250 million appropriation

that was congressionally appropriated for a renovation. So this is this 160-page document is a comprehensive project development plan for the Kennedy Center renovation. And the fight is basically over the secrecy of these matters matters and the decision making to close it that the Trump, this Trump installed board, basically saying they relied on this document to decide to close for two years. And this is before Judge Christopher Cooper. And this is a litigation brought by Representative Joyce Beattie, who is an ex-officio

of the Kennedy Center and a trustee. And Cooper had previously, Judge Cooper had previously blocked the board's first closure decision, describing the process as, quote, ill-informed and seemingly preordained, which, you know, is so telling, right, that it's basically Trump says something and then the justification comes later, right, after the fact. And concluding that the trustees had not adequately discharged their strategy obligations to operate the Performing Arts Center and preserve it as a national memorial to JFK. So the board went back again and tried again. And this time it received two documents.

It received this 163-page plan laying out the proposed renovation and then a five-slide consulting presentation of which Representative Beattie says just contained two slides that had substantive analysis comparing closure alternatives. So the board voted again for a first full closure and the government initially sought to keep the entire plan sealed, citing, of course,

national security or security concerns. And Judge Cooper said that if the defendant wanted to seal this, they needed to identify a precise basis and explain why you couldn't just redact certain portions of it, why that wouldn't be adequate to protect sensitive information. So, a representative BD then moves to unseal it and argued that the government could protect genuinely sensitive building security information through these narrow redactions, but you can't hide the whole report.

And so this is what is kind of playing out right now and what's going on. So what do you make of this whole fight going on over the Kennedy Center closure? Well, I really appreciate Rep. Bedi for standing up and for actually actually trying to pursue the fiduciary obligations that the board and the trustees have about protecting

this living memorial to our slain president, John F. Kennedy Jr. And the fact is that, sure, if there's a blueprint that shows the entry areas for how Secret Service protectees come into the building, of course, that sort of material needs to be. to be redacted or protected. But there's no reason to try to hide the whole report. And in fact, the description of the slideshow

seems like it was particularly hasty again, just trying to cook up a justification to do whatever Trump wants, which is to shut down the Kennedy Center because his name isn't on it or to demand that the only way it could reopen is with his name on it because it needs more money. Congress has allocated $20.50 million

specifically to a renovation to upgrade that beautiful, amazing building. that's more than enough money to get started on an orderly upgrade, which wouldn't necessarily require shutting down the entire building. The shutdown really is because, you know, it seems quite clear from the way we've seen Trump behave that he's upset that he can't just slap his name above John F. Kennedy's name on the front of that building

and get away with it. And the fact of the matter is that this is not the only threat. Trump in the recent weeks has threatened to just demolish it, basically in the middle of the night and say, you know, good luck. I can do whatever I want. In fact, just in the last 24 hours, he basically asserted he can do whatever he wants. You know, it's just because he decides not to do some things that certain things aren't happening. Well, in fact, the judge was so worried about the, that he's going to try to do that,

that the judge, they ran to court and got an emergency order from the judge saying, if you plan on doing any construction at all and touching this, you have to. to give 30 days notice and come before this court because it's a real, it's a real fear, right, that he's going to do that. I was reading the other day, him talking about demolishing the Oval Office. I mean, he's just like a one-man wrecking ball. You know, one of the justifications for that they say, the reason it has to be closed for two years is because it's such, it's so dangerous, right? It's like, it's in disrepair and it's in such dangerous condition. Well, I read in the New York Times today, that's Kennedy Center, right?

If it's so dangerous, why is the National Symphony still practicing inside? Right. I mean, that makes no sense, right? Right, and the related thing is up until Trump took over the board, cleared out, you know, he couldn't clear out the trustees like Rep. Rep. Beattie, but he, you know, removed all the other people on the board to put in his his loyalists and to put them in charge or try to put them in charge, you know, until entertainers like Bella Fleck, the amazing banjo player, and so many other people said they were not

going to go to these Kennedy Center perform, but they weren't going to perform. Trump was perfectly happy to have the Kennedy Center performances proceeding at pace. It was only because there was a public outcry to his attacks, not just on performing arts and our budgets, but the whole array of policies that this administration has unilaterally implemented, often without the consent of Congress and often in defiance of longstanding laws and rules and practices that suddenly this building was described as so unsafe that it can't go forward.

And in fact, this claim came up after, at least the way they rolled it out, came up after Trump was denied that chance to basically have his name chiseled into that marble on the front of the building. And then when he was ordered, when they were ordered to remove his, name, he couldn't bear that. His ego or what have you or his buddies couldn't bear it so much

that they insist on covering John F. Kennedy's name while covering up his name because they didn't want the building to revert to its previous form of listing John F. Kennedy's name on the building that was created in honor of his life and his death. It's crazy. I mean, different artists pulled out and refused to play there or perform there. And because of that, the kind of artists that Trump wanted to put in there, they were, all of a sudden, donations went down, all of a sudden people, attendees went down, ticket sales went down. So he's the one running this into the ground, right?

If it's in disrepair, it's because of him. Yeah. Not for any other reason. So we'll keep you posted on all things regarding the Kennedy Center and this new CNN, what's going on with CNN, MS now in Politico, but we now have to take our second and final break of the night, and we'll be right back. Worried about protecting yourself from stalkers, scammers, and hackers?

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Go to Smartcredit.com slash LegalAF and try it for just $1 for seven days. That's smartcredit.com slash legal AF. Results vary. Cancel any time. We're back and we're going to end this segment with an update on all things Supreme Court of the United States. First Monday in October is when the session, when the Supreme Court comes back in session, they leave for the summer. And it used to be quiet in the summers because they go on vacation and, you know, they, I guess Thomas would go on his trips with billionaires and, you know, this one, vacations in Maine and this one vacation, wherever. But now with the emergency docket that goes on, it's almost turning into as important as the merits docket, right?

So many things going on. And we had so much to talk about with the Supreme Court over the summer with the emergency docket that people might be wondering, I don't understand. What do you mean the first Monday in October that they're back in session? It's been going on all summer long and they've been reporting on it all summer long. And that's true. This emergency docket, the shadow docket is, it's always been there, but it's never been used the way it's being used.

certainly the volume and just the number of cases and the number of consequential important cases. That's kind of unprecedented, but we are in unprecedented times. But the full Supreme Court has come back and they've started hearing cases. And Lisa, why don't you talk a little bit about kind of what's happened so far, what you see coming down the pike and what your impressions are. And the million-dollar question is, are any of the older people on the court like Justice Alito or Thomas, do you see them retiring? Well, you know, that was such a great summary because there were emergency orders through last Friday.

So, in essence, this question of what does it mean for the court to come back in session? What it means is that they're now holding a small set of cases that they have ordered for oral argument. they're holding those hearings. And so the shadow docket, that emergency docket, is a place where this Roberts Court has issued a number of orders, mostly favoring Donald Trump, overturning lower court temporary restraining orders, doing so without full briefing, without a public hearing, a public oral argument, and doing so in a way that, in my view, stands on its head the longstanding rules for temporary restraining orders, which are supposed to protect the status quo until a matter is resolved, versus letting Trump do what he wants

until there's a final determination, you know, by a lower court on what he's done, his extraordinary action or his action that certainly, in many instances, seems to be in direct contravention of the Constitution, statutes, precedence, regulations, or rules. So, but it is the case that this term, the 2026, 2027 term, officially begins or began this Monday

with the oral argument in a case called Buller County, versus SunCore. In this instance, SunCore is the petitioner, and along with ExxonMobil, has sought intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court, by the Roberts Court, to block the state of Colorado from hearing a case by the city and county of Boulder, alleging that those oil companies should be held responsible for the damages caused by climate change and should pay damages to help the city respond to those, those, you know, harms to the city and county and, you know, repair the infrastructure and prepare the infrastructure for the changes that are happening in Boulder, which is experiencing, you know, long-term drought. Drought is in some ways both an accurate and inaccurate term to

describe the way the climate is changing in dramatic ways over time in terms of water access, fire danger in that particular city and more. So what's happened is the Roberts court has taken up this case. John Roberts said it. as the first case of the year, set that case up to be argued. For over a year, Sam Alito, who was appointed to the court by George Herbert Walker Bush, did not recuse in that case, even though he has long had significant holdings in the oil and gas in oil and gas investments and stocks in specific oil companies, as well as other investments. He refused to recuse himself.

There was a letter I and others joined as part of our organizational work. this spring asking him to recuse. He refused. After that happened, I dug in to do some more research about Sam Alito's wealth, how much money he gained from holding Exxon stock for so long, enough to pay for part of a second home, you know, up to $250,000 almost. Plus, we calculated that he held stocks and other investments in the oil industry that tallied up to nearly $2.9 million of wealth that he has gained from his holdings. And so that story came out just a few weeks ago. And then just this last week, Sam Alito announced that he was going to recuse from the case.

He wasn't going to sit on it. And just in the last 24 hours, he has claimed that he did so because he thought there could be a reason, reasonable people could fear or have, you know, have a concern that he would be not impartial based on his financial holdings. And he said, though, that he had been reading the briefs that came in. In fact, he participated in nearly a half a dozen meetings of the court about the case as it was considering taking the case. We don't know how many meetings he participated in with other justices about his views on the case. He said that he recused because the petitioners, in this case, Suncor and DexonMobil, claim that if they don't prevail, that they basically could lose money and that that would affect his holdings. And so this case is a major case.

The court did not have to take it. It chose to take this case. This U.S. Supreme Court gets nearly between 8,000 and 9,000 petitions every year asking for the court to weigh in. It has very few cases that are on its mandatory docket. It's required docket under the Constitution like a state versus a state. And instead, it is exercising discretion, which usually means four of the nine justices want to hear a case. and what this court, this Robert's court has been doing is basically setting out what looks like a legislative docket

to intervene and try to put its hand on the scale of justice, in my opinion, in favor of the Republican Party. Oftentimes, for example, with the gerrymandering, the attack on decimating voting rights act earlier this year in the Calais case, now it looks like the court is getting ready to invent, invent sort of out of whole cloth, the notion that the clean,

Air Act somehow preempts any state tort litigation over climate change harms, even though the Clean Air Act doesn't actually do that. It doesn't bar state tort suits for climate or anything else. And in fact, the Trump administration just a few months ago announced that it found that under the Clean Air Act, the EPA could not even regulate greenhouse gases. And so if the court were to intervene here, it would be creating a right to get these oil and gas companies off the hook for the damages that they could face in state court. But in reality, if they rule that way, it could also affect the ability to proceed in federal court where these

oil companies are saying that, again, that the Clean Air Act, with its regulations involving you know, vehicle emissions or EV vehicles or solar energy or the like, that somehow this law governing, you know, trying to limit pollution, bars, cities, and states from proceeding on damages cases for the harms caused by climate change. So it's a big deal. There are other cases coming up this term that I'm sure we'll talk about, or you and Popuk will talk about involving immigration, involving other election issues probably on the emergency docket. There's a big gun case coming up involving.

Air 15s, right? Yeah, AR 15s. So there are more decisions coming down the pike, but the big decision this week, not decision, but the big case this week, the opening case, is about the fact that the Roberts Court, which invented immunity from criminal prosecution for Donald Trump's official acts and invented a major questions doctrine

to block the EPA from the Clean Power Plan, the Obama Clean Power Plan, to have utilities produce more energy from solar and wind. This court is on the precipice of inventing a new interpretation of the law to protect oil companies from these types of state suits. So we'll see what happens. Maybe they won't.

Maybe with Alito not there. They won't have the votes. But earlier this year, just a few months ago, the New York Times published an investigation about the memos around the Clean Power Plan, which revealed the origins of this shadow docket in 2016. And the origin story was that John Roberts was so concerned about the cost impact on the oil and gas industry

that he wanted to intervene in that case using this shadow do so based on a claim of concerns for the energy companies. spending money that he didn't think they should have to spend. So that's worrisome indeed. Wow. That's, that's, you know, I can't help but think the reverberations that this case could have to other states like California and other states that have very strong environmental regulations and state, state laws, right, that they've passed that are sometimes even more strict than the federal government and essentially this could open the door to allowing pollution, frankly.

I don't know how else to put it, right? Yeah, I mean, this notion that the Clean Air Act created a comprehensive scheme that displaces all regulations involving pollution. It's just not true. It does specifically cover certain types of things. And there have been, there's been an ongoing battle that a lot of the law firms that are involved in this litigation through amicus briefs. have been fighting for their clients to try to limit the ability of California, for example,

to have a stronger rule. California, as many people know, is I think one of the fourth largest economies in the world. It's a major economic force in the United States. And when it sets a standard for emissions, that affects the nation because so many cars are sold in California. And California has really been a leader in the nation, regardless of who is in the White House, in trying to protect our planet in some of these ways, in trying to get lower emissions. Because, you know, not just because of the smog that used to engulf Los Angeles and, you know, and other places, but because of its, you know, the large contingent of people who care about the environment in California and are voting for people to protect. protect the environment. So those, you know, the carve-outs for California, I'm sure are at risk from this administration, plus the fact that this administration is trying to rewrite the rules to expand, you know, gas drilling and oil drilling and mining on national parks and more.

This administration is trying to expand drilling offshore. One of the reasons we have Earth Day, one of the reasons why there was a Clean Water Act passed was because there was a massive, massive spill in the early 1970s off the coast of... Was that Exxon Mobil? Was that or no? I can't remember off my... Off the top of me, but it was, you know, it was right there just, you know, off the shore of Los Angeles, just north of Los Angeles. And so much oil was rolling onto the shore, it actually instigated the creation of Earth Day.

And so... I remember that. I remember the pictures of like the wildlife and birds and things just covered in oil. It was so sad. It was terrible. Yeah. And we saw that again, obviously. seeing the Exxon Valdez crash and the leak in Alaska.

You know, there's just no doubt that there are devastating consequences just on a pollution basis. But even setting aside those harms to the ecosystem from major spills, which are, you know, not impossible. And in fact, have been, you know, happened numerous, numerous times. It's the fact that the scientists know that climate change is happening. And in fact, Exxon knew that climate change was happening in the 1970s, at least as of 1977, before the public even heard of the phrase greenhouse gases or climate change.

And meanwhile, every single person in the world knows that climate change is happening. Like, just, you know, it doesn't, you know, you don't need to be a scientist to know that climate change is happening. I mean, it's just destruction that is happening because of weather and other related, you know, events is just unprecedented, right? weather is, I mean, it's just crazy. Yeah, we haven't seen these types of heat trends for not just like a thousand years, but to previous eras in the geological record, this level of concentration of carbon in our atmosphere that is heating up the planet and having these other effects in terms of super storms and more.

Meanwhile, this industry is making billions of dollars every year, net earnings for Exxon last year was, you know, tens of billions of dollars in net earnings. I think for Suncor, it was like five billion net earnings in Canadian dollars, so like four million in U.S. dollars. And they paid nothing, nothing for the damages caused by their products, because they've been using litigation to try to avoid being held accountable for paying anything in. And they've been using lobbying to try to get Congress, to give them immunity from any sort of liability whatsoever. That's one of the things that's been happening in D.C. has been this push by the industry's reps to get this Republican Congress with Trump in power to give them immunity before these midterms.

It doesn't look like it's going to happen. The clock is running out. But meanwhile, we're facing a potential of possible Supreme Court vacancies where Justice Thomas or Justice Alito decide to step down to give Donald Trump, you know, another bite at the apple to extend their supermajority on the court. We don't know that that's going to happen. Alito admitted that he thinks about it every year. That's the sort of statement that he's made. Alito is 76. Thomas is 78. They are sort of in some ways at the peak of their power because of the very regressive

rulings that they've been involved in, including the Dobbs decision that Sam Alito wrote, his role in joining Job Roberts and his quest to gut the Voting Rights Act and more. But the fact is that until there's reform of the court, These justices can decide when they want to step down, and they almost always step down when a member of their party is in the White House and when Congress is in the control, the sentence in the control of their party. David Souter didn't do that. That was, you know, in the modern period, one of those rare instances. Other people have died in office like Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg, but we saw what happened then, which was the Republican senators manipulated the process to claim no one could be confirmed in a presidential election year when President. Obama, who'd been duly elected twice, named a replacement for Scalia. But when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died

in September of 2020, that Republican Senate with McConnell at the helm was determined to get a replacement on for Trump to put into office before the election was resolved, even as people were voting Donald Trump out of office. And that's why there's a six to three Republican majority on the court right now and not a five to four Democratic majority on that court in terms of the appointing president. Right. And since it's a lifetime appointment, they can appoint someone 40 years old who can serve for the next, you know, 40 years because they're nearing their 80s, if not in their 80s, some of them. So it's real, you know, this threat is real. And this is the court that is, you know, as you said, six to three majority that is really defining so many important policies that are transforming

America as we know it, right? Taking away so many rights and liberties and just reshaping things not for the better. Right, and aggrandizing a president, giving a president unprecedented power, embolding someone, not just any president, you know, all presidents, although this president, someone who has demonstrably, who is demonstrably antagonistic to laws. On that note, I think we forgot to talk about Jack Smith wearing a no-king's shirt. He was at a, I think he was at like a concert, was it like a Bruce Springsteen concert or something?

Yeah, it's merch from Bruce Springsteen's concert. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, it was a political statement, right? To basically saying no kings. And, you know, of course, the right wing is seizing upon it and saying, see, he was biased all the time. But I know a lot of Republicans who also, believe in this no kings, right?

This is, because that's what the Roberts court, just bringing it back to Roberts, that's what the Roberts court has created, right? Is somebody who's truly above the law. Somebody who is untouchable, right? And you're supposed to have equal branches of government. You're supposed to, you know, you're not... Checks and balances. Yeah, exactly. Checks and balances, yet they've carved this special status for one person.

Yeah. And you see the damage, right? I mean, you know, I don't think anyone predicted that Trump would turn into what he's turned into. But one can imagine that, you know, there's no King's notion is not Democrat or Republican. I think people would feel that. I mean, yes, right now it's Donald Trump because he's acting like it. But I think it applies to others. But he's getting criticized for wearing that t-shirt.

Right. Well, there's, I mean, Judge Michael Ludig, who was appointed to the Fourth Circuit by, George Herbert Walker Bush, he has written strong essays about the importance of America not having a king. That is core to our founding, that we don't have a king, that there are checks and balances. There's the bulwark. There are these other, you know, former Republicans or current Republicans, but who are not Trump Republicans who have spoken out about the lack of checks and balances. You even saw Thomas Massey, a pretty right-wing member of Congress, who was determined to say,

the president's men, in essence, that the judgment couldn't just shut down the Epstein files release. Like, you know, there have got to be rules and they have to be followed. My worry really is not just all the stuff that we've seen so far, but because John Roberts,

in that opinion on immunity in which he concocted, unprecedented, immunity from criminal prosecution for Donald Trump, he suggested that the part of power is beyond any review by Congress or the courts. I think we're going to have to revisit that because now you have a situation which basically Donald Trump's

co-conspirators, people he directs to do things, you know, could do so believing that he's going to, he's going to pardon them, even if they were working with him on a scheme to deny our rights or to violate the law. That is unfathomably dangerous, especially with someone who has these inclinations that we've seen Trump talk about, like possibly seizing voting machines, his, you know, effort potentially to declare martial law or some sort of emergency, his notion that came out of some of the reporting earlier this week in the last 24 to 48 hours that he was meeting with conspiracy theorist and former convict or convicted election law violator Tina Smith of Colorado. And in essence was suggesting this is the readout from the right wing that he might not order

some sort of emergency around the election, but that he was going to possibly seize voting machines. And if they weren't approved by his team, try to deny those members of Congress from being seated. This is an extraordinarily outrageous, unlawful, dangerous plan if it is in fact underway. And it's something we're going to have to contend with in the weeks ahead as we try to defend American democracy. So no kings is not partisan. No Kings is part of the social contract that is supposed to be our constitution.

Yeah. Well, I want to end with what you just said because it's so important, which is we know that Donald Trump and this administration is going to do everything they can. can to try and take to steal, either steal votes, frankly, or steal the election and hold on to power through any means necessary. And there are lots of different ways that have been talked about, right? Whether it's sending ICE or customs and border patrol to the polls, whether it's making arrests on election day, right, of people who look a certain way or speak a certain language and prevent them from voting, whether it's seizing voting machines,

whether it's refusing to deliver mail-in ballots, whether it's by getting the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to refuse to seat members of Congress who are elected, whether it's state officials who refuse to certify elections. I mean, Republicans who might do that when they see that Democrats are winning. And there's going to be lots and lots of efforts to do that. And I just want to leave people with two different thoughts.

Number one, vote. That's the one thing they can't take from you is you have the right to vote. So go out and exercise it and go out and do it and make sure that you do it. And don't be afraid. Be mad, be mad that they're trying to do this to you. But go and vote, number one. Number two, know that there is an entire infrastructure, an army infrastructure, of volunteers and others who know this is coming,

who know where this is going to happen. They know where the battleground jurisdictions are. They know, everybody knows, right? Democrats and Republicans, they know where the battleground states are. They know where which polls and which ones matter and what locations really matter. And there's going to be so many layers of people who are going to be there to protect your right to vote.

and to try to stop this steal, frankly, of the election. And so there is a massive, massive infrastructure. It's loosely, you know, I don't know that it's coordinated in any way, but I know lots and lots of people are preparing in their own little way, in their own little jurisdiction, to go and make sure that every vote counts and every vote matters. And so go out and vote, grab, you know, try to grab three or four people to also vote,

whether it's your mother, your father, your sister, you know, whoever it is, your best friend, the more people you can encourage to vote, the better. That's what's more, that's what's important because we live in a democracy and we need to preserve our democracy. We need to save our democracy and not allow somebody to essentially steal that from us. And so that's the most important thing.

And the more people I talk to, the more I learn about these efforts that are going on in a grassroots kind of state and local level. And I'm heartened to know that people are going to be ready. The attorneys general are ready. Everyone's preparing what they will do. And so we have to make sure the number one thing is everybody else has to do their part and they have to go and vote.

That's right. And there are, like you said, thousands and thousands of patriotic fellow Americans, neighbors who are working to try to protect the election. I think, you know, the people, we need to make it too big to steal, in essence. Come out, vote, stand together. We have to stand together and make sure our voices are heard. And I have deep confidence in the American people in defending our democracy from this array of threats that have been, you know, thrown up as, you know, various possible scenarios by people who do not want Donald Trump to lose power, including Donald Trump himself. But I think there's a reckoning coming.

I think people get that the country's on the wrong track and they want things righted and they want there to be checks and balances. It's the one thing everyone learns in school about, you know, why our liberty is protected. It's because of checks and balances. If we don't have checks and balances, then we're not really free. Yeah, that's so true. Well, we've reached the end of another midweek edition of Legal A-F. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching.

Thank you for coming and thank you more than anything for supporting the Midas Touch Network and legal A.F and allowing us to bring this information to you day after day, week after week. And we're all in this together. And if we stick together and we stay informed and we keep, you know, stay clear-eyed, then we're going to be okay. So thank you, Lisa, again, for stepping in for Michael Popok. Popok, we wish you well and speedy recovery. And have a great night, everybody.