Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF - 4/15/2026

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo take the controls of the Legal AF podcast as it reports on breaking news from DC, the Supreme Court, California and New York, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Bull Shot: Text LEGAL20 to 64000 for up to 20% off plus free shipping. Message and data rates may apply. Dose Daily: Save 35% on your first month of subscription by going to https://dosedaily.co/LEGALAF or entering LEGALAF at checkout. Magic Spoon: Save $5 OFF your next order when you go to http://magicspoon.com/LEGALAF Qualia: Go to https://QualiaLife.com/legalaf for up to 50% OFF! We NEED your help! Legal AF and The Intersection podcasts are both FINAL 5 Finalists for the Webby Awards Best Podcasts! Voting is open for only the next 2 weeks. Show your support for our shows by voting for free for the Webby Awards, and gets friends and family to do the same! ➡️ Vote for Legal AF (Podcasts – News & Politics) https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/shows/news-politics ➡️ Vote for The Intersection (Best New Podcast) https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2026/podcasts/features/best-new-podcast-news-business-society Become a member of Legal AF YouTube community: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgZJZZbnLFPr5GJdCuIwpA/join Learn more about the Popok Firm: https://thepopokfirm.com Subscribe to Legal AF Substack: https://michaelpopok.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=c0fc8f5c Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. This podcast is sponsored by 20,000. Talkspace. Last year, I went through many different life changes. I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the inside to better show up for the ones who need me to be my best version of myself. When you're navigating life's changes, Talkspace can help. Talkspace is the number one rated online therapy, bringing you professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatry providers that you can access anytime, anywhere. Living a busy life, navigating a long-distance relationship,

becoming a first stepfather. Talkspace made all of those journeys possible. I could speak with my therapist in the office. I could speak of my therapist in the comfort of my home. I was never alone. Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0.00 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off your first month with promo code space 80 when you go to Talkspace.com. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com. Save $80 with code space 80 at Talkspace.com. It's madness, Karen.

It's absolute. We live in a mad, mad, mad, mad world being led by a mad king who we're watching to send into, I don't know, dementia before our very eyes. And the global stakeholders are handling it their way. Congress and led by the Democrats is handling it their way, calling for a committee to look into Donald Trump's dissent into madness. And yet he still, you know, goes on Maria Barnaromo and goes on the attack against the Federal Reserve chair again about criminal cases. And does all the things that would disqualify anyone else in any other time from holding office. You know, oathkeepers and proud boys who got convicted of the highest level crime that they could, seditious conspiracy. see, it was so bad that even Trump didn't pardon them.

There's a great photo. Are now being by the new Department of Justice, Janine Piro, the U.S. Attorney's Office trying out to be. Attorney General have their convictions expunged and reversed and all of that. And lots of people are trying out for Donald Trump. Supreme Court justice candidates are trying out. Naomi Rayo on the D.C. federal appellate court, two decisions this week to try to get attention from Donald Trump. One on the ballroom and one on and one on Jeb Bosberg, in which he wrote the majority opinion about him as a chief judge trying to hold Donald Trump and his people accountable under the rule of law.

Wall Street Journal has a victory. Rupert Murdoch have a victory in the defamation case that Donald Trump brought against them related to the Epstein birthday book in Donald Trump or somebody impersonating Donald Trump 30 years ago, gluing in on page 235 of volume 2, a body pornographic card addressed to his buddy, Jeffrey Epstein. We got a ruling related to that. There's an interesting development, just to be fair, because we don't blow smoke or sunshine. We don't only cover Republican missteps, and even though there are a number of them. I mean, I don't know.

What do you make of Jack Posobiac being the media star of the day in the White House press room today, who's a white Christian nationalist, pizza gate propagandist of the first. first order. And there's Carolyn Leavitt asking, letting him ask the first question of the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bassett. So we come, you know, we try to cover lots of things. You know, and the fall of Eric Swalwell, who frankly, two weeks earlier, I was trying to get him on the show to talk about something. And that didn't happen. And then the rest of it happened. And now the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, because I assume part of the purported crimes that are lunch of he's to have committed happened in New York. And so we'll kick that around a little bit,

just in terms of being fair and balanced, as we like to do here. Bring in Karen Freeman, McIffalo, my co-anchor on Wednesdays. I'm Karen. Hey, Popak. How are you? Doing great. Manhattan DA's thinking about taking on a case. We're not going to get into the nitty gritty of it, although I think people would find it interesting to learn about, like, why a Manhattan DA would take a case like this or investigate a case like this. What are the steps to it? and all of that. We're not here to defend Swalwell or to prosecute Swalwell. I'm not, I'm on on the bandwagon or off the bandwagon, but it is something that's a fact, just as the other person, this Republican, who resigned after one of his staffers set herself on fire because of the shame that was brought on by having an affair with that Republican representative. So there's no, there's no glory being covered here. You can't cover yourself in glory on either side of the aisle.

related to some of these allegations, but we'll talk about that as well. Why don't we kick it off with Donald Trump going after the Fed chair again? Just so weird. You know, he got a mulligan, he got a do-over when Jeb Boseberg, who we're going to talk about later, threw away his criminal investigation related to a billion-dollar cost overrun at the Federal Reserve to redo two billion, two giant buildings in Washington, filled with asbestos, built 100 years ago, no facts to support that the Federal Reserve chair

lined his pockets with his money related to it. No kickback scandal. Just a cost overrun. If everybody that had a, if every builder that had a cost overrun went to jail, Donald Trump would already be in prison. Every major building in Washington has had a major cost overrun, including the ballroom, including the Department of Homeland Security Campus

that's been under construction since 2016 and is still not done. Okay? So, but it's just a ruse to try to get rid of him, but he got a mulligan when Jeff Bosberg threw away the criminal investigation and said, you can't investigate the guy, you have no facts, drop it, which would have been perfect for Trump, right?

He would have got his Fed Chair, picked confirmed already and all but now he's going back after um with maria barteroma going back after uh federal reserve chairman j pal whose term is over in in about 30 days exactly 30 days from today what do you make of it caro what do you think we're we're watching i read somewhere somebody described it as donald trump snatching victory or snatching defeat from the jaws of victory you know, that he was just about, as you said, 30 days from now about to be able to install his own Fed chief. And he instead is going on the warpath again against Jay Powell. It doesn't make any sense about why he's doing it.

And, you know, one quick little anecdote before I dive into it, you know, I'm in the process of about to do a pretty big renovation. And I'm meeting with all these contractors. and the bid is going much higher. The bids are all much higher than we anticipated. And when you ask them, each one of them separately, why it is so much more expensive than what we thought. And you want to know what their answer is? Tariffs. They're saying that tariffs are what's driving the prices up.

So I'm not surprised that there's cost overruns at the Fed right now, just from what I'm hearing from people, because materials and things like that is just so much more expensive thanks to Trump's tariffs. But, you know, why is he doing this and why is he going after him? A couple of things. First of all, you know Donald Trump where he gets a bee in his bonnet. And when he doesn't like someone or doesn't want to do something, he just can't let it go.

And he, I think part of it is he is just he can't stand that that last month, a federal judge quashed a pair of grand jury subpoenas that Janine Piro issued and actually found the reason, there's absolutely no evidence of criminal activity. And he doesn't like when people tell him no, right? He tried to fire another Fed governor, Lisa Cook, over allegations of mortgage fraud, but the Supreme Court actually seems to have shot that down, right? They stayed that, they haven't issued a final ruling yet, but they stayed that, but they signaled that that's where they're leaning.

And it makes no sense whatsoever why he's doing this. is now given the fact that, as you said, in 30 days, he was about to put in, I think, first name's Kevin Warsh to go in front of the Senate. In fact, he's supposed to have his confirmation hearing on next Tuesday. But even Republicans, there's Republican Senator Tom Tillis, who said he will not vote for any federal nominees

until this is resolved. So I think Trump doesn't like that he can't fire these people, at will, and I think this is also his threats to try to get them to lower interest rates. But the whole point of this, you know, and to try to get around Judge Boseberg's ruling blocking the subpoenas, right? This is why he's doing it. This is why Janine Puro sent several members of DOJ to the building site, right? I think it was today or yesterday, just to kind of show up and be there and try to look around. And they're just trying to get around this subpoena that they've blocked

and they're not letting it go. And, I mean, obviously they could challenge it in court, but they're not doing that. They're just trying to make an end run around this and really just continue to kick up the dust here. And, you know, I think, look, everything is going wrong for Donald Trump right now, anywhere you look, whether his approval ratings are in the toilet, his, the war in Iran is a disaster.

The straight of her moves is either open or closed. It's unclear. He says it's open, but who knows what's going on there? Because also there were orders of, it came from CENTCOM today that the military is telling people don't try to come through or we're going to come block, you know, we're going to board your ship. And, you know, so it's unclear whether it's open or closed. We know Donald Trump is saying it and we believe some ships are getting through.

But the approval rating is down. The negotiations with Iran have not gone well so far. Whether it's Jeffrey Epstein, obviously, that's not going away, or Melania surprising everyone with, you know, I wasn't a victim. And why did she do that and putting Epstein back in the news? Or all the stuff going on with the Pope and his fight with that? I mean, he's just everything's in the toilet right now. But the only thing he can hold on to is, you know, and forget, forget. deportations and ice and all of that, right? Every day is another story about Christy Noem and her husband.

Today's story was about their millions of dollars in debt that they're in and the thousands and thousands of dollars that the husband Brian sent to these escorts. I mean, the news just is so bad, but the one thing that Donald Trump hangs on to, and we know this, is the economy, right? And he thinks that the interest rates is partly, he wants them lowered to try to improve the economy. And we know that because those are the talking points, right? That's what Pam Bondi said, which was non-responsive to Epstein questions. The Dow is above 50,000. I mean, these are the Trump administration talking points.

And I think this is his way to try to get the economy to distract from all of the other debacles that are going on in this administration, not to mention the fact that the writing on the wall for the midterms, at least if they were held today, I think is that there'd be a blue tsunami. So that's my prediction. But what are your thoughts of why he would do something so ridiculous and nonsensical, but to go after Powell for something that doesn't look, smell, or seem criminal whatsoever? Well, he seems to only rely on two things that are successful in his administration. And one, he can't even take credit for it. Stock market, which is already doing well under Joe Biden. And it is whipsawing and gyrating the way that it is now with these huge swings.

Sometimes if you hit it at the apex, oh, my God, it set a record today. Sometimes it sets a record in the opposite direction. It nets out to check your stock if you have any. Not great. And the murder rates in America, which he has absolutely no responsibility for. It's local law enforcement. It states they're responsible. It's post-COVID issues,

demographics that play into murder rates. But all Donald Trump talks about, like when he's defending himself about, you know, posing as Jesus and attacking the Pope, he says, murder rate, I was elected to do two things. Murder rates down. I'm like, that's what you were like,

that's what you, that was your takeaway? from the election that we wanted you to address murder rates. It's just, I think it's what I said at the top. It is these aspects of mental decline, the rage impulse that can't be controlled. The psychic pain that he has put himself in or finds himself in and the constant rejections. of him and his policies on the world stage.

He's miscalculated so many times on the world stage about what the global stakeholders and allies would do. They're not being bullied any longer by Donald Trump. The bully is being bullied, and it's driving Donald Trump mad and insane. There's no other way to explain his erratic lack of fitness to be commander-in-chief related to the Iran war or anything else. than that. We just had a group of psychiatrists and psychologists write a letter demanding that Donald Trump

that not only that there be a new committee to evaluate his mental status, but that the cabinet and the vice president be called before Congress as part of a 25th Amendment process to testify individually about his mental states. We're not going to rely on them alone. by themselves making a decision like this we're gonna put pressure on them public pressure on them and in the same letter they said we're psychiatrists and psychologists and leaders of world health organizations and what we are observing with Donald Trump whether it's open the fucking straight you crazy

bastards that's a direct quote or making comments about wars and selling in front of toddlers and preschoolers during an Easter bunny during an egg roll or saying praise Allah or going after Riley Gaines, which I actually liked, but the person that's been going after the transgender community as a former middling swimmer NAA and NCAA swimmer and a frequent visitor to the White House press room, going after Maloney, the Prime Minister of Italy, attacking the Holy See? What is the demographic that he is going for, that he's pandering to, in going after people of faith as his vice president, who has a new book coming out about him converting to Catholicism nine years ago called communion coming out. And he's going after. And he's going after,

He's going after bishops and the Pope and being dragged into this no-win situation. The psychiatrist and psychologist said what they're observing is the dark triad in Donald Trump, which is narcissism, Machiavellian conduct or megalomaniacal conduct, and pathology. He's pathological. And you put all that together and you get things that we're watching, the inability to control his own rage. So he decided to go on Bartoromo, wide-ranging interview, you know, oh, let's push out Supreme Court justices and gets facts and figures wrong as it relates to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her death and how Amy Coney Barrett was appointed, fundamental basic facts that he can't get right. I mean, if Robert Her, the special counsel, who went after Joe Biden for taking papers back to his garage, was on the case, he is on the case representing the Federal Reserve.

But if he was special counsel again, he would say the same thing about Donald Trump that he said about Joe Biden. He's an, except I think he'd leave out the nice part. He's a senile old man in his daughter, who's dottering and that I feel sorry for. I mean, that's what people inside and outside the government are saying. Scaramucci, former press secretary, was on legal AF today with the Court of History historian guys. And he said, it's not just a shambolic administration. It's an insane one. And you've got former CIA director, John Brennan, saying he's unhinged and insane.

he's why the 25th Amendment was written. And the growing chorus is reaching a crescendo about Donald Trump's mental capacity. And I just see him going back after Jay Powell. It's almost like nobody told him or he forgot that Jeb Bosberg threw out that criminal case.

And he gets the numbers wrong. $4 billion cost overrun. Okay, stop. The building was supposed to be, one and a half billion. It's the remediation. It's two giant buildings as part of the Federal Federal Reserve Campus, okay, filled with asbestos, filled with old wiring, filled with old plumbing, filled with lead, filled with old elevators. Everybody's been there? Donald Trump's like, I'm going to have done it for $25 million of the builder. 25 million. You can't, you can't

remediate asbestos in a buildings of those size for under $30 or $40 million, let alone renovate them. So it went from one and a half billion or 1.7 billion to about 2.7 billion. Okay. It's a miss. I understand it. The ballroom went from

200 million to 400 million. Every major project has pointed out by the lawyers for the Federal Reserve to the judge. Every major project in Washington, D.C. has had a cost overrun of billions of hundreds of millions of dollars. It happens. Doesn't mean a crime has been committed. So Trump can't

get the numbers right. And of course, nobody in mainstream media, certainly not Maria Bartaromo. No one's going to correct him. Well, Mr. President, with all due respect, it's not $4 billion. It's a cost overrun of about 80%. It's a large number, but it's not $4 billion. It's more like $1.5 billion. And with all due respect, Mr. President, you're wrong on the chronology related to when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. She didn't die. She didn't have a choice to die. I guess she could have resigned during Obama six to eight years earlier.

She died in September before the election where you lost to Biden. And then you slammed in Katang, Amy Cody Barrett, in the last 40 days, even though you were on the losing side of that election. So, but Maria Barraub was just sitting there with her purse lips and her pad and like true propaganda. This never challenges anything that gets said. Look, if I do interviews on legal AF, okay, if somebody says something that's like factually wrong and I know it, I'll either, I'll correct them on the air or I'll say, I'm not sure that's how that went, by the way. I got to understand your point, but we don't just sit there and listen to blather and watch the dissent.

into madness. So that's my only explanation. He's going to lose at the Supreme Court about firing Lisa Cook on the Federal Reserve. He's, even though the term is up for chair in a month, J. Powell's going to stay on until 2028, which is his term. And if he doesn't come to a census, Trump, he's not going to get his Federal Reserve chair pick confirmed because Tom Tillis is going to block it. as a Republican, unless the criminal case is dropped, period. Right? Totally. That's exactly right.

Yeah. You know, the thing is, it's interesting, you know, we don't need psychologists and psychiatrists, though, to tell us that he's mentally unfit for office. We can all see it with our own eyes, right? I mean, it's, it's, you can't even watch him speak or hear what he says without, or read his truth social posts that come out of, of 4 a.m. without everyone coming to that same conclusion. I mean, you know, he either thinks that we are dumb or he's the biggest gaslighter in chief there is. Because just nuts. You know, I think everyone can see it. Yeah. And I like the fact that Congress led by Jamie Raskin and 50 other Democrats, AOC and Garcia, the rest, are calling for a.

17-person bipartisan committee about his fitness, which is exactly what the medical professionals are calling for, that the cabinet and J.D. Vance come in under oath individually and testify about their observations. They did exactly this against Joe Biden. They tried to. Even out of office, they brought his doctor in to talk about him. There's a doctor in the White House. There's a Scott Barabella, bring him in, you know? Yeah, the Trump administration will go straight to the Supreme Court and say, separation of powers, you can't do it. And that's what they'll, I'm just, I can just see it now, right?

That's their argument with every single issue that comes up, separation of power, separation of powers, and that's what they'll do here, and they'll try to block this. But I got the power. The power they have that is theirs is power under Article 1 related to war. And so you say in order to determine whether the commander in chief, you know, is fit for duty, so to speak, we're going to conduct hearings. And as part of that, we have to have oversight over the cabinet members and the vice president. I agree. He's going to challenge it.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Oh, I agree with that. Yeah. And get it coming. Because sometimes when you try, you win, like for instance, so in the Wall Street Journal, switching gears for a minute, and Rupert Murdoch. did reporting and in advance of what the Oversight Committee released, found out about, either from the Epstein estate or otherwise, found out about the multi-volume scrapbook birthday card thing

that Galane Maxwell admits that she created for Epstein's 50th birthday and buried in volume two after you got through all these other body, ridiculous birthday submissions from powerful men and some of the women around the world that have brought down more careers, I think, than almost Watergate did. Buried in volume two was a submission by or on behalf of Donald Trump. Now, he's got a whole, that's not me, you know, some sort of time traveler, went back in time, took out volume two and pasted in my portographic birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein to show that I had a deeper relationship with him than I did.

We, again, to your point, Karen, we have eyes. We've seen the modeling pageants. We've seen the photos. We've seen the travel logs. We've seen the videos of Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Galane Maxwell. And we've had other people testify like Michael Wolfe, the journalist, about seeing photos and other things that belong to Jeffrey Epstein. So Donald Trump decides he's going to go after Rupert Murdoch and claim that the reporting was defamatory. But in order to do that because we have freedom of the press and we have something called Times versus Sullivan, a case that protects the press from defamatory allegations, you have to prove that there's been actual malice. And that is a term of art, which means sort of what it sounds like. You knew that the reporting was false or you recklessly disregarded whether it was true or false to make a buck and sell a paper. And the Supreme Court put up that barrier to protect a free press, to emboldened a free press to do its job many, many years ago, 50 years ago plus.

Some conservatives hate it like Sam Alito, but it's on the books. And Judge Gales had a motion to dismiss by the Wall Street Journal that, hit Donald Trump right where he lives below the belt and said a number of things in their motion practice, right? One, you can't defame Donald Trump. His reputation is incapable of being defamed because he's at a judge-sex abuser, persistent fraudster, has used the F-bomb, has said out loud he would grab women by their genitalia. And you can't defame a guy like that.

Like, you can't defame Hitler. You can't defame, you know, Jeffrey Dahmer. that would be the thinking. I loved it, not because I thought it was going to win on a motion to dismiss. I loved it because it framed all these issues about who and what Donald Trump is. But Judge Gail came out with his ruling on actual malice. And why don't you take it from there, Karen? Yeah, I mean, you know, it was obviously thrown out saying there's no evidence whatsoever that they acted with actual malice. right, that knowledge that it was false or reckless disregard of its falsity.

In fact, not only that, the judge did a couple of things. The judge said, essentially, number one, there are no facts alleged in this whatsoever that demonstrate that, number one. Number two, they called you and asked you for comment and you said it was false, and they published that. They said that you denied it. So they put your position out there. And number three, they cited that Trump often uses so much vitriol against the press

that it's starting to hurt him, right? Judges are often citing that, right? That he does that. And I think judges look at that and they see that and they see what's going on. So, you know, he basically did not, you know, they try, What the judge said was that Trump failed to show that the Wall Street Journal didn't investigate the truth or the veracity of the claims before publishing the article. And they did. And as you said, this whole idea about time travel is so absurd, you know, that someone else did it, right?

This whole idea that it wasn't me. In fact, you know, the other thing is like, look, this can't be defamatory. This is what the Wall Street Journal's lawyer said. this can't be defamatory. This is actually his reputation, right? His reputation is that he talks like this and does things like this. So how did this hurt your reputation in any way? You know, I had a question, actually, about this. Because the allegation here is that Gilain Maxwell is the one who collected all of these birthday cards, right? And had different people in Jeffrey Epstein's life to, from, you know, from this 2003 birthday book,

writing letters to him and that Trump's was one of them because we know they were close friends back then. Did Todd Blanche asked Maxwell about that when he went and interviewed her for hours and hours and hours about whether that was Trump? She denied knowledge of any particular page in that book. He didn't bring it with her, with him, because he didn't want to,

examine her. She admitted that she, that her mother had made a similar book for her father, and she thought it was fun. So, because who makes, like, I had a 50th birthday. I mean, I didn't get a several-volume leather scrapbook, you know, from Michaels, you know, with people's submissions in it. But she did that. And so she admitted to the veracity of the volumes, but conveniently could not remember who, who contributed what to whom and where. Yeah, but I can imagine, look, she put a lot of effort into this and curated the book and handpicked the people who were going to be in it. I am certain that, and Donald Trump wasn't who he is today in 2003, right? He was a businessman, you know, guy who hung out with, you know,

one of the guys who hung out with Trump and others. And he, look, he had some money, but he also was an uneven, let's put it that way, businessman with some very unsuccessful businesses and bankruptcies, et cetera. So it wasn't like you couldn't get to him and talk to him directly, right? I think she would have known if it wasn't from him. I mean, she reached out to him directly as she did everybody else to provide it, told them what to provide, gave them the specifics. And so what is? There's this Donald Trump imposter out there that did this instead and copied his exact signature. And if she didn't asked Trump to do it and someone else sent it in, purporting to be Trump, wouldn't she have said, that's weird, I didn't ask Trump for this. I mean, it just, it just from a makes no sense standpoint,

just even if she doesn't specifically remember exactly what happened, it just totally belies common sense that that's, that it's fake and that he didn't do it. So I think, look, for many reasons, this is not going to go anywhere, but the judge dismissed it without prejudice. which means the Trump can refile this $10 billion lawsuit, an absurd amount that he claims he somehow was defamed and damaged and harmed because of this. And that means he can refile it and try to allege facts of actual malice,

which I don't know how they're going to do, right? Wall Street Journal, they sourced it 10 ways to Sunday. They gave him a chance to, comment and they published what he said they saw it themselves and you know and they got it from the Epstein estate so they got it from from the horse's mouth and the book is legit so I don't know how they refile that and how this is ever successful I don't know how they refile it without violating rule 11 for bad faith filing there are no facts to support that the Wall Street Journal knew that this was false all they were

reported on is that they saw that they were given a copy. The journalists saw the actual submission and that it appeared to be in Donald Trump's hand, but they didn't have it tested. That is proper reporting, you know, and they did their job. They asked Donald Trump for comment. He said, I didn't do it. They asked FBI for comment, and they said no comment. They asked the Department of Justice for comment, and they didn't respond. Okay, with that and having actually seen the the goods, you run a story. And then it turned out the story is actually true because the oversight committee got a copy of the entire book and published it. We published it. It's on substack for legal AF. It's on Midas. You can go find the Epstein birthday book. And then you can be

the judge, just like in any courtroom, the jury is the ultimate trier of fact about whether something is authentic or not. They're the one they're the handwriting experts. You know, yeah, people testify, but they, you don't need a handwriting expert. A jury is confident to determine that. If they refile, I think they slither away, take their loss, just like they just dismissed the case against the guardian and some other things. And they go off into the night and pick their battles because if they try to refile this, you know, Judge Gail, who I know well, took under advisement whether he's going to award attorney's fees or not, which could be a half a million dollars or more. I know the lawyer is involved, including Andy Levander, and he's not

cheap. And if they get awarded their attorney's fees, that's a half a million dollars, that Donald Trump's going to have to come up with himself. you know, and the rest. So organizations should figure out how to sue Donald Trump for defamation with all that he says about them, right? Fake news. I mean, and they can prove actual malice against him because he lies, right? He actually lies. Like, people have to start becoming more offensive against him.

Agreed. I totally agree. We're going to talk about some judges that have gone on the offense of what has happened to them, like Jeb Boseberg, the chief. Chief Judge of the D.C. Court with a new ruling that just came out. Oathkeepers and proud boys, I want to talk to the former prosecutor and Karen Freeman McNiflo about the seditious conspiracy leaders who got the highest counts, many of them kept in jail because they were so dangerous before trial. And now with the Department of Justice and Janine Piro are doing about that. And then we'll touch

on the Manhattan DA and the reports that they are investigating. Eric Swalwell. I know Karen has no involvement in it. She's long gone from the Manhattan DA's office, but I'd love to get your perspective about what an investigation of like could look like here on Legal AF. So many ways to support what we're doing. One day left, everybody. Oh, yes, the Webby Awards. It's the Oscars for podcast nerds. And our podcast, LegalAF, is up, as is the intersection, a podcast that I do on Tuesday nights both up for best new and best news podcasts it's up to you it's the people's voice award that's the one we want to win it's going to be a barn burner it's going to come down to the last the last day if we could push our way through there with your help and turning out the vote we will it's all for free

the links are below in the notes tonight vote for the intersection and vote for the legal a And there's other, if you're like, if you're into podcasts, there's lots of every, every, there's every type of podcast at all different categories over last year. And I'm sure it's close this year. Five million people voted. Thousands of podcasts were up for it. We made it to the final five. And now it's up to you to select who it is.

And then, of course, the other ways to support LegalAF is LegalAF, the YouTube channel, where we're at one point, almost 1.1 million subscribers, 12 videos a day, lots of amazing and contributors at the intersection of law of politics. Look right here. This is the Oscar. This is the gold YouTube award for going over 1 million subscribers. There it is. It's all because of you and your fervent support of this community.

And then we've got LegalAF Substack, which we do some tremendous writing. I do live reports there and commentary. Put all of the documents that we use. We put them up on LegalAF Substack for you. And then we've got our. pro-democracy sponsors, and here they are. Look, the magnesium, it's something most of us lack, and if you're taking that drugstore variant, you're still not getting the full picture. Industrial farming, chronic stress, and everyday aging all make it worse. Most supplements only

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over Donald Trump's criminal case when the grand juries in D.C. indicted him for election interference. That was a combination of Barrel Howell and then Jeb Bosberg. You know, Trump was on the receiving end of a number of Jebosberg rulings about attorney-client privilege and communications and who would testify against them, Mike Pence going into the grand jury. So there's been no love loss. And then one of the very first cases of Donald Trump's attempts to use the Alien Enemies Act

to deport human beings without due process in the middle of the night to El Salvador ended up landed on Jebosburg's desk. Now he's at other cases as well. He's currently the judge that just threw out, for instance, the grand jury subpoenas, because he still as the chief judge. He's responsible for grand jury subpoenas related to the Federal Reserve

and the Jay Powell, who we talked about earlier. Same guy, same judge. You know, that got Trump all hot and bothered, you know, about it. Like you said earlier, Karen, sent a couple of lawyer types down to the construction site today over it. Same judge. Well respected. Middle of the road.

More Republican than Democrat. friends with John Roberts, the Chief Justice, roommates with Kavanaugh in law school, of all things, appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents alike, not a radical activist, Marxist, leftist, judge, which is what he always gets labeled. And he tried to hold the Trump administration, it's Department of Homeland Security, and ultimately at the time, Kristy Nob, accountable, twice. one he started he started he found probable cause to believe there was criminal contempt by the Trump administration

because they violated his orders to ground the planes and not send El Salvador away from federal jurisdiction that got blocked by a federal panel including Judge Rayo and I think Judge Walker could have been Katz's I think it's Walker two Trumpers, two to one. But then it went off into this world of en banc hearings,

the entirety of the D.C. court, and they sent it back to Jebosburg to start again if he wanted to contempt proceedings. And he did. And he started them up again because they violated his order, knowing that he had ordered the planes grounded, they intentionally continue to fly people to El Salvador to the torture prison called Seacot. And what's a federal judge to do? Ignore it? I've never known a federal judge to ignore a violation. Show me that federal judge, because I've 35 years, I've never seen one.

A federal judge ignoring a contumacious, blatant violation of his order. Like today, we came on the air. Some judge penalized the Department of Justice attorney, $250. Don't let it happen again. Oh, a whole $250? Okay, so judges have inherent authority. And now we got a new ruling, right, Karen? Two to one.

Judge Rayo, who I said earlier tonight, is trying out for the Supreme Court, Naomi Rayo, Judge Walker, two to one, said that Boseberg, oh, abused his discretion. But there was an 80-0-page dissent by Judge Michelle Childs. Side note, Michelle Childs from South Carolina originally. That's who Lindsey Graham wanted to be on the Supreme Court instead of Katanji Brown Jackson. She's a Democrat, or Biden had appointed her. But she's bright.

She's great. I love Michelle Childs. And she took on the Trumpers with a scathing dissent of 80. You read an 80-page dissent. Yeah, it's amazing. That's saying something. Why don't you pick up the pieces there about it and what to make of that dissent? Yeah, look, this was a, it's hard to read it because it was very dense, this decision.

And the appellate court really tried to twist things to, you know, bend it to the result that they wanted because otherwise it makes no sense. And essentially it boils down to one thing. It boils down to, or really two things. boils down to the fact that that Boasberg said at five o'clock on a Saturday night or Friday night or whatever it was, you know, don't transfer anyone and assure me that they're going to not going to be transferred over the weekend. And he asks Drew Ensign of the DOJ, can you make that assurance? And he didn't know. So he said, I'm going to go have a short adjournment for a few hours while you go find out. And during that time is when the planes left. And when they came back, he said, oh, sorry, these planes have already left. And they had these Venezuelans, and they're going to go to the Seacot prison. And when the planes came back, sorry, when the parties came back, when the lawyers came back, that's when all, everything started, right?

And the fighting started. And Judge Bosberg issued an oral order, right, where you basically directed the Department of Justice, to not transfer anyone, to not remove anyone. And he said, but don't worry, it's late, it's a weekend, it's Friday night, it's late. You don't have to write anything down. I'm gonna follow it up with a written order shortly. And so he writes out this order and puts it on the docket.

And this whole thing boils down to the fact that it does say in the written order that you are not to remove anyone, But it doesn't say anything about transfer custody. What? I mean, it's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. And so, therefore, because it didn't say transfer custody,

although he did talk about that in the oral part that preceded the written order, the Rayo basically said, oh, you know, but that doesn't matter because the written one was submitted after the oral one. And you told them not to write anything down. So it's clear that the written one is the only one that controls, and it's silent as to, transfer of custody. And as a result, it's too vague and you can't possibly hold someone in contempt of something that's too vague and not specific like that. And that's essentially what this boils down to, which is absurd for many reasons. And largely what Michelle Child's, Judge Michelle Child said, was essentially basically, first of all, the beginning of this written order.

actually says, as discussed in today's hearing, the court orders that. So the written order actually encompasses the minutes of today's hearing. So, and the majority leaves that out. But also basically said, we haven't had the contempt proceeding yet to develop the record to know what was in their heads. What did they understand the orders to mean, et cetera, and what did you do? It's only, only after you develop the record and you hold these hearings, these contempt hearings, that then we can review it. And she literally said it would be like, it would be like, it's like dismissing a criminal case before it's even brought,

which they can't do because only a lower court has the ability to bring a criminal case. And so it's just sort of unprecedented what Rayo and Walker did to bend over backwards to essentially give Donald Trump what he wanted here and is not letting him do it. And the question is whether it's going to go en banc. And I've spoken to, which means get it away from these three judges and have the whole 11 or 12 judge panel vote on it. And the reason I've spoken to a few people about it and asked them.

And I said, well, why wouldn't they go on Bonk? Of course they will, because, I mean, this is, A, the law is wrong. And B, it can't get any worse for them. And the answer I was told was because if, regardless of what happens at the D.C. Circuit, then we'll tee it up to go to the Supreme Court. And I think what they're worried, what people are worried about is the Supreme Court ruling similarly and essentially taking away this ability of district judges across the country in their ability to use their contempt powers.

And so I think that's what the conversation is happening about whether or not to go on Bonk or whether to just leave this alone. Where it will end up, I don't know. But that's sort of what the discussion is happening at this point. Yeah, I mean, it's another sort of a blow. It's what happens when you get two Trumpers on a three-judge panel. It's a relatively moderate to liberal panel, court generally. It's also considered the feeder court to the United States. State Supreme Court. Many judges, justices come off of that court. John Roberts did. Others have.

Merrick Garland was on that court. And Naomi Rayo, Walker, Katsis are all three Trumpers who are trying out for the United States Supreme Court position. A Supreme Court position that Donald Trump is trying to make happen at opening. You know, he's got like his bony little fingers, like the Grim Reaper on the back of Thomas and Alito. He just said it in the same interview where he went after the Federal Reserve Chair. He took time to say, well, I'm ready to appoint a new Supreme Court justice. We don't want to have another Ruth Bader Ginsburg moment. Now do we?

And then he proceeded to completely fumble the timeline related to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was just trying to get to a Democratic. a Democratic president, which almost happened. She died in September 2020. You know, November 2020, Biden beats Trump. I know some people think that didn't happen, but it did. And then in January, 2021, there would have been the start of a process to replace her if she had made it that far. Unfortunately, she died in September, battles of, you know, she succumbed to a number of battles with cancer.

And his argument was she should have resigned 10 years earlier. with Obama. I'm like, are you kidding me? It's because you violated the historical protocol, having lost the election, and there being an opening in the waning hours of your administration, you were not supposed to fill that role, fill that vacancy. You and Mitch McConnell got it in your minds that with 36 days left to go, you were going to shove Amy Coney Barrett down our throat. And now, ironically, it's effectively the Amy Coney-Barrant court, as she is, I guess, guess center or right right or right right center on the court. But this whole, these courts are important.

And as Donald Trump ceded these courts with his minions, you know, the tryouts include, you know, James Ho on the Fifth Circuit, Andrew Oldham on the Fifth Circuit, Emil Bovi, Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer, who's plying his trade on the Third Circuit, Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Eileen Cannon. Right. Aileen Cannon of the Southern

District of Florida and Naomi Rayo. I mean, look, there could be a wild card. You know, he could kick Todd Blanche over there opening it up for somebody else. But he needs an opening. We don't need the opening. This is why it's so important that the Democrats take the Senate in the midterms.

Oh, I mean, it's beyond important. You and I, you and I, we were kibitzing at a break here about, you know, I'm going on my 35th law school reunion this weekend with my family at Duke and you and you and I are about peers. And you and I have never known in our lifetime a moderate or liberal Supreme Court. It has always been Republican dominated for 50-plus years. It's never been this bad, though. I mean, this is, to me, at least. I think they've lost a lot of credibility in the last several years. Yeah, my point is not that bad or not bad.

I'm just saying I've never had the luxury of having a Democratic appointed majority, five to four, six to three. We've had to live under this variations on a theme. Sure, I liked aspects of, of, you know, prior, you know, Sandra Day O'Connor or, you know, others that were more moderate, that were more, you know, Reagan Republicans, but, you know, it's not fair that the third branch of government has been dominated by one party. So was Roe versus Wade a conservative court that created that decision?

Well, you had flips on there, right? You had black men and others who flipped. But the chief justice at the time, Warren Berger? I would say that was a Republican-dominated panel that was moderate in their expression when it came to women's rights at the time, at the time. But the trouble with everything you and I are talking about now is that this court that just struck down

Boseberg again, you want justices like Boseberg to be elevated to the United States Supreme Court, or Michelle Child, Childs or Judge, Judge Millett, or I could, you know, the list goes on here. Amy Berman Jackson, I mean, there's just, you know, just doesn't barrel howl that you'd want there. And if we don't get control back to the political side at the midterms and control the Senate, he'll permanently reshape the Supreme Court for 20 or 30 more years. because he's going to put 40-year-olds and early 50-year-olds into those positions. And it'll be a 6 to 3, 5-4 majority right-wing, right-right-wing for 30 years, another 30 years.

Yeah. Yeah. So Oathkeepers and Proud Boys and their satious conspiracy claims. And I want to talk about Swalwell. Why don't we talk about Swalwell now before the break? So the top line, everybody understands it. the news went from bad to worse at a short amount of time. You know, a month ago, we were talking about,

oh, who was Fang Fang that worked in his office and was she a Chinese communist operative? And did he have an affair with her? Maybe kind of sort of. And why was Cash Patel going to be releasing files about a 10-year-old investigation that went nowhere? And that was quaint. If that was going to be the end of the story, about at the time the leading a Democrat to win the primary for the governorship of California. And then it went from that to it was like a Tiger Woods moment.

Every person who was a female that worked for him, it seemed at least, came out and said terrible, terrible, horrific things about him linking him to sex abuse and sex assault. One after another. And there seemed to be a pattern. in some of the allegations, consistencies. And quickly, the Democrats who had supported him

peeled away, and staffers started to quit. I mean, this happened like overnight. But each one of these women that had an authentic story to tell as a survivor of that abuse, there's a case there that needs to be investigated. Now, whether it's a federal case,

that's up to the Department of Justice. Lord knows they haven't been able to find a federal case for sex abuse in 1,200 victims related to Jeffrey Epstein. But these are state crimes generally. I don't know where they occurred. But there has been reporting that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office is opening up in investigation. And I know you've got a background in that office in sex abuse cases.

So I thought it would be good for people to at least have some knowledge in which to analyze these new charges. Yeah, so look, there's a couple of things. First of all, there is no such thing as a federal rape charge. What they have federally is sex trafficking. And that's why the Jeffrey Epstein case is federal, because the allegations are that there was minors who were being trafficked for sex. sex, which is different than rape, right? And rape is a state crime. And that means it has to occur, the actual sexual assault has to occur in the jurisdiction that the prosecuting office is sitting in. And so what it tells me that the Manhattan DA's office has opened an investigation is that at least

one of these allegations of sexual assault occurred here in Manhattan. And Manhattan DA's office has one of the premier best sex crimes units in the country. They're excellent. And not just because I used to be a supervisor in that unit many years ago, but they know what they're doing and they investigate things. And so what will happen is they will conduct an investigation. And what they'll do is they'll open up a grand jury investigation, which allows them to issue grand jury subpoenas. They will attempt to gather records. They'll attempt to gather documents, phone records, video. Let's say, for example, hypothetically it occurred in a hotel room. They'll go to the hotel and serve them with subpoenas to get video from the hallways, get them coming in and out of

rooms or hallways or coming in and out of the lobby. If it's in a hotel room, they'll ask for the card swipes, you know, how you swipe into your room and, you know, the key card. that leaves an electronic footprint. They will get the records, what, how was it paid for, under whose name, et cetera, et cetera. You know, there's any porn ordered on the television, you know, whatever it is. There's so many things you can order from a hotel.

And they'll gather those records to corroborate. They're going to try to corroborate every single detail that the women or woman says happened. Because the more you can corroborate, which means back up with evidence, what she's saying, the more you can then say to a jury, therefore, you know she's telling the truth about everything, because so far everything she said, we can justify and back up with evidence. And, you know, they'll also look at any evidence that any victim has.

Does she have any text messages, emails, photos, et cetera? And the fact that they, and the Manhattan DA's office always investigates high-profile cases, and some of them you never learn about because nobody, there's no case. They investigate it and they decide there's no case and it goes away. And they usually keep those quiet because the stain of an investigation, that enough, just even saying that there's an allegation of sexual assault or sexual assault allegation can be enough to ruin a career or ruin someone's life. And so prosecutors at the DA's office are kind of trained to be very careful about that

and to not necessarily release it until you are about to bring a case or have brought a case. There are some exceptions, and one of them is, A, you believe the victim, you think it probably happened, you have enough corroboration, and you believe there might be other victims out there. And so you want to get the word out there that if there are other victims, we have an investigation, come forward. And that's exactly what they did. And that is done. done in cases where they believe. They, for some reason, and now we're seeing why, because of other allegations, they have reasons

to believe that there might be others, and that's why they're doing it. So they're just, they're doing their investigation, and they'll, you know, the other thing too, you know, I talk a lot about corroboration and sex crimes, but there is no requirement under the law that there be corroboration. The word of one individual is enough if the, if the, prosecutors find them credible to bring a case and even to convict a person beyond a reasonable doubt,

because after all, sexual assaults don't happen in public, right? By their very nature, they typically happen when two people are alone behind closed doors, and there's not always any evidence to corroborate it. But so they don't need corroboration, but they look for it because that's what you give to the jury to show, look, she's telling the truth, because we can verify every single thing she's saying, She hasn't lied about any of it or whatever it is, and therefore you should believe her. So that's what they'll be doing in this particular case. So I have no idea how strong or weak the cases.

I haven't even dug that much into the allegations, although they do seem serious. But I would just say stay tuned to see what happens. But that's what they'd be doing right now. Great. I think that's a great prism that all. audience should use to evaluate this case as it moves forward and I appreciate that and I appreciate our audience and uh last chance everybody webby awards vote for the intersection vote for legal aF if you do it and we turn out our audience um they will both win the webby awards for the best podcast it's like

it's like uh the Oscars for podcasts and nerds and it just gives the reason is to answer a question it's not ego. Karen and I have won more awards in our field than we care. I can shake a stick at. It's street credibility. It gives legal AF and the intersection, the ability to continue to bring on newsmakers and top interviewees and people that are in the trenches to address our audience. It's so much easier for me to get a get, to get a guest to join when they know it when they know legal a f they know the size of our audience the the fervent support of our audience and yeah we throw you know my booker all throw in there you know they just won the webby award it helps every little bit helps we're up against billionaires and

trillionaires and uh you know we're doing it on a shoestring i don't know popock i don't about you but i wouldn't mind getting a webby for you know it's just cool it's like getting an oscar right Just street crit. I think it would be cool. Do you know that I was once, I once was nominated for an Emmy? I did not win. Is this for law and order? No, this was for many years ago, like 100 years ago, when I worked for Mayor Mike Bloomberg, I worked with a group to create internet safety videos for kids. And we put them in every single backpack for every single middle school student in New York City. I mean, you know, this is back in the day where you had to have like CDs, right? And or DVDs, I guess it would have been DVDs. And we put them in every backpack. And we partnered with this amazing organization called Real Works. And it was student led and they created it and we did it together.

And we were nominated for an Emmy, which was actually quite cool. And I got to go to the regional Emmys, not the main Emmys, but it was very cool. What I said is that accepted on our audience's behalf. It doesn't change the needle in my personal life if I win the Webby, but I do, I do do it. I do do it as, I mean, I look, but the part I like about it, it's the people, the people's voice award, meaning the committee can also pick us. But the award that I really want to win is the one where our audience has a say. That would mean a lot. It would be more meaningful to me. Totally meaningful. Yeah, we'll turn down the other one, but it'd be completely meaningful.

And if we win, well, there'll be a thing in May. And Karen and I'll see each other. We'll make one of the brothers come out. Maybe salty, you'll come out. We'll have a grand old time and report back on it here on Legal AF and Midas Touch. And so that's one way. Become a member, a subscriber to the LegalAF YouTube channel 12 videos a day. We're going to connect, I think, substack better to YouTube so that you have one-stop shopping. If you're a substack member of Legal AF, I've just decided today, having seen what might

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Message and data rates may apply. Welcome back to Legal A.F. A couple of things that have developed as we have been on the air right before we went on the air. John Eastman, one of the architects of the election interference conduct of Donald Trump to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

he was the half-wit constitutional law professor that, according to one judge, Judge Carter in the Central District of California, helped Donald Trump commit a crime. He has been permanently disbarred, actually disbarred by the California Bar. Yes, yes. See, that's a warning to all of the lawyers that are enabling Donald Trump. I'm looking at you, Pam Bondi, Lindsay Halligan, Todd Bland. formerly Emil Bovi, Stan Woodward, and others. You put your law licenses at risk when you follow Donald Trump's lead into the heart of darkness. And bar associations are watching.

You know, channels like ours are watching too, but we are and we support it. But Eastman just lost his bar license. It's not the only one. Ken Chesboro lost his bar license. Rudy Giuliani lost his bar license. I haven't heard about Jeffrey Clark's bar license yet. Others got sanctioned. Jenna Ellis got her sanctioned.

You know, Sidney Powell would have lost her bar license, but Texas, the Texas bar rallied the troops around her and she kept her bar license. It's a warning, you know, being a lawyer is a privilege. Karen and I and everybody else that's on legal a F that's a lawyer, took an oath, renew that oath to support and defend the Constitution and that of the state in which we practice, and to abide by the rules of professional responsibility, including Trander, candor to the tribunal, not lying to courts, not lying to your opponent, not arguing in bad faith about,

in case, don't file cases of bad faith and don't make bad faith arguments. This is the heart of our, profession and it is a profession and i've been a proud member of it for over 35 years so good on the california bar for getting around five years later to disbarring john eastman so he can't hurt anybody else anymore he could be a consultant but he can't practice law that's for sure carroll what did you make of you know donald trump pardoned on the day of his arrival you know by the first night of of his administration. The jails were opened. It was like Ark in prison for Batman.

And out came 1600 plus insurrectionists. Some had their, some were given pardon, some had their sentences commuted, some were given clemency. And you had the oathkeepers of the proud boys who were convicted in court of the highest level of crime that was charged, seditious conspiracy, 20 years.

Many of them got eight years, nine years, 10 years, 12 years for their role. role in trying to burn down the Capitol and kill elected officials and their staff to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Now you have Janine Piro running into court kind of fresh off of what happened with Steve Badden with the United States Supreme Court, which is slightly different, to try to get these people out from under their convictions. Tell our audience what happened and what you as a former prosecutor. What is what do we make about? What do we make of this? What does this reflect in the values or lack thereof of the Trump administration?

So, yeah, so there's about 14 people who had their sentences commuted. I think two, one was pardoned, one was dismissed. So I think there's 12 remaining eight oathkeepers and four proud boys, including names that we've talked about many, many times on the show, right? Stuart Rhodes, Kelly Megs, and some of the other, really the worst or the worst, that from January 6th. And because of that, their sentences reflected that. And at the time when Trump pardoned over 1,000 people, 15,600 people,

it appeared that he only commuted the sentences of these most serious ones as opposed to pardoning them. Because commuting the sentence just means the conviction stands, but I'm reducing your sentence. Still pretty bad, right? That they're not going to serve their time, especially for the conduct that they did. However, excuse me, however, it's, they didn't have a pardon.

They still had felony convictions on the record. What the Department of Justice has done, which is really astounding here, because the president could pardon them, but instead, the DOJ is moving to dismiss the seditious conspiracy convictions against them. And if the judge approves the dismissal, which I believe the judge has to approve, It would completely erase off the books and off the record the most serious convictions from this entire sprawling January 6th investigation. It would complete the whole everybody's pardoned. And you have to wonder, why now, right?

Why is Trump doing this now? And it's unclear. I wonder whether it's, you know, in this case. is just something I've been thinking about. It's to clear the way so that they can sue the Department of Justice civilly and take more money, taxpayer dollars, and put it in the line the pockets of, you know, because obviously if they sue the DOJ for, you know, wrongful prosecution or whatever, it's up to Trump and his DOJ to settle the cases and pay them out.

And I don't know if this is just another way to pay his supporters. and to keep them his supporters or what. But otherwise, why else would they be doing this? Because, like I said, he could pardon them, and that would make it, it's harder to sue because it's just a pardon. It's not moving to dismiss a conviction. Why else would they be doing this this way?

And that's the only thing that I could come up with as a reason. It's not a bad theory. You know, I think they're doing cleanup now. You know, they did their pardons. I'm not sure he wants to do another round of pardons of these people. And they found another way to do it efficiently through Janine Piro, who's another person trying out for Attorney General, at least, using this sort of ban in methodology of going back to the courts

and then dismissing the indictments and reversing the conviction. You know, it's just another, if it walks like a duck, it's just another pardon effort. Maybe it does open the door, as you said, to these other ramifications or benefits that aren't present with the part. But that's all we're watching. We're watching Donald Trump enter into agreements and deals and consent decrees to bind the hands of the future Department of Justice, to pay money to people who were convicted or died because they were attacking the capital. you know, millions of dollars to Ashley Babitz family and Michael Flynn and everybody's lighting up

because, you know, the word is out that taxpayer dollars are being handed out by Donald Trump being fired out of a fire hose to pay back these people's attorney's fees. Donald Trump's got his own couple hundred million dollar lawsuit against the Department of Justice that hasn't been resolved or has it. There's speculation that maybe it's been resolved. There's a Freedom of Information Act request out about it to see if he's been paid off already. If not, why not? And what's happening with that Federal Tort Claim Act,

a federal tort claim act claim that he made against the government? He's seeking reimbursement from Fulton County, Georgia as well. It's just Donald Trump's efforts to try to scrub out the indelible stain of his being an insurrection. and a criminal from the history books by pointing to all I got my money back. I settled with my own Department of Justice and got my 250 million and it's like you know look the eyes of history and the voters are watching and Trump can do all sorts of things to try to rub out that spot but it's never going to come out the American voter is wise to him and as you said I would be this I would be shocked.

You know, we have six, seven months left, but if he pulls out any kind of less than a shalacking on midterm election day, I would be, I'd be shocked. And I'm not easily shocked at all. I mean, if this isn't a 250 seat majority for the House and not only regaining the Senate, but

I don't think they get 60 for the Democrats, But there's a lot of pissed off people in America, hundreds of millions of them that are ready to vote and the more you try to take away their right to vote and their ability to vote and the ease at which they can vote the more annoyed and pissed off they are and want to take it out on the tormentor in this case Donald Trump's Department of Justice Homeland Security and the rest and all these people that are trying to write their tickets while Donald Trump is still in office because he's he's promised them a pardon. doesn't mean your bar license isn't at risk. Doesn't mean your obituary won't be written a certain way. But everybody's trying to graft and grift off of Donald Trump right now while he still has the juice. Get that part in their back pocket. Get that attorney general position.

Get that Supreme Court position. You know, if you're in his family, go get that money from the Arab world while you're supposed to be the special envoy for Iran like Jared Kushner or the son-in-law. Line your pockets with billions and billions. millions and billions of dollars while you can folks going out of business it's almost like a going out of business sell Trump knows he's a short timer he's a short-termer he's got a short horizon and so he's trying to do maximum damage you know and and benefit as many people that

support him as possible with pardons and money and contracts and grift as possible you know you wrote me a note a week or so ago about i don't know it was 30 million dollars an hour the cost of running the iranian war you know there's a new one out today that it's 30 million dollars an hour into the pockets of the oil industry every day the iranian war continues because of the rise in oil prices an hour to the oil company that has donald trump in their back pocket and uh this is what the American people who have a pent-up demand to vote are just waiting to get in. Polling is great. Nasty letters are amazing.

I love videos, but nothing replaces voting and the results of voting. And now is the time. So if we don't like what just happened with the oathkeepers and the proud boys, then burn that indelibly into the front lobe of your brain. And these are the reasons when you're polled next time and you're polling, what do you think about the Democrats? 65% people said, not our audience, but 65% of the people polled said, I don't like them either. If you want to know what the difference is going to be when the Democrats take over, think about

what just happened or what's about to happen with the oathkeepers and the proud boys. Are you okay with that? Does that sit right with you? Then vote for the Democrats. If you don't like what's happening with the economy, if you don't like what's happening with the conduct of the Iran War or Venezuela or the grift or the billions of dollars that Donald Trump and his family have made, or the destruction of our economy, or of the social safety net, or of health care, then it's binary.

You vote for the other party, up and down from the top to the bottom. You know, someone said once, and I thought this was a great way to look at it, is when you're picking a president or a senator or you're voting, don't look at it like a marriage. Don't look at it. You don't have to love the person. You don't really even have to like them that much. Look at it more like public transportation, okay? You're looking for the train that gets you closest to your destination,

closest to the time that you want to get there, right? So you're just trying to kind of get close, and that's what you want to do. And so that's what I think how you look at it. And I think when you look at Donald Trump and his administration and all of the things that he does. Some of them are crazy. Some of them are dangerous. Some of them are vile.

And some of them are just incompetent. I can't imagine anyone who could say, this is the world that I want to be closest. This is the stop I want to be closest to. And look, there's a lot of politicians. There's a lot of people who say, well, I don't like this person. They're political.

They're a politician, you know, whatever. And I understand that. I think it takes a lot to run for office. I actually thought about it once and decided not to because I don't think it would be right for me. And part of it is because of what you go through and what it's like. And so I think it takes a certain kind of person to withstand the running for office thing. And again, look at their moral character, I think, number one, and their integrity and their honesty. And then look for the train that gets you closest to your station at the closest time that you can find. And that's who you vote for. Perfectly put. Great way to end another edition of Legal A.F.

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