Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF - 4/25/2026

Episode Date: April 26, 2026

The award-winning Legal AF pod is back with founders Ben and Popok at the helm, and covering in real time, breaking legal and political news  from the Virginia Supreme Court, DC, Miami, Iran, and Texas.  Support our Sponsors: Hims: Thanks to HIMS! Start your free online visit today at https://hims.com/legalaf for your personalized ED treatment options. Shopify: Sign up for a one-dollar per month trial at https://shopify.com/legalaf Boxie: For a limited time, get 30% off your order when you head to https://Boxiecat.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF Trust and Will: Get 20% off plus free shipping of your estate plan documents by visiting https://trustandwill.com/legalaf 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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helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season. Plans start at just $12 a month. Learn more at talus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and stretch. Steep. Sleep. Or that. And enjoy. Via rail. Love. the way. This is Legal A.F. And we've got a lot to discuss the theme of this episode. Things backfiring in Donald Trump's face. The best laid plans when it comes to Trump are actually the worst laid plans. And as we've predicted on Legal A.F, they're all crumbling. And as they crumble, Donald Trump is in the rubble. Let's talk about Laura Lumer bringing a lawsuit against Bill Maher for defamation. It's kind of a theme.

these very kind of soft-skinned maga people bringing defamation lawsuits. And Donald Trump wasn't technically a party in the lawsuit, but when this lawsuit backfired, Donald Trump became implicated in the lawsuit and the federal judge made a lot of commentary about Donald Trump's dark past and why Bill Maher may have believed or not believed certain things in the event that what he was saying wasn't kind of comedy and parody. And so we'll get into that on this episode. episode, also the cover-up of the child sex trafficking ring by the Trump DOJ, the cover up of the Epstein files backfiring in the Trump regime's face after Pam Bondi ditched her deposition, even though she was subpoenaed. And now we learn that the Trump regime is working

with Republicans on the Hill to try to pardon Delane Maxwell and to shut down congressional hearings and instead replace them with roundtables. It's just bringing more attention back to the cover-up. We'll get into that. Talk about backfiring Donald Trump's collusive lawsuit, and I used the term collusive because that's a term that a federal judge used, where he sued essentially the taxpayers. Trump sued the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion, claiming that a data breach that occurred in 2019 or 2020 from a contractor of the IRS caused Donald Trump such grievous emotional distress and so much. much harm that taxpayers should now settle with Donald Trump when he sues the United States government.

He filed the lawsuit back in January of 2026, and we should pay him $10 billion. Now, the Trump regime in this lawsuit that was filed by Donald Trump, they did a filing on behalf of Trump that said, we are now in settlement discussions, Judge, can you grant a 90-day extension so that the defendants, the government, the Treasury Department and the IRS, can, work with us on negotiations and that they don't have to actually file a motion to dismiss or do what litigants are supposed to do in the case and the federal judge is like, if you're asking me as a federal judge to rubber stamp fraud and to rubber stamp what may be a collusive, perhaps even criminal arrangement, I ain't going to do it unless you explain to me what the hell this lawsuit is

about. I am going to sue a sponte, meaning on my own initiative, force you to come into court or someone to come onto court on your behalf and explain what the hell this lawsuit is really about. Also, on the theme of backfiring, the judge quoted Donald Trump aboard Air Force One and in an interview that Trump gave with NBC, where Trump's like, I guess I already won the lawsuit. Yeah, it's like a lawsuit against myself. I'm structuring the deal on both sides of it. And the judge said, that sounds like a collusive deal to me. No case in controversy. I don't have jurisdiction.

We'll break it down on legal A.F. And again, talk about backfiring to other issues of massive backfiring. As Donald Trump and the Magna Republicans tried to do this mid-decade redistricting, Democrats prevailing in Virginia on the yes referendum there, changing the congressional delegation from a 6-5 in favor of Democrats to a 10-to-1 Democratic Congress members versus Republicans picking up potentially four seats. Now, MAGA Republicans filed the lawsuit. They can blame this.

How dare you do mid-decade redistricting? This is unfair. Y'all started it, and the Democrats are the ones who want to ban political gerrymandering, and you're the ones who support political gerrymandering, MAGA Republicans. Anyway, they picked a Trumpy judge who temporarily ruled in their favor, but this is going to the United States. going to the Virginia Supreme Court this week. We'll break down what we expect the Virginia's Supreme Court to do there. And then Cash Patel filed a defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic

and talk about backfiring because what ended up surfacing this week is Cash Patel as a lawyer had to make certain disclosures to the state bar association when he was becoming a lawyer about new guest at alcohol and he had to explain why there were certain alcohol incidents in his past for his moral character application. Backfire, backfire, backfire. You know who's not backfiring? Michael Popat, who is here? He's not backfiring.

He's here on legal AF in the flesh. Michael Popak, the people have missed you. We've got a lot to discuss. Bang, bang. Yeah, I mean, it's a great way to tie it all together, the golden thread that ties together. All of our segments today, it's just a whole lot of losing by Donald Trump,

who the American people in poll after poll, including on Fox News, sees as a loser. Nothing drives Donald Trump crazier that when he is associated with losing, and that's all he's doing now. He is the most undisciplined president we've ever had. His administration is the most undisciplined administration we've ever had, and we get leak after leak. Thank God for leakiness. It gives legal AFN might as touch a lot of content because we hear about this,

and I will talk about it here, the secret meeting that wasn't. and so secret at the Waldorf Astoria and the District of Columbia as political operatives for Donald Trump all got together and they spent the first few minutes being chastised about leaking, about how poorly they are expecting to do. This is the headline. This is the top line. The Republicans expect to lose at the midterms and lose big, including Donald Trump, and it is driving them up the wall.

It's of their own making. they have no one to blame but themselves. The American people watch the failings and flailings of Trump related to Iran. Who fires, by the way, the Secretary of the Navy during a major naval blockade mission in Iran to try to fix the Strait of Harmuse and energy prices? Who does that, Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump? Or at least Pete Hegseth by reading Donald Trump's patting the guy on the back on the way out, Secretary Phelan, you think that he was news to Trump, that the naval secretary got fired.

Then you've got the polling, right, that you and I have covered. Fox News polling showing that, you know, he's lost the support of Republicans about his handling of the economy where the support has been cut in half since last summer. While all of that is going on, the entire Iran backfire, how many times a U and I? I have to lead off a hot take with Donald Trump declared victory prematurely again this hour. Then he's so undisciplined that even when he holds a press conference, where all he needed to do is talk about lowering drug prices. That's something that goes to affordability.

May answer some of the questions people have. If he just made the press conference about lowering drug prices, I guess that would be the story. Instead, the story was about how he wandered off and talked about, replacing the pavers out in front of the Oval Office, painting the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial using one of his pool contractors. I'm like, is he going to start talking about building a barbecue this summer? Because I'm about to leave.

And the American people are watching this going, this guy is incompetent. He's losing. All the tariffs now are being repaid because they have to be repaid. And in addition to all this backfiring that you talked about. and the fact that their attempt to redistrict their way to victory backfire because the Democrats picked up the cause and are redistricting congressional seats better than they are. I don't know quite what's going to happen.

We have a clip. I had an interview with the Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen on Monday morning at the Virginia Supreme Court, but I'm feeling pretty good about that map and that advantage. And then we're going to have to watch as Donald Trump pushes his way through to try to I get, oh, Florida, last minute, redo your map. Oh, Louisiana, last map, hurry up. We got August primaries.

We got to redo maps. And so all of his efforts to try to win by stealing, you know, owning what he, you know, stealing what he could never own, as that great song says, is on full display. And then you see it in the courts. Loss after loss after loss in cases involving Trump or those around him about defamation. or one of the, I mean, this is one of the dumbest groups of people I've ever seen in action. To be honest, I mean, I've followed the list for a long time. For Cash Patel to try to litigate his way out of being accused of being a public drunk, knowing or having, he should have known that he made disclosures like you said for the Florida bar, as I did,

and that he now is opened the door for freedom of information. Act request for the Senate, for the House Democratic leadership to demand a written alcoholism test to be taken and for him to appear. He's going to be back in front of that committee, one of those committees very, very soon, now under oath about this stupid lawsuit, which is just shows you the people around Donald Trump magically believe that they have the same immunity from criminal prosecution or or loss of law licenses or whatever that Donald Trump does. And they do not.

And we're watching it over and over again. And the electorate, as you know, Ben, better than anybody, is fed up. They're ready to vote. And just I'll leave it on this. In 30 major races involving the House that would turn the tide and give control of the house to one party or the other, let's call them the battleground seats. The Democrats are up in those 30 seats by six points on average. Okay, that's a shalacking.

So House, they already see the House is gone. And now the Senate, which you and I were like, oh, wouldn't that be amazing if the Senate was in play? The Senate is in play. The four seats the Democrats need, I think we got them. I mean, if we vote. You know, Alaska, Maine, Texas, Ohio, you know, North Carolina, with the Roy Cooper, the governor.

If we get to 51, now we're talking about healing our great country again, return to oversight and control out of a rogue presidency. And Trump knows it. One of the things I teach my law students and undergrad students when I'm not doing Midas touchwork and I'm a professor is a good lawyer thinks through not just the first level of consequences to the actions that you do in a litigation, but you need to think through kind of the fifth to even the tenth, tier consequences and kind of gameplay it.

Okay, if I do this, they do this, then I do this, then they do this. And then take various scenarios to understand what the actual consequences are other than just reacting. Sometimes you may feel emotional or you get angry and you want to just lash out. But ultimately, that could have certain tears of consequences that are actually very harmful to you. So like even if you take Cash Patel, for example, and let's just assume Argoendo for the sake of argument that he was actually defamed. And don't even use the Atlantic story. Just defamed in the most vicious way imaginable and he was slandered and libeled and it was the worst, right? You're the FBI director. You run the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world.

You want to distract your time based on what some media company says about you from being in this most important position where you're now going to have to do a trial, sit for depositions, get requests for production of documents, get interrogatories asked your way. Even if, you know, you could win the case, you should view your situation. as kind of being in a position where you've won in life in a way. I mean, you've obtained an incredible position where you should be doing this because you're a public servant and you want to help people because you've reached a area in your career where you can say, you know what, I'm going to devote my time to be a part of this incredible American history, this tapestry that is American. I'm not suggesting that, you know, the FBI is always very.

great or is great a lot of them. I mean, there's criticisms that we should, of course, level that way and law enforcement and just generally. But my point is, is even if you knew you would win, why would that even be a thing that you would want to pursue and waste your time with your valuable and precious time? So there are obviously deeper consequences in a case like this that now opens up discovery, which we'll talk about. But I think it's important that we talk about just that concept. It's like, okay, we understand that the United States can invade Venezuela and take it over. Yes, we have a powerful military, the most powerful in the world. Biden, you don't think Biden could have taken over Venezuela or George W. Bush or Obama or anyone could

take over Venezuela? The issue is, what are the layers and the other tiers of consequences if you do that? Are you now sending a message to China? Everything's fair game. If you take Venezuela, we take Taiwan. Do you send a message to Russia? Okay, well, then if you do that, how is that different than us going after our neighbors? You send that message that it is now the law of the strong and that international laws, you know, don't apply. And you think about the layers of consequences. As Donald Trump says, nobody knew that Iran would shut down the strait of Hormuz or would attack the Arab nation neighbors with the American military basis.

There was an NBC report this morning also showing that the damage to American military bases, at least 11 bases, are far more extensive than the Trump regime ever let on. But that shouldn't surprise you. What are the layers of consequences when you consistently make contradictory statements during negotiations with Iran? And you say one thing one day, another thing the other day. And then you use negotiations as a tool to try to humiliate the Iranian people during negotiations where you're not in a war posture and then they don't want to negotiate with you. And then you again lie and claim there are negotiations taking place.

And every Friday, you do market manipulation Friday. You lie about the meetings that are going to take place where Iran doesn't even want to meet with you because even meeting with the United States is gross and is and they will and the U.S. will fabricate. That's the way we used to think about countries like Iran, that if we can't meet because we lend credibility to regimes that we believe didn't have credibility. Now, other countries view that we can't meet with you because even meeting with your people will be used for fabrications and lies. And that's where we are right now. So with that said, in that context, why don't we start Popak a

little bit before the break talking about Lumer? And then we're going to talk about these other situations where there's been a massive backfire because Lumer sues Bill Mar, over. were Bill Maher making a joke, although Loomer says it wasn't a joke, about a, about Loomer having a relationship with Trump. Loomer says there is no relationship with Trump. This was the time period during the campaign where Loomer was always by Donald Trump's side and there was lots of speculation. So Bill Maher on his comedy show made a joke. Loomer said, you defame me. She filed the lawsuit against him and Popak. What happens? Yeah, that one was fascinating. And you have to put it in context. That's what the judge says. This is Judge Moody, who side note, he was a George Bush

appointed judge. He's senior status. His daughter, Ashley Moody, is the junior senator from Florida on the Republican Magaside, appointed by Ron DeSantis and is running for election against Alexander Vitman come the midterms. But Daddy has a job to do, and he's a federal judge. and he took a look at the context in which this rhetorical joke, not to say defamation, there's a joke privilege, but, you know, there is a joke privilege. And if something is just a rhetorical flourish or a joke in the context of a comedian up on a stage during effectively a comedy show talking and suggesting something, no one in their right mind or a reasonable person, would take that to mean that it is a statement of true fact. The joke, which during that moment in time when he made the joke during his stand-up, during his monologue, every media organization, including Midas Touch,

was speculating about what is going on with the relationship with Laura Lumer and Donald Trump. In fact, Jordy ran, I did it with a hot take. Jordi, from Midas, ran a whole video of many of the same things the judge referred to in his decision when, you know, the I love you, I love you, I love you, between Lumer and Donald Trump on stage, the handholding during a cold moment, the come to my private suite, you know, all the shoutouts between the two of them. And it looked to be more than just, you know, a right-wing social media influencer and a president. And, you know, there were even speculation in the press at the time about,

about where is Melania on the campaign trail? Why is Donald Trump going to all of these events with Laura Lumer? And Laura Lumer, for those that aren't following, is a right-wing, avowed Christian nationalist. She supports white Christian ideals. She has said really bad things about black and brown people that she's had to apologize for.

She has been a 9-11 denier, yet Donald Trump took her to a 9-11 memorial in New York. So there's a lot of speculation, like, why isn't Melania on the campaign trail? And why is this 32-year-old Laura Lumer on the campaign trail? Leading to his joke about who Donald Trump is effing. I mean, you know, that's where the joke went.

And so we think we know it's Laura Lumer. That was a joke. Okay. Lumer sues in the court in Florida for defamation. and the judge, this was like boom, boom, boom. It was like two days apart. One judge dismisses Cash Patel's defamation case against Frank Fuglitsi, who worked in the FBI, who suggested that Patel spent more time partying in nightclubs

and he spent on the seventh floor of the Hoover building doing his job. Defamation case. Okay, that got dismissed that same week by a judge in Houston, Texas, a federal judge in Houston, Texas. Then you had Lumer. Lumer's case gets dismissed because it's a joke, literally, is kind of how the judge came down on it and said, even if it wasn't a joke, even if it was capable of being defamatory,

you didn't prove actual malice. This always trips up everybody from Donald Trump to the rest. That's a term of art in defamation that says you have to say something that is, even if it's false, you have to know that it's false when you said it, or recklessly disregard whether it's true or false. He said she didn't even make any showing of actual malice, plus she didn't show any damage. In fact, her income went up, not down in 2024.

And he said, you didn't give me one witness, one person that said they believed that you were sleeping with Donald Trump as a result of the joke. Now, in order, this is the backfire component. He wrote 18 pages outlining questions about the marriage between Melania and Donald Trump, repeating the same speculation that the press made about whether Donald Trump is sleeping with Laura Lumer, pointing out the age difference, the handholding, the I love you, the I love you, all writ large in the judge's 18 pages. He could have done it in a

paragraph, but no, he went through the evidence, including sworn deposition testimony, to your earlier point that had to be given by Laura Lumer as the plaintiff, sit down under oath, you're not on a podcast anymore. Swear in the witness. Same thing for, of course, Bill Moore. Bill Maher's defense, as quoted by the judge was, it was a joke. Literally, he says, I could have said, get a room with, you know, with all of the clips, but, you know, we went a different direction because we were always speculating about who Donald Trump was zooming these days. And that was it. Case is dismissed. But it is again a blue. for how federal judges are handling the attempts by Donald Trump and those around him to use defamation

law to have a chilling impact on adversaries and or the media and or the press. Perfect set of cases to talk about, as we did with the Cash Patel case earlier, on the day of the hour of the White House correspondence dinner, which Donald Trump apparently is going to use to bash the press. Now, the free press, the independent press. Those that don't bend the knee are not in the room. Okay? Midas is not there. Legal A.F. is not there for a reason.

The only ones that are left in the room are the corporate media that wouldn't dare challenge the Federal Communications Commission's and being controlled by Donald Trump, who still need transactions to be approved in the future, or Donald Trump's personal coterie or inner circle, the Ellison family that now owns, get this, CBS and CNN, as of a couple of days ago. So, of course, they're in there hosting tables with fat cats in Donald Trump. They got rid of the comedian, you know, who normally roast the president because we have such a thin-skinned snowflake of a president.

He can't take any criticism, let alone a roast. So that's gone. So now it's going to be Donald Trump roasting, I guess, us. I mean, you and I get roasted all the time. Every time there's a slow news day on Fox News, it's like another legal AF or Midas Clip got used today and the like. But what we're talking about here is federal courts being the insulator, being the firewall to stop Donald Trump from using defamation law against his adversaries

and those around him doing the same thing and supporting the First Amendment and freedom of the press. every time, this is how it works, this is the playbook so we can follow it home. Donald Trump gets annoyed or pissed off about a Wall Street Journal editorial or a New York Times expose or fill in the blank. Somebody said something to hurt his feelings. He then hires a lawyer in my hometown here at Coral Gables, Florida named Alejandro Brito, who types up, polishes off all the other ones he's done, types up some sort of lawsuit, including the Internal Revenue Service lawsuit.

about next and files it puts doesn't have to put just as practicing lawyers let me just tell our audience you don't have to put the amount of money you're seeking i almost only occasionally when i wanted the headline generally you just have to get over the jurisdictional amount of 75 000 in federal court but everything is five million 10 billion 20 billion 250 million so that the press will run with it you know they know it's catnip for the press to go run on that so they file that and then when the case gets it's dismissed or usually dismissed, either on summary judgment or earlier on motion to dismiss, then they blame the judge and that's it. They go home. They got what they wanted for that particular moment. But it is, it is the takeaway, I think for our audience is that Trump's toolbag of using

the First Amendment, using defamation law to go against his adversaries, his rivals, his perceived enemies is not working and we have federal judges to thank for that. Absolutely. And Popak, every time I had the client usually push, can you put a number value in the complaint? You know, and if I've done it, the few times I have, I've always regretted it, you know, and then I stopped doing it because, yes, you get a good day press cycle, but the federal judges hate it because they know it's intended for the press and the judges hated in general. And then if you don't meet that number, your client believes that that's always going to be the number. Oh, you said in the complaint that it was $100 million or it was $50 million or it was $25 million. So even where

the clients have wanted that and you've walked through with the client and you think that there's a strategic advantage, I've always found in the long run it's actually a mistake and a trap to actually do that. Now, we have a lot to discuss on this episode. The theme is cases backfiring on Trump's face, and you'll see many more instances of that. A quick reminder, though, if you or anybody you know has been injured in a car accident,

a trucking accident, if you've been injured based on the negligence of a third party or a company, if you know somebody who's been killed in an accident and their family may be looking for a lawyer, reach out to the Popak firm, call or text 877 Popok AF or visit the Popok firm.com. They've got lawyers across the country who are available 24-7. The consultation is free.

The Popok firm is representing a lot of listeners and viewers of LegalAF. So don't be shy. Reach out to the Pop firm now. And again, you can look in the description below for those numbers and the website once again. Also, make sure you subscribe to the LegalAF YouTube channel and the LegalAF substack. Both are doing great. We need to keep on growing the LegalAF platform and Legal. A.F, the winner of three major Webby Awards. Congratulations, the LegalAF for winning those three

major Webby Awards. Let's take our first quick break of the show. And by the way, you all made that possible. There were People's Choice Awards, meaning you all pushed it over the edge in a very competitive category. So thank you for that. Let's take our first quick break of the show. My cat, Chanel, she runs the house. I just pay the mortgage and scoop litter. So when I found something that fixes that worst part of having a cat, I paid attention. This podcast, is sponsored by Boxy. Boxy is the last cat litter you'll switch to. And their Boxy Pro deep clean, it's the best cat litter money can buy. The Pro in Boxy Pro stands for probiotics, which Boxy puts right in the litter that gobble up odor-causing bacteria and keeps the box continuously odor-free.

Yes, continuously, not for 10 days or 20 days, infinite days of continual odor-freeness. And your cat won't smell anything either, as in no fake sense, which gives him or her one less reason to avoid the box. I've used Boxy Pro Deep Clean recently, and I can actually vouch that this works, or place smells better. Scooping is easier, and Chanel took to it right away. Plus, with Boxy, you do not need to do full litter changes. You just scoop, top it off with fresh boxy litter, and that's it. If you're tired of switching litters, looking for the one, get 30% off your Boxy order at Boxy Cat dot com spack slash legal a f and use code legal a f that's b o x i c a dot com slash legal a f and make sure you use my code legal a f so they know i sent you let's talk about something no one wants to talk about

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and beyond with Trust and Will, the most trusted name in online estate planning. Go to trust and will.com slash legal a.f and get 20% off. That's trust and will.com slash legal a.f to get your 20% off. Trust and will.com slash legal a.f. Welcome back to LegalAF. Thank you to all of our sponsors. You see, Popak, when it comes to the best laid plans, they usually have to be plans when it comes to Donald Trump, it's usually like the best laid dumps, like he just spews something out in the moment he thinks it's a good idea. It comes from the malignant narcissism and the anger and

the rage and the retribution and let's just do it. We'll figure it out later. And what he has been able to do is bend reality to this fictitious dystopian world that he's created. But where that really has hit the wall is in courts always because it has standards. That's why I like the law, the elegance of it, right? It has rules of evidence, right? It creates a system of structure where you can't just have a firehose of lies and disinformation. And it's why Trump hates the judiciary so much because when judges do their job,

Donald Trump can't get away with it outside of it where he can abuse and use the media and he can spread the propaganda, and he can just relentlessly attack and harass people to try to break them, you know, that doesn't work in a courtroom, especially where there's a litigant on the other side who stands up to you. So what happens, though, when you don't have a litigant on the other side that stands up to you? That's kind of the iteration of Trump's fascism and authoritarianism and the little baby that he is, that he doesn't want. there to be an adversary on the other side. In his view, well, now that I am this authoritarian dictator, now I could finally win lawsuits because he's always a loser and loses him. If I basically just sue the government, then I'll have the taxpayers pay me whatever money that I want, and I'll have

federal judges just basically rubber stamp it so I could finally say that I won lawsuits. I mean, it's right out of like the cartoonish villains that I grew up with, I've got a plan. And now I'm going to sue my own government and I'm going to make them pay and the taxpayers are going to pay for it. You know, it's that level of like idiocracy, but it's real and it's happening. And so he sued the Treasury Department and the IRS in late January for $10 billion. He alleges that he was part of an IRS data breach that affected about 7,000 plus other high net worth people. You may recall at that time period, there was a lot of big stories in ProPublica and elsewhere about how really rich people don't pay taxes.

Well, they got that information from this data breach that this IRS contractor with the last name, Little John, he worked in the IRS. And apparently he's been sentenced, I think, in 20, 24 to four or five years in prison. But like, he went to become a contractor at the IRS. And specifically, I think, with the purpose of like finding Trump's tax returns and other rich people's tax returns in order to, to expose rich people not paying taxes. That became an issue at a sentencing. So about 7,600, 10,000 other people, somewhere between that number were impacted by this data breach.

They did ensue, and remind you, this took place in 2019 to 2020, who was in office then. Yeah, Donald Trump, Trump's IRS. The data breach was under Trump's 2019, 2020 IRS. So 2026, likely far outside the statute of limitations, I'm my ad, Donald Trump files a lawsuit, lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury Department. IRS is inside the Treasury Department.

Treasury Department is led by Scott Bessent, you know, arrogant Scott Bessent. He's like, I don't believe that the Russians have made money when we remove sanctions. Not, not at all. That's not what happened. I mean, clearly they did. But, you know, he's a Trump bootlicker, Trump sycophon. And so Donald Trump's idea is, let me do this case against Bessent. Bessent will pay me $10 billion, the taxpayer money.

It's our money. And then Trump's like, yeah, I don't know what I'll do with it. I'll decide maybe I'll give it to charity, in which case he's probably thinking in his own mind. He's going to use it as a $10 billion deduction against all of the other shady income that he's been getting through these quid pro quo, you know, quid pro quo deals. So he files the lawsuit. In a lawsuit, what normally happens is you file a lawsuit and it's an adversarial process. The other side then goes, oh, man, I've been sued. That makes me angry.

I don't want to be sued. and then they fight back, right? That's a case and controversy. Under Article 3 of the Constitution, there needs to be real cases. You can't just have me and Popok basically say, hey, Bobak, hey, Ben. You want to see if the court thinks that we should take, you know, if you should pay for Disney on ice when we take our daughters together. Yeah, let's see if the court doesn't.

Hey, Judge, me and Popak are best friends. Who should fit the bill? You know, that's not what courts do. I mean, I'm giving an exaggerated example. courts deal with real-life controversies, not like things like that. And otherwise, there's no jurisdiction to have the case. And so the Treasury Department and IRS, they don't respond to the lawsuit, as you would expect a litigant instead.

The plaintiff, Donald Trump, says, I'm in productive discussions with the defendant. And we're thinking about settling the case. So can we have 90 days, Judge, so that they don't have to actually respond to the lawsuit and we can work out a settlement? and they're not going to object to the request for 90 days. Popak, take the story away from there of what happens in this. Happy to. And I know some of the players.

I know Kathleen Williams well, a very respected judge down where I practice, the Southern District of Florida. We have a lot in common. She went to Duke. Our birthdays are two days apart. And she had an illustrious career as the federal public defender. in Miami and also in Orlando for a number of years and has tussled with the Trump

administration and MAGA before. She's the judge that ruled against Alligator Alcatraz, finding that building a detention center in the middle of the Florida Everglades, a protected site, was a violation of environmental law. She's taken on, she's taken on DeSantis and his attorney general, upmeyer finding him in contempt because they tried to pass a law that she found invalid making illegal migrants having that violate Florida law not federal law so she's no stranger to the Trump administration she is a firebrand she is independent and if but this is this is where and I checked the civil cover sheet this is where Trump wanted the case he wanted the case

not in the West Palm Beach division to put it near Judge Cannon, just a little tutorial for those that are tuning in. The Southern District of Florida runs from Fort Pierce through Key West. There stops along the way with different courthouses, Fort Pierce, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Key West. And the U.S. Attorney and the Public Defender cover that entire stretch all up and down the coast. If you practice down here, you got to go, like 70 miles in one direction and 70 miles in the other direction to cover the whole Southern District.

And the federal judges are in those different courthouses. Williams happens to be in Miami, which is the largest of all of those courthouses. And so when you're a civil litigate, and this got filed January 29, 2026 as Trump and his kids, because I think Eric Trump and some Trump organization people were in their entity. were in there as well versus the internal revenue service that he owns and controls through his Treasury Secretary. And it was a complaint. It went on forever. And this is one of the things that calls me. For a president, no president history has violated the Privacy Act against the American people more than Donald Trump. And yet this snowflake is suing for his own violation of the Privacy Act because he didn't like the fact that his tax returns that he should have, by tradition, released to the American people in 2016 and in 2020 to let them evaluate who they were electing.

He always said, well, I'm under audit, so I can't release the returns. There's no, that's not a thing. He just made that up. And so when this Chas Littlejohn leaked it to ProPublica in New York Times, New York Times, for instance, ran, I think it was a Pulitzer Prize-winning report, having received the leaked information, detailing how Trump, and even going back to his father, you know, have effectively never paid income tax on billions of dollars of income.

I mean, very little, thousands of dollars, you know, of income tax. But anything that happened with that Privacy Act violation, if that was a Privacy Act violation, was already sort of mitigated by the fact that the House Oversight Committee, a year or two later, got his tax return. and release them to the American public. How many hot takes and videos did you and I do about the tax returns? So that's out there already.

This is like Donald Trump suing over the Epstein birthday book. Oh, the Wall Street Journal ran an article and said that I'm on page 253 of volume 2 of the leather-bound birthday book for Jeffrey Epstein. All right, great. Who doesn't have a copy of the birthday book at this point? Might as put it up on your substack. I put it up on Legal A-F substack. All things out there because the Jews.

Judiciary Committee released it. So this already has the look of being, what are your damages? But we knew that didn't matter. But in order for Donald Trump to have a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act against the government, he had to show that he has a real case and controversy, right? And that there's an exchange of consideration.

In the law, if I see... say to you, you've harmed me. I am going to sue you, and this is my legitimate case, unless you settle with me now or after I file the case. Okay, if you and I enter into a settlement agreement and we exchange consideration, I won't sue you, or I'll withdraw my suit in return for a pile of cash. Okay, that is an exchange of consideration that the law recognizes. If I say to you, I don't have anything of value. I just want you to give me money. That's a robbery.

That's a robbery. For Donald Trump to go knock on the door of the IRS and say, hi, Donald Trump, President, please, $10 billion, please. That's not in settlement of a case, if there's no case and no real controversy. That is a theft. That is embezzlement in plain sight.

So Donald Trump, to try to cover up for that, decided to manufacture a lawsuit that he filed in January 26, which he alleged a privacy violation. At best, this is a rogue employee that did not have the permission of the IRS to do it. It would be very hard for him to hold the IRS responsible for it. Maybe he could, ultimately, if he can even sue his own government. So that's where Judge Williams said, I was waiting for the parties to file some sort of opposition papers to each other,

but I haven't. Now, why did the IRS not file an answer a motion to dismiss? And the only piece of paper that's gotten filed effectively since January 2026 is the complaint. Why is a motion to extend time to let the parties have a discussion about settlement? Why? Well, there is reporting, including with the New York Times, that there is a struggle going on in the Department of Justice, even the one controlled by Donald Trump about how do we get out from under this ethical conflict of being on the other side of Donald Trump while still president about this dispute? How do we put any Department of Justice lawyer in there at all? So while that struggle was going on, and again, another leak from this very undisciplined administration, the fact that you and I can talk about that kind of reporting,

while that was going on, they came up with the wallpaper idea, let's just ask for more time, which the judge, who obviously reads the New York Times and has her own thought process, said, wait a minute, wait a minute. You got to have adversary parties on either side of the V, right? And I'm not, fundamentally, a bedrock principle, she wrote, of a live case or controversy to give me Article III under the Constitution's power jurisdiction.

is there's got to be adversariness. That's what it sounds like. Gotta have adversaries. Like you said, it can't just be you and me eating, sharing a popcorn later today at Disney on Ice. That sounds fun, by the way. That's not going to do it. It's got to be, F you, you stole my seat,

and then something happens, and then we have adversarial relationship. Without adversariness, there is no jurisdiction for a federal court. There's no lawsuit. And if there's no lawsuit, then there's no consideration for an exchange related to the settlement.

And if there's no exchange of consideration, then Donald Trump is just stealing billions of dollars from the Treasury, which would lead to public interest groups and others withstanding going back to federal court to stop him from raiding the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service. And this all gets set up with a four-page ruling or a order by Judge Williams, which we posted up on Legal A.F. Substack that says, huh, you know what, I want, I want the parties in May to brief this issue. And I also thought she trolled a Ben, the Trump

administration, a little bit, because she said that by May 20th, the parties shall each file a memorandum of law each. I don't want to see one, right? Unless you want to just concede, there's no adversariness. Better be two briefs about why you think the president of the United States can sue his own agency while he's president. Because there's been discussions, according to the leaks, that maybe we should just wait until 2029 when he's not president any longer. But in 2029, it's a whole different Department of Justice and government. The other fundamental question is, even if she finds somehow adversariness, Does she take the Department of Justice and the lawyers for the government out and appoint an independent counsel? There's something you never associate with this administration, an independent lawyer that doesn't work for Donald Trump

and have that person be kind of on the adversarial side to guide the judge as an officer of the court. If she doesn't like Ben the way those memos look for the IRS, she's called their bluff, She has the power, as has happened before with this administration, to appoint an independent counsel to give her advice on this. And where all this stems from is you and I covered it, but now it's starting to rear its ugly head, is an executive order that Donald Trump issued back at the beginning of the administration when Pam Bondi was still the Attorney General

that directed everybody in the government, including the Department of Justice, had to follow the interpretation of law set by the president, period. That was the capture of the Department of Justice and destroyed its independence because the law is whatever Trump says it is. But how do you do that? There goes adversary this about interpretation, because they got to follow the law,

the guy that they're allegedly having, they're in this fictitious lawsuit with. This is fascinating. I want to see as you do what happens on May 20th, what happens with an oral argument on May 27th. If I'm in town, I may try to pop in and see it for myself. But this is the unraveling, right? This is like she pulled a thread,

and this could be a major unraveling of his attempts to steal billions of taxpayer dollars from the US Treasury. Yeah, and the judge doesn't want to be implicated. It's what we've talked about before is, in many ways, whether it's the cover-up of the child sex trafficking ring in the Epstein files, this or the other, Trump wants to almost implicate the judges in his schemes to give it the stamp of approval. And here we see a judge saying, uh-uh, not today. It's not going to happen. So I think the judge ultimately does, you know, one or two things.

And maybe the judge even presents it as an option, which is the case needs to be dismissed right now for lack of adversity or lack of of adverseness and it could be refiled in the future if there is that and maybe there could be some sort of tolling agreement or arrangement that you can bring it later or I think the court basically says look the court can stay on the docket but I'm going to stay the case until there is actual adversity when there's a new when there's a new administration and power and then they can deal with it but I'm not going to based on this dynamic and based more significantly on Trump's own words, right? What the other footnote was, there was two footnotes in this four-page elegant order. One footnote mentioned the executive order that you talked about, where she said, look,

Trump, your own executive order says you're the final decision maker and that the agencies don't have independence. So you now are the one who makes the decision based on your own executive order. But number two, there were at least two instances where you're on record publicly as saying you're settling with yourself and that you've already won the same. the case before it began because you're settling with yourself. So when they come in late May and both sides present their argument, whatever's going to happen if they even do that, the judge is going to grill them on, well, what about Donald Trump's statements saying this? Do you think that's an appropriate statement? And then we're going to see the lawyers from both sides

going, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, what level of coordination does Trump have? How has this been communicated to you? Who at the DOJ knows about this? Have you spoken to Todd Blanche? What could be Interesting also is that there are these congressional hearings with Bessent and Blanche and other people, and they've been asked about this lawsuit, and they've denied having like any knowledge about it, or we don't know, or we'll go through the normal process and channels. So have they been lying under oath about what's been happening? So this puts the Trump regime in the bind that it should be in, but it's there because they're doing things that are improper, unlawful, criminal, despicable, in my opinion.

You can have your opinion too. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show, a reminder. Make sure, subscribe to our YouTube channel, but more importantly, subscribe to the LegalAF YouTube channel and the LegalAF Substack, wherever you, wherever, just go search LegalAF on YouTube and on Substack, search LegalAF, subscribe there. Also, if you or someone you know

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Popak, Rapid Fire on this third segment. I want to focus on three topics in particular. I want to talk about Jerome Powell and what the Trump regime now is saying. that they're going to be, I guess, not criminally investigating Powell for now, they said, because Senator Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, said he would not support Kevin Warsh, the Fed chair nominee who was partying with Epstein and may have had financial entanglements as well, as we saw during his hearing that he refused to talk about what the financial entanglements

with a fund that may have had Epstein money commingled in the same fund. But he said, don't worry, the ethics department cleared me. I'm good, everybody. Okay, okay there, Kevin Warsh. So we've got Jerome Powell. I want to talk about Cash Patel's lawsuit backfiring, and then Virginia redistricting what we expect to happen in the Supreme Court. Why don't we start with Jerome Powell?

Yeah, great. Let's do Rapifier. I agree with you. So Jay Powell is not going anywhere. That's the top line. That's the headline. His term as chair of the Federal Reserve is up on the 15th of May, but his term as a Board of Governor is until 2028,

and that's been driving Donald Trump mad, because he wants control of the Federal Reserve, seven members. If he gets four out of the seven, he can control not only that, but the Federal Open Markets Committee, which sets interest rates. So you get the Fed Board of Governors, you ultimately get the Open Markets Committee, and then you can lower interest rates to your your heart's desire, regardless of what it does, direct the economy, the deficit, the debt,

pricing, inflation, and the rest, because you don't care because you're on your way out. What we've been watching is an elaborate going out of business sale by Donald Trump. It's just he's doing as much maximum damage as he can possibly do in line his pockets as quickly as possible on the way out. That's his goal with Jay Powell. It started with Lisa Cook. He couldn't get her off with some manufactured allegations of mortgage fraud. So when that got blocked and we're waiting on the Supreme Court to rule, but they're not going to let her let him fire her.

So he turned to J. Powell under an allegation that there's been cost overruns about two major federal buildings that make up the Federal Reserve campus that haven't been remodeled in a hundred years. Meaning if you want to if you want to check by math, go to the Federal Reserve, go to their frequently asked questions and their videos about the remodeling. It's very transparent about changing out 100-year-old electrical, plumbing, heating, air conditioning, asbestos mitigation, elevators. You can see how these things could like the cost could escalate, right? And so it's doubled in cost. Many things have doubled in cost, especially since COVID, when Donald Trump was president, especially things that deal with building supplies and logistics. Donald Trump's own ballroom doubled in price.

There's the Department of Homeland Security's been working on a building for 10 years. It's doubled in price. It's not even done. So Donald Trump, oh, I'm going to read down the whole. I'll put a coat of paint on it. We'll just get my pool contractor from Mar-a-Lago. We'll put a new coat of paint, $25 million, call it a day. Yeah, no. It's billions of dollars of work for these two buildings.

And Donald Trump decided to use that as an excuse to suggest that J-Pow is lining his pockets with kickbacks from the build. Right. Has anybody seen this guy? Does anybody think he's stealing from the Federal Reserve and he's getting kickbacks from contractors and vendors? No. But, and all that did was make Jay Powell more committed

to the independence of the Federal Reserve and not letting Donald Trump take control of it. The more he bashed Jay Powell to try to get him to quit either by embarrassing him or starting a criminal case against him, the more Jay Powell literally was committed. to staying in that chair. See, past tradition, a Federal Reserve chair whose term was longer than his chairmanship would give up the term as well and let the sitting president name a replacement. He was never going to do that with Donald Trump threatening to destroy the

independence of the Federal Reserve. So Kevin Warsh has been blocked effectively in the Senate Banking Committee because Tom Tillis a Republican, somebody who Trump forgot was still in the Senate, has declared that unless the criminal case started by Janine Piro against J. Powell and the Federal Reserve for this BS made-up criminal case about the construction cost overruns, unless that's lifted, he's not going to vote for Kevin Warsh. He basically apologized to him at the confirmation hearing. Seemed like a nice guy, I would vote for you, I have no questions for you, I'm not voting for you. Fast forward a day or two after the confirmation hearings, Trump, I guess, is trying to, to satisfy the requirement the line in the sand by tom tillis and had jean piero

announced in social media that there's an inspector general that's on the case and uh will report back to me on the facts but in the meantime i'm going to close the criminal case but i may reopen the criminal case if it turns out i need to and then how's that tom tillis not great you know i joked during one of my hot takes it's like schrodinger's cat it's a criminal case that's both opened and not open. It's closed and not closed. Which is it? So right, as of right now, we haven't heard from Tillis's office about whether this announcement satisfied him. I don't think it has, but certainly there's got to be back channel phone calls or there should be between the White House and Tillis about, is this good enough? And if it's not, what do we need to do? The ironic thing is

Trump didn't have to do anything. He just needed to take a knee. He just needed to take the loss when Judge Bozberg, the federal chief judge in D.C., basically closed the criminal case by saying it was brought in bad faith and dismissed the subpoenas issued by the grand jury. No, they had to continue to act like it was still a live criminal case. So this is now going to turn to Tillis, and this is going to turn to whether he's now going to side with Trump and confirm Warsh. If he doesn't, by the 15th of May, J. Powell just stays in as the Federal Reserve Chair. Stay in his seat through 2028, and Donald Trump will not be able to capture the Federal Reserve at all at any time, even if Warsh gets on. And last note, even if Warsh gets on, he doesn't have six other votes to change interest rates. You need seven votes on the federal Open Markets Committee of 12.

He has one. If you add to two other Republicans or people that side with the Republicans, he's got two others. He's got three. He's got to give four more. You know, there's no superpower of the Federal Reserve Chair. He has to work by way of consensus. So that's that. Patel, you and I talked about at length at the top of the show.

Cash Patel has now opened up a can of worms, and I'm sure he wished he hadn't. I joked on a hot take. I've never seen a drowning man throw himself an anvil or an anchor. And that's exactly what he did. Only an idiot would try to sue his way, open himself up to discovery and depositions and sworn statements under oath, document review and document discovery and subpoenas. It's not hard to get the poodle room in Vegas to subpoena their camera and their credit card data about whether he drank at the poodle room or Ned's bar in New York or all the other places that the Atlantic magazine reported on. And now the Democrats are taking this like who never like Cash Patel. I mean, who can forget Corey Booker, the senator saying,

I don't think you're going to be here at the next oversight committee hearing because you are the most incompetent corrupt FBI director ever. And so from there, you have Jamie Raskin leading a group of House Judiciary Committee members who have demanded that he take a, I almost said a sobriety test, a written, are you an alcoholic test and submitted utter oath to the committee and then they want to hear from him. And now people are going back to the Florida bar, different places where he's a member of the bar to try to get his application for when he applied about whether he had a drinking problem. You can't stand in front of the American people, especially with the videos

running behind you of chugging beers at the hockey game for the Americans during the Olympics and other places where you always seem to have a drink in your hand, and then suggest that I am sober. And haven't you seen me during the Senate and House? Yes. And that doesn't suggest that you're sober, especially when he stood before the press recently and couldn't remember key features of his own complaint

that was filed about allegations. Not a good look. If he thought this was going to be cover for him to stay in office longer, I don't think so. A very uncomfortable Todd Blanche was standing next to him during the press conference. And if I'm reading the body language, I'm not sure Cash Patel makes it to the next oversight committee hearing. And then you've got finally in Virginia, and we're going to be covering it on Monday at 9 a.m. At the Virginia Supreme Court in Richmond, Virginia, we've got this, and it's no pressure on Virginia, but it's a big case.

Okay. Virginia put on a referendum that led to an election, a vote on Tuesday. Three million people voted in Virginia. And by four points, it'll end up being about four points, the voters of Virginia voted to allow their house of delegates, their state house, to redo the maps 10 to one in favor of the Democrats, to balance out what's going on around the country. So their vote is not diluted, not just by what happens in Virginia, but what happens in Missouri and in Texas. And so they voted for that. A very clear referendum. I've read it a number of times.

It's not hard. I've dealt with ballot initiatives and challenges to the language of ballot initiatives. This one was fine. A judge in the reddest part of Virginia, Tazwell County, had blocked it originally when it was a referendum. The Virginia Supreme Court said, no, let's see what the voters do. Come back to us after. Well, the voters voted. And now Trump and the Republican National Committee want to disenfranchise

and stop the certification of an election. Does that sound familiar? And so now the case has been revived and brought back before the Supreme Court of Virginia. And this question is whether there's some procedural issues about whether the House of Delegates' referendum, the language matches the resolution and all sorts of other things. But what it comes down to in plain English is, the votes of three million Virginians are going to be respected. They came out.

There was $100 million spent. Barack Obama, you know, did a lot of campaigning with Governor Spanberger, and the yes vote won, redo the maps. Not only that, let me bring in, I have a clip from my interview with Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, who helped lead the effort here at his office will be arguing it. He and I talked about this, and this is true. When Spanberger, she won by 15 points as governor, she ran effectively, one of her campaign platform planks

was to redo the maps in Virginia. So people knew when they voted for her that one of her first tasks in the State House was going to be lead the charge to redo Virginia maps and make them more democratic leaning. And she won't. by 15 points. That's a landslide, by the way, that Donald Trump's always claiming he that he obtained. So Monday, legal layoff will be, it's a fast-moving story, be keeping a close eye on it.

Florida, they're talking about spreading their Republicans really thin to try to redo it again and try to crank out two or three more. But if Virginia holds and no other state moves forward in this very short period before primary season, it'll be almost even playing field, net zero, in terms of Republican versus Democratic seats, going into the midterms. But one last thing, just to keep our audience's eye on it, we're waiting patiently, impatiently,

for the United States Supreme Court to make a ruling in a voting rights case, voting rights act case called Calais out of Louisiana. If that one turns over the apple cart, which we expect, about, the Voting Rights Act, watch a number of red states, even at the last minute, even in June, for an August primary to try to redo maps, but with litigation that we'll have to follow, trying to block it. It is a fight to the death for whether this is going to be an even playing field

come the election or the Republicans are going to steal an unfair advantage. One other point I'll make as well, just to round out this episode, the backfiring of the cover-up of the Epstein files. We know about two weeks ago, Bondi was supposed to testify before the House Oversight Committee. She refused to show up saying she's no longer the AG, therefore I no longer need to respond to subpoenas. This ain't the same Democratic House Oversight Committee anymore.

Like it's led by Congressmember Garcia, who's very aggressive. He's not letting Bondi off the hook. Now what the MAGA Republicans are trying to do, do as Democrats led by Garcia are calling them out. Republicans like, eh, we're done with hearings for the rest of the term. We're just going to do no more hearings through the midter. We'll do roundtables. And how about that?

And then Democrats are like, no, we're not doing round tables. What are you talking about? We're doing hearings under oath and depositions. And then as a result of the Democrats fighting back on the House Oversight Committee led by Garcia and not just Democrats, people across the country. This isn't a, this is a bipartisan. It's an issue. It's not like a Democratic issue. It's like, release the damn Epstein file. Stop covering up child sex traffic rings. You know, Comer's now being pressed over and over again.

What are you doing now? What are you doing now? What's going on with the Epstein files? What's going on with this and that? And then Comer admits not only are they doing these roundtable things. They don't want to do hearings. He says that a lot of people on the committee are thinking about helping Trump get a pardon for Elaine Maxwell. Comer said that on the record, to Politico of all places. And then Combs, oh, I didn't mean me. I meant other people. Then all the Democrats, like none of us. So who are all of these people who are Republicans, obviously, who are working with Trump to get Geelaine pardon? I mean, Comer made this comment on the record. And he's, and then Comer's like, ah, stop with the clickbait. We stop with the click, but you said it.

You see, you, those were your words that there were lots of people that you know in the committee who were trying to help or get a pardon. So you put all of that together. And then, the American people right now are just livid and they want accountability. And again, this isn't, I don't think it's a democratic issue, Republican issue, independent issue. These issues should be kind of universal issues, getting at the truth, getting at the facts, presenting credible evidence and allowing people to use credible evidence to form opinions, not lead with opinions, form opinions after being presented with the facts. That's what we do here on Legal AF.

We give you the facts, the evidence, the receipts, then form your own opinions. Whether you agree with me or Popak or not, you'll be fully informed to draw those opinions and make those opinions on your own. Let me ask you, let me ask you before you leave on Epstein. What happened to the call by Melania for hearings where victims can testify and see? dignity and justice where are those exactly well that's that's the that's the one two step right she says that what happens right after paolo zompoly who's the person she says introduced her to donald trump zompoli's now embroiled in this rye three this uh this italian documentary on him that

he tried to shut down where he said all brazilian women they're just telenovel liars you know his girlfriend was Brazilian and they had a custody dispute It's alleged that he helped expedite her deportation, which he denies to Brazil. She says that she's got all this dirt and information on him and the Trumps and that she knows what's, I mean, she's been with him for like 20 years. She was trafficked to the United States by Jean-Luc Brunel, one of Epstein's traffickers. Then she fell into the circle. She met Zampolis.

Zampoli and Epstein were trying to buy modeling agencies together Zonpoli's all over the files. So in Maloney's like, it wasn't Epstein who introduced me. me to Trump. It was Zom Poli. Okay, got it. It was the guy who wanted to do modeling agencies with X-Den. That makes it much better, Melania. Okay, that's who introduced you at the Kit Kat club. But that's what so Zom Polly is like, I want to testify to corroborate Melania that I'm the guy who introduced Melania to Donald Trump. And then the Democrats, like, great, we would love us. I mean, Zompoli's like the special envoy of like cultural events. He's like, he's got an ambassador position right now. And Democrats like, bet we get Zompoly. Oh, great. We're going to ask him all of these questions

about Melania's immigration status, all of the things about the Einstein visa. All of that's fair game. The Republicans are like, yeah, we're going to do roundtables now. We're not going to do real hearings anymore. And by the way, Gilein, you want to pardon? Gleine, you want to pardon? I mean, in my own view, in my opinion, I don't lead with my opinions. I lead with objective facts. And then I give you an opinion. all of this is related and draw your own conclusions, but I think it's all related. I want to thank everybody for watching this episode of LegalAF. If you or someone you know has been injured in an auto accident, car accident, trucking accident, if you've been injured by the negligence of a company or a third party,

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Great to have Popak back. See you next time on Legal AF.