Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF - 5/23/2026

Episode Date: May 24, 2026

The award-winning Legal AF Pod, with Ben and Popok at the helm, focuses on the  little covered facts about law and political events coming out of DC, the Senate, Tennessee, and Illinois, and so much more.  Support our Sponsors: Qualia Mind: Go to QualiaLife.com/legalaf for up to 50% OFF! Pocket Hose: Text LEGAL to 64000 for your 2 free gifts with the purchase of any Pocket Hose Ballistic hose. Message and data rates may apply. Smalls: Head to https://Smalls.com/LEGALAF and use promo code: LEGALAF at checkout for 60% off your first order PLUS free shipping! Magic Spoon: Save $5 OFF your next order when you go to http://magicspoon.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

The American people are absolutely livid at Donald Trump and his regime, and it now feels a little bit bipartisan, as Donald Trump announced that $1.8 billion slush fund for January 6th, insurrectionists, and then built immunity from audits and from any past tax evasion or tax fraud for himself, for his company, for his family members. We'll break down the outrage. What's going on? We'll go through the settlement documents that Donald Trump,

entered with himself and his own former personal criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanche, who has reached new lows of be clowning himself that deaths previously unknown that exist in humanity. We'll break that down. But let's not forget what went down late last night on Friday where there was a dismissal or a request for dismissal by the DOJ of the oathkeepers, of the oathkeeper's seditious conspiracy case. That's right. The DOJ. filed a request for a dismissal with prejudice of the case involving the most despicable terroristic oathkeepers. We'll talk about what's going down there and the Department of Justice going through its website, removing press releases and statements about January 6th insurrectionists

who attacked and assaulted police officers. And then the DOJ's rapid response account bragged about it when they were called out by reporters for deleting some of the press releases involving the most despicable January 6th insurrectionists and some people who were also then subsequently charged in child sex crime cases are being purged from the DOJ website and the DOJ websites well why would we keep this propaganda about these individuals on here what let's talk about what's going down there let's also talk about some major losses by the Trump regime for serious misconduct in high profile prosecutions. And the point I want to emphasize at the outset is,

while we're talking about these high profile prosecutions, this behavior by DOJ prosecutors, this unethical, incompetent, malicious behavior, is happening in thousands of cases, maybe tens of thousands of cases across the country right now as people's rights are being violated and cases are being dismissed left and right for grand jury misconduct will talk about. The case involving the Broadview Six, the peaceful protesters

in front of the ICE detention center in Illinois who were arrested and the Trump regime made a whole big press release and propaganda campaign about these individuals who were protesting. It turns out, according to the federal judge, and we've seen at least the transcript that the federal judge was talking about during the hearing where this dismissal was made, the conduct. The conduct inside the grand jury room, which is subject to grand jury secrecy, but it was pierced here, was the most heinous conduct the judge had ever seen. And the judge said it was unfathomable what the Trump DOJ prosecutors were saying to the grand juries. And we've seen this across the country. We'll break that down. We should also talk about Abrago Garcia's case, criminal case,

being dismissed in Tennessee for prosecutorial misconduct in the form of a vindictive prosecution, the federal judge made a detailed timeline of all of the events, described how the Trump regime and its top officials, including acting attorney general Todd Blanche, who was then the deputy, came up with this campaign to try to destroy Abrago Garcia's life because he challenged the Trump regime, sending him to El Salvador, which was unlawful. The Trump regime felt embarrassed that Abrago asserted his rights validly, and they concocted a vindictive. prosecution. Now the Abrago criminal case is dismissed. Then we're going to tie this episode all together with a George W. Bush judge, Judge Bates, who made a critical ruling as the Trump regime

wants to destroy and probably have already destroyed all of their records and text messages and emails. Remember the emails? Remember Trump's emails, this, emails that in the first campaign? Well, the Trump regime has taken the position that the presidential Records Act isn't a thing that it doesn't exist. Thus, their text messages, their emails, everything can be shredded, deleted, destroyed, spoliated, and a George W. Bush judge ruled, uh-uh, that ain't going to happen. And this is going to be very important, I think. As we report on the accountability phase, we hope, and I'm confident we'll get there over the coming years. Great to see you all. Michael Popock, great to see you.

We've got a busy episode there, Michael Popak. It's Memorial Day weekend. We may be seeing we might be able to memorialize the end of Todd Blanche's career. There's a number of ways to interpret what just went down over the Bridge Too Far weaponization fund. But one of them is that Todd Blanche is a political neophyte that got sent in to lobby the Senate to approve a immoral, illegal, unconstitutional fund to pay. Jan Sixers who abused the police. And we finally figured out how low he would go and how low the Senate Republicans refused to go. I mean, we finally figured out what the final straw may have been, that this is too far even for the senators. And Trump cares little about the $1.776 billion

dollar anti-weaponization fund and cares more about Todd Blanche the next day trying to amend the settlement to wipe out with the stroke of a pen 16 years of audit exposure and at least a hundred million dollar audit liability from 2010 with a stroke of a pen it's all Donald Trump really cared about let's let's call it what it is and now I want to focus on Blanche here for a moment because he is the tone at the top, he is the head of the Department of Justice. Between him greenlighting the seashell indictment of James Comey, which even Pam Bondi reportedly would not indict over the fact that he was like, sure, a bunch of seashells arranged in a certain formation on a beach threatening the president,

less, let's indict the former FBI director. Between the seashell indictment, the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-hate group which tracks, hate groups and actually tries to defund terrorists as opposed to the new weaponization fund, which is going to, if allowed, would fund paramilitary and terrorist organizations to get them rearmed for the midterms. And this fund and his performance or lack thereof at the Senate Appropriations Committee and then Judiciary Committee hearings, I'm not sure when and if they ever get a to trying to appoint him as the Attorney General. I'm not sure he's got the votes in the Senate among the Republicans.

When Republicans are heard to exclaim, this is cosmically stupid, talking about the fund, when Mitch McConnell says out loud, so let me get this straight. Only Mitch McConnell could summarize it so perfectly this way. So the nation's top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay, to pay people who assault cops, utterly stupid, morally wrong, take your pick.

And it went downhill from there. This is an administration, you like to tie things together, as do I on shows like this. This is an administration that does not lay the groundwork or collect the votes, make sure they're going to win on issues, like whether it's Iran, there's no diplomacy that's done before the president meets with, you know, or before the president or i was to say china before the president meets with the chinese counterpart there's

no diplomacy there's no diplomacy going in to how to resolve the war in iran there's no diplomacy in negotiations with russia it's just trump showing up like a bowl in a china shop and wondering why it doesn't go right for him same thing over here on the domestic side susy wiles committed professional malpractice because if she didn't have the votes to fund this fund in the among the Republicans, she should never have allowed Donald Trump to and the Department of Justice and Todd Blanche to announce its existence. But she did, or she didn't. And then they sent Todd Blanche into campaign for it. The Senate had already sent a signal earlier in the week that they were not in favor of billion-dollar boondoggles, especially with the economy in a wreckage and the poll numbers so poor

about their own electoral possibility. They just rejected the billion dollars for the ballroom a couple of days before. So why did only Trump would think, well, they rejected the billion for the ballroom. Let's go for $1.776 billion for a fund to pay people who beat up the police. This just shows you how there's this complete disconnect between Donald Trump and his own party. I think he's lost the Senate. They're pissed off that he opposed and shocked that he opposed a number of. of them in primaries, Cornyn, you know, Cassidy,

and you don't do that to the Senate if you want their votes. So I think he miscalculated there. And this disconnect also of Donald Trump and the poll numbers. Trump thinks if he flexes his muscles a week or so ago and wins a couple of primaries and gets all right people put into the Republican seats to oppose moderate Democrats, that that shows his political power. All it shows is his concretely.

incredibly shrunk in presidency and that the rest of the politicians are heading for the exits, literally early Memorial Day recess, because they're worried about their own electoral chances, and they're not going to tie themselves politically to Donald Trump come the midterms. You know, which is, as I said before, why legal AF then kind of pivots to accountability mode where we're finally going to have hearings in Congress and actual cross-examination. and not Howard Lutnik testifying through informal proceedings that aren't under oath and are not before cameras. I mean, you'll have Democrats get to set the rules. You'll have them set the tone, call the witnesses, subpoena people.

And the most significant aspect of that is, is that we can finally start getting some of this information out there, finally, into the public and think long term. how do we fix this? Do we need revisions to the very essence of our Constitution with clearly glaring gaps if it was based on good faith for authoritarian's to step in and say, well, it doesn't specifically say this. So I'm going to do that, you know, restraining this ability for the executive branch to become this authoritarian despotic creature that destroys America. So that is some optimism, I think through all this reporting that we've all, you, this community has been able to stick together shoulder to shoulder to fight. And we live to fight another day.

We live to reclaim our country. And I think that's a very strong message that we need to take with each other and share with our families, frankly, on Memorial Day as well. And heading forward into the summer and heading into the midterms, which before you know it, November's going to be here. And Popak, you make a great point. You said only Donald Trump would think, well, They're not funding my ballroom.

So now I'm going to do a $1.8 billion or technically $1.776 billion slush fund. And you're right about that, but they're not disconnected concepts. He's all about revenge and vengeance. Aha, you're going to take away my ballroom. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go around you who are supposed to be the appropriators. And now I'm going to not do it for a billion dollars, but I'm going to create a $1.8 billion slush fund for the very people who attacked you.

They're actually related concepts in his sicko revenge-minded head. Except he forgot that the Congress still has to fund that fund. No, he didn't forget. He doesn't give it. He didn't forget about it. He's an authoritarian. He goes, I'm going to go around you. Catch me if you can.

And I'm going to call your bluff and think that you're not going to assert yourself because previously you've demonstrated how weak you are. So what I'm going to just say is I've created this fund. I'll find the money somewhere, based on something you appropriated before. I'll say that actually goes to my $1.8 billion fund. I'll anoint my commissioners, and we will give it out to the January 6th insurrectionist.

And then the straw that broke the camel's back, though, Popak, is I think that the Senate, the Republicans, may have gone along with it, except this was reconciliation bill week, where Republicans had their plan of how they wanted to fund ICE and border patrol, and they figured out a way to try to avoid it before. and now they were going to do this reconciliation bill,

where Democrats are now able to add amendments that specifically flag this fund with people heading back into close midterms where the Senate is worried now, the Republicans in the Senate about losing their seats. And with this reconciliation bill, the Democrats did exactly what the Republicans knew they would do, which is start adding amendments to it that say,

this fund is banned, and Republicans couldn't do anything with it, if they wanted to get their reconciliation bill passed. So they're like, you screwed our reconciliation bill process. And then you hit the nail on the head also. Cornyn was the main issue here, which is Donald Trump endorses Ken Paxton, the corrupt attorney general from Texas who's been impeached, adult or just bad corrupt guy. James Tolariko is the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas.

Tala Rico against Paxton is plus four. which is unheard of for Texas. I mean, truly unheard of in decades and decades and decades. I know in the past there's been hope. Can, you know, is Texas a purple state? Will it turn blue? But even there, even in the Ted Cruz races, Cruz was always up, whether it was against the Beto or whoever by four points, five points.

But, well, if the electorate goes this way, Tolarik goes up four against Paxton, Cornyn was a beloved guy, not amongst me and probably our audience, but among the Republican caucus. He was someone who was very close to becoming the majority leader in the Senate. He had a leadership role there. He raises a lot of money for the Senate. He works with, you know, he's in that club of the top senators.

And Trump and Trump screwed over Cornyn. So then I think the Republican senators, you know, were like, all right, enough. And then Trump said, sent Todd Blanche over to have this meeting. And that's when the fireworks erupted, Popak, because Blanche thought he was going to go there, you know, with his, you know, with his stick that he does on state regime media Fox. And by Ted Cruz's account, there were fireworks at an epic level. And I got to say it's one of the roughest meetings I've seen in my entire time in the Senate. Fiery does not even begin to cut it.

They were screaming at the acting attorney general. And you can imagine what they were saying. We're not going to confirm you, you this, you that. This is what you do to us. Who the F do you think you are? You know, you're going to cost us the same. You can imagine what was going, what was going down there. So I wanted to tie all of those points together.

You know, and then though I want to also mention, because this isn't getting enough attention. What I don't really see it being reported in many other places, you know, that the Trump DOJ on Friday night, like around midnight. It was a late filing. The DOJ moved to dismiss the seditious conspiracy case against Oathkeepers founder, Stuart Rhodes and several of the other Oathkeepers. I mean, the seditious conspiracy people, seditious conspiracies like a right there with terroristic behavior. These were the worst of the worst people. And so not only was this was the Trump pardoned these people. He wants to dismiss with prejudice the case so that it's not just pardon.

It's that they're not guilty, that they're viewed as innocent people and our system. If you're like, well, what can a judge do? As we go through this episode, you'll see that what the federal judge said in the Broadview Six case, and what these federal judges are saying with all this DOJ misconduct is, the DOJ represents justice itself. We always had a presumption of regularity, of reliability, of trust and integrity in the DOJ. If you ever litigated against the DOJ, the DOJ always started, whether you liked it or not, with a presumption that you didn't get when you were a lawyer, how judges would treat the DOJ. And there's this idea of regularity, honesty in the grand jury room.

And that's completely gone because what does the judge do? The judge isn't adverse. The adversity is supposed to be. The DOJ is supposed to be the good guys representing the people versus the bad guys, the oath. Oathkeepers and the, and they're not supposed to be on the side of the oath keepers. They're supposed to be adversity, which, and there is an adversity. So they're colluding together, helping each other, dismissing the case. And the judge is just supposed to basically sign off on it.

So we'll see what the judge does there, although you know the judge is going to be, you know, absolutely livid, but more than being livid, what can you do? But that's what, and I'll toss it back to you, Popak, but that's what Trump wants to create on all of this, on all of these situations, a situation where there's no adversity. He hates the courts. He hates Congress. He just wants it to be the Donald Trump. I make all the decrees.

I'm going to create my slush funds. I'm going to do all of this. And, you know, as you talk about the settlement agreement, you know, we can talk more Popak about the slush fund. But I think the slush fund, it's outrageous. It's disgusting. It viscerally makes us angry. But see, I also think it's the smokescreen for the addendum to the settlement agreement, which is this sweeping immunity.

I said. You said at at least 100 million, but for all we know, that number could be in the billions because it's a waiver of past claims. It's 16 years. 16 years of tax. Starting from the day of the agreement. So to me, Popak, all of these shady quid pro quo deals that Donald Trump did with these Arab nations, one after the other, you know, to me, he can make a credible argument now under the settlement agreement. If he's made four or five billion dollars, He's not going to pay capital gains on any of the stuff that he's made right now. Right? I mean, he can just say that's more than $100 million to me.

And it's the, anyway. Well, first of all, I agree with you. As I said, I always thought he doesn't care about the fund. He cares about the exoneration of tax and audit liability. That's why it was so remarkable. Just look at the timeline. We're going to talk a lot about timelines on the show when we get to Abrago Garcia, the power, the momentum of a timeline, which without even using any,

any rhetorical flourishes tell the story. So you've got Todd Blanche entering into, we're having his people enter into a settlement agreement. Then you have the general counsel of the Treasury resigning. He's a stand-up guy. He's not a Trumper, even though he worked in the Department of Justice in the first Trump administration. He worked in an old law firm of mine in Chicago, Siddeley, in Austin. And he quits the next day, they announced on the 19th, they announced the settlement has been amended to now give exactly what they were telling the American people and tried to shove down the Senate's throat. That's why he was getting screamed at in addition that there was no personal benefit to Donald Trump, except for the paragraph where the entire Trump family

from the date of the settlement, May 19th, backwards, do not have any audit or tax exposes. He's already the subject of a 2010 audit, which could result at $100 million because he took an $80 million tax refund, which wiped out all of his tax liability for the years he was making money on the celebrity apprentice. That's just 05 through 08 tax years. This gave him a free pass for every tax year leading up to May 19th. And so even the Senate was like, yeah, we're not doing that. But look at that timeline, right? Because it is a crime for even an attorney general to interfere with an audit. And I don't think that general counsel wanted to be involved with that.

Then you've got all of that going on. Then you've got, you know, in Saratim all these ways to try to distract from these other events. You know, the indictment of Raul Castro in Miami to try to shore up his political base. You've got the, oh, nobody's looking, as you said, we're not paying it. Oh, let's now exonerate, not just pardon. Pardon means you did something wrong, but you're being pardoned, or you're having your sentence commuted.

Wiping out the existence of the indictment to begin with from the prior Department of Justice, which is shitting on hundreds of thousands of hours of manpower, people power in the FBI, the Department of Justice, civil servants who investigated, prosecuted, and convicted. And the work of juries and judges who worked over to, time when these cases flooded the federal courthouse in the District of Columbia and another jurisdictions and just craps all over them and and tries to erase them. We're going to talk about

a couple of lines that are in Abrago-Garcia's and Judge Bates, which talk about when you're a power in control and you try to control what the historical record is. Here's when they were caught taking down, I used to report on legal AF and on Midas regularly, every time a Jan Sixer got arrested or indicted or convicted, they put up a press release on the Department of Justice website. And until recently, I was always amazed that they were still there because I would go check. Like when I was doing a follow-up story, I'd be like, I wonder if that's a part of a job, yeah, still there.

No, not any longer. And when they took them all down and got caught, taking down all of the prior Department of Justice's. historical records about indictments, arrest, and convictions. This is what they said, Ben, for our audience. This is from the rapid response team for the White House. We are proud to reverse the Department of Justice's weaponization under the Biden administration.

We will do everything in our power to make whole those who are persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping DOJ websites of partisan propaganda. You mean the work of prior, respect, Department of Justices and independent FBIs in doing the work? I mean, this is beyond, you know, gaslighting. This is because, you know, one thing I'll mention is before we leave this whole weaponization fund. It's going to die in the Senate.

That's clear. But it's like Dracula. It's like a vampire. You got to use garlic also, a wooden steak. You know, you got to use multiple nails in the coffin. So the lawsuits, there's now two of them that have been filed. One by the Jan 6th, two Jan 6th officers, and the new one that just got followed late last night by democracy forward by an abortion rights group, a former assistant U.S. Attorney, Jan 6 prosecutor. I love this plaintiff lineup, a city and common cause.

One of the leading pro-democracy public interest groups and election integrity or vote integrity groups out there brought the suit and they turned the tables. They said, huh, we're the victims of Trump, Vance, weaponization. Where's our fund? Why are we being denied the right for the fund? Violating First Amendment rights, Fifth Amendment rights, violating the 14th Amendment about paying the debts of insurrectionists, which is what it looks like with the fund. And so both the lawsuits, one really brought on statutory grounds

and on the Administrative Procedures Act, one brought on constitutional grounds, one in D.C., one in Virginia, they're going to end up in the same place. We still, I believe, need a declaration from a judge or more than one that what Donald Trump just tried to do was unconstitutional, illegal, and probably the biggest attempted public corruption in history.

And yes, it's going to die a political death, but it needs to die a legal death as well. Yeah. You know, Donald Trump's superpower, I don't mean to make it sound positive because it isn't, though, is that there is a relentlessness to the maniacalness, and it's nonstop. In 2026, he'll still be saying the 2020 election is stolen. He'll still be saying Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, 2016.

He doesn't stop. It's nonstop. He lives a miserable, dreadful, disgusting, dark, sick, predatory life. And he just sucks people into it. And he doesn't stop. And most human beings are like, like, hey, I just want to spend some time with my family on Memorial Day. All right, man, just whatever, whatever. And when you give in an inch, he takes your life. And you know,

if you watch those movies, the superhero movies or action movies from the Padamatch movies anymore. But when you did, the bad guy would always have like his bad guy army surrounding him. And they would all be like sent at the good guy. And one by one, they would all just kind of fall. And you'd like, well, who are these people that are just like going out there, kind of like kamikaze pilots or, you know, these, and just getting destroyed by like the good guys. Like Donald Trump has this whole crew around him that he just sends out. And you would think after you saw the first wave of people who all had their lives destroyed, careers destroyed, because they did bad, because they lied to judges and engaged in bad behavior or committed crimes and did all of these horrible things,

you would think the next wave of people would look at them and go, man, maybe I don't want to be like them and I want to stay away. But people, it's not going to happen to me. So then Trump brings the next wave of the people like the blanchees and this whole crew. And then he sends them at there. And these people, any reputation, they had credibility, they throw it all out the window. And you see, to your point, Popak, as you describe, you know, you have to do this and that and that, You know, it's not, it doesn't just go away.

You know, it's just other waves basically being sent. And we have to fight back and we have to adapt, you know, our tactics, right? I mean, you think about it as in a geopolitical sense. You think in a way, well, how does a how does a Ukraine fight back against a Russia? When Russia's the second largest army in the world, now it's the second largest army in Ukraine. They have to develop drones, drone interstate. You know, all of these things to figure out how you neutralize that where you have state regime media, where you have Trump controlling a right-wing Supreme Court.

When you have all, how do you adapt? That nexus to me is right here at Legal A.F. And Midas Touch Network. Decentralized media. Working with lawyer, you know, you create a whole new strategy and paradigm in order to try to check it and expose it. And that's what we're all doing in real time. With that, we're going to take our first quick break of the show.

but a reminder, if you or somebody who knows been injured in an auto accident, car accident, trucking accident, have you been injured by the negligence of a company? Popok handles real serious injury cases, catastrophic injury cases, death cases. If you know someone who tragically died because of the negligence of like a company, let's say a truck at their car or something like really horrible, reach out to Popok. Popak's taken on clients and representing a lot of people who listen to this show. 877 Popok A.F or visit thepopfirm.com. Also, go check out on YouTube and check out on Substack LegalAF.

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We've got a lot to discuss. I want to talk about grand jury misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct, and how rampant this is in the Trump regime. High profile examples we saw this week with the, Broadview Six case involving peaceful protesters outside the Broadview detention facility in Illinois. That case was dismissed on the basis of grand jury misconduct. We'll talk about that. Prosecutorial misconduct in Ibrigo Garcia, a form of prosecutorial misconduct called

a vindictive prosecution, specifically targeting out someone based on vindictiveness, not based on the law, in order to specifically. specifically punish somebody for political reasons or outside of a legal kind of framework. And so in both of those cases, they never went before a jury even because a judge said there are so many flaws that have infected the prosecution that this case can't go to a jury. You may recall the first James Comey case. Remember, that case was dismissed and the first Letitia James case was dismissed on the basis of the fact that Lindsay Halligan was an improper prosecutor,

so she couldn't even been in the room in the first place, right? And that's kind of like not putting your name on the SATs. They failed the most basic level of not putting the correct prosecutor in the room, and there was no other prosecutors with her. But that case, those cases would have been dismissed as well for prosecutorial misconduct because there they brought in attorney-client information. They instructed the grand jury with incorrect law. And then they had the grand jurors sign an indictment or the foreperson of the grand jury

sign an indictment that the full grand jury panel never even saw. I mean, these things are so unheard of and never got to that stage because Halligan was viewed as an unlawful prosecutor. So those cases got dismissed. The broader point I want to make, though, as we break down these cases, this is happening throughout the country. Donald Trump has these. political hacks, these people who aren't even, a lot of them aren't even confirmed being,

United States attorneys, people, there have been so many people who have been fired or quit in the Department of Justice. Remember how Popak and I have been reporting on all of these terminations that have been taking place. So this has really purged the DOJ of qualified and competent people. So you have people who don't even know or don't even care how grand jury procedure works. Just so you all know, in a grand jury, a judge is not in the room, and the defense lawyers are not in the room. It's the prosecutor with the grand jury, and it's based on a presumption of regularity, a presumption that prosecutors are representing justice, and prosecutors present the case to a grand jury to make a finding about whether a true bill can issue. And, you know, and

And then if a true bill issues, then the criminal case basically begins. It's filed. But there has to be first the determination by a grand jury. And the grand jurors show up. They rely on what the prosecutors say. And so there are clear no-noes that you are not allowed to do. You can't give incorrect the law to the grand jury. You can't tell the grand jury, hey, I've seen a lot of cases.

There's clearly crimes here. you need to just sign this because let's just get the show on the road and here just sign your name on this on this on this true bill and stuff like that is what these are really bad guys or you can't say look we're not going to there's a lot more evidence that we have than what we're showing you today okay but we don't have to show it all to you trust me it's powerful stuff we don't want these people on the street you got to your responsibility is to protect the general public so please We need you to sign off on this. Can you sign off on this?

That sounds so egregious that prosecutors would engage in that behavior. That's exactly what's happening. And so first off, it's rare to even get grand jury material to begin with or in a vindictive prosecution case to get a finding of vindictive prosecution or to get into discovery because the showing is so high. Grand juries usually occur in secret. every criminal defendant believes they're being vindictively prosecuted. So our law creates very high thresholds for you to be able to even pursue these types of claims.

But where Donald Trump is out there making social media posts saying, I'm a vindictive bastard and I'm going after you. Or did you see Abrago? Abrego is a terrorist, everybody. Or where the Trump regime holds press conferences about the broad, view six and says, these are the worst scumbags in the world, then we're going to go after them. If it's the last, when you say things like that, you are creating a record that is used to make initial showings to then do discovery to identify these, this conduct. And it sadly, this takes a lot of time while your life is wrapped up as a criminal defendant in these

proceedings. Unfortunately, the wheels of justice work slow, but the wheels eventually work, fortunately in these cases. And my broader point is, we'll talk about the Broadview Six, we'll talk about Abrago, we'll talk about misconduct, but this is happening across the country right now. Let me just read for you what the federal judge said when she dismissed the Broadview Six case. This is Judge Perry dismissing the Broadview Sixth. you case, here's what Judge April Perry's ruling says to the prosecutors as she dressed them down. I relied on all of you and your personal representations in this case about what has been issued in discovery, about the types of searches you have done for exculpatory material,

about what arguments you will and will not make in this case. And I do that because first of all, I treat every attorney who appears before me as an officer of the court. But secondly, because I put even more reliance on the Department of Justice. attorneys. Your sole goal is to do justice. Your client is justice itself. I do believe deeply in the presumption of regularity and that most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing. That trust has been broken. And then she goes on to say how the lawyers, the prosecutors went in front of the grand jury and did vouching and said, hey, you know, you need to

you need to find in favor of me, we like each other, hey, let's just get out of here, man, let's just do that. Now, I'll pass it over to you, Popak. The one thing I want to point out as well, though, this reminds me of something that just happened in Wyoming where there's a number of murder cases and serious crime cases that just got dismissed in Wyoming. And there's not a lot of murder that goes on there. But what did happen at, you know, I think it was in an indigenous area as well, you know,

where someone came in and engaged. And so it's a big outcry amongst indigenous communities because they're victims of this as well. But there's serious crimes that have taken place in Wyoming. The prosecutor bundled these cases together, nine of them, separately presented him to the grand jury and went to the grand jury. Hey, everybody, we got some bad guys for you. Some of the worst of the worst today, okay?

And you're going to have to find for me, you've got to find these bad guys. and we're going to get out of here quickly, okay? One by one, let's get rid of this bad guy, sign your name. The federal judge looked at it and said case dismissed. You can't do that. Case dismissed against people who potentially engaged in murder. And this has happening across the country.

Think about sex trafficking cases that are being dismissed. Think about violent crime cases being dismissed. Think about fraud cases being dismissed. And if they aren't dismissed, Trump will pardon you if you're one of the biggest Medicare, Medicaid frauders. if you're one of the biggest white-collar criminals or people who are really involved

in the waste fraud abuse, just send over $2 to $5 million to MAGA, ink, and you'll get a pardon right now, as we see over and over and over again. So Popak, with that framework, can you hit Broadview and can you hit for us Abrego Garcia? Yeah, and as you said,

they are linked because it shows the depravity of a hollowed out Department of Justice. When you remove 6,000 of your bank, and brightest through forced resignation or firings. Then you don't replace them because you can't replace them. The institutional legacy knowledge of these people, the fact that they went to some of the best law schools, best federal clerkships were accomplished civil servants who have been in

that position apolitically for decades, some of them. And you don't replace them at all, you just sort of stretch whatever's left and you can think about who's left. Sort of a combination of those. I mean, at this point, you know in 19 months into this administration that you're doing Trump's bidding. I mean, you may not like, well, I don't want to give up my great job

as a U.S. attorney or assistant U.S. attorney just because Trump's in office, I'll wait it out. But are you really waiting it out or are you doing a disservice through the rule of law? At one point, I thought, well, staying in is good because you'll be the resistance. But, you know, if you're forced to do things in court, that also subject

you to possible punishment, including using your law license, are you really accomplishing that? And that's a debate for another time. But the, so whatever's left is taking their direction from leadership in Washington, and what we call main justice. And that consists of a triumvirate of Todd Blanche, Stan Woodward, who used to be a MAGA Jan 6th defense lawyer and represented Walt Nauta, one of the co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case of all things. And Donald Trump, I mean, you know, you could add a third person in there, but that's the three people that are making the decisions.

And you know what you want, what they want you to do. And so we're seeing, you know, and I could take the perspective of being a 35-year litigator. I have never, I'll say this, it's not me vouching. It's me giving you my honest opinion. I have never seen. a more corrupt Department of Justice, and one, this will go down in history as the most sanctioned, found in contempt, having law licenses penalized group of Department of Justice lawyers in history. And that's why, first time ever, the presumption of regularity, which would be a doctrine used by federal judges to just sort of gloss over any argument.

that the defense would raise about, judge, my guy shouldn't be prosecuted, or subpoena shouldn't be issued, or search warrant, or grand jury indictment, or whatever, because, and they say, we have a presumption of regularity, unless you can show me facts. Otherwise, that presumption, the tie doesn't go to the runner any longer. And that is probably a byproduct that you and I have had guests on that a year ago, like Jamie Raskin and others, who said, watch. Donald Trump's has broken the Department of Justice over his knee. And the result is going to be, and it has been in 19 months,

grand juries, unless they're misled, juries and judges rejecting the Department of Justice and finding them to start off, it's not a level playing field anymore, because it's starting off with juries and grand juries and judges don't believe anything that's coming out of the mouths of the Department of Justice. I mean, even Judge Perry said, look, there's fine people in the Department of Justice, but I just can't grant the regularity any longer with what I've seen. So the Broadview Six, which you outlined, which got down to the Broadview Four, was a congressional candidate and social media influencer, her manager,

and two elected officials that were protesting. This is part of Operation Midway, you know, that cracked down with Greg Bevino in Chicago and other places. Judge Perry, just to connect the dots here, is one of the judges that issued one of the most important decisions to try to stop the National Guard mobilization and the use of ICE forces on the streets and to try to attack First Amendment protesters. So she's well versed in this area as a federal judge, even though she's relatively new or relatively young. So they're going to trial. I mean, next week, how close this came from going to trial to indictment dismissed by the prosecutor because it was so

egregious that even the u.s attorney in illinois northern district butros had to once he reviewed the file and what a prosecutor named sherry mecklenburg did he had to go into court and announce the dismissal of the indictment now the judge into the transcript that we've all now seen said this is some of the most egregious violations of prosecutorial, you know, prosecutorial misconduct you'd ever seen in a grand jury. From vouching, which is what it sounds like, that's when you stand up in front of a jury and say, I wouldn't bring a case like this unless the evidence was really strong. You have to trust me. So you're vouching with your personal credibility for the evidence to try to tip the jury, grand jury, into your direction. I've been involved in cases on the flip side where,

A prosecutor tries to bolster, bolster a witness's credibility. You see the uniform that person's wearing, they serve their country, they're now a law enforcement. You have to believe what they're saying. Look at the uniform. You bolster the credibility. You bolster or vouch for the evidence. Can't do that. It's a violation of Sixth Amendment rights and other rights. You also can't have conversations with the grand jury in the hallway. You also can't between sessions of the grand jury start picking off the ones that you think are against you. All of this, by the way, Ben, the wreckage of Sherry Mecklenburg's career, the reputation of the Department of Justice in front of a federal judge, all for what?

A set of misdemeanor charges. They couldn't even get felony. Misdemeanor charges because a group of people demonstrating surrounded a car with an ice or an ice officer inside. Nobody got injured, nobody got hurt. And then Boutros screwed up again, even though he came into court on bended knee, on Maya Culpa, as the judge referred to it, because then he decided he was going to start attacking the defendants again in the courtroom. She said, well, I'm concerned about, like, protests and protesters about this issue and its influence on the jury. She said, yes, Judge, that's the point. They were a mob. And the mob surrounded the car. She said, stop. Now you're undermining your own maya culpa that came in here. And so she's,

making a referral she signaled that she's going to make a referral judge perry of sherry mecklenburg and whoever else in that office to the regulator for the bar as a violation of officer of the court rules about candor to the tribunal she's going to that means loss of law license i think between one and five years frankly could be longer uh she's also um entertaining and asked for invited a motion for sanctions and now the lawyers for the mecklenburg four that are left have filed motions to make sure nothing gets destroyed by that office. Don't shred anything. We need it for the motion for sanctions, and I'm sure that'll be granted. And then a little weird twist of fate. Why wasn't Sherry Mecklenburg, the prosecutor in the courtroom

since February, and certainly not at this hearing to dismiss? Because she left to take a job as the counsel for the Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, led by Dick Durbin and Illinois, the senior senator from Illinois. When he figured out that she was the same Sherry Mecklenburg, she got fired from that job because, I mean, because obviously she can't do the job on the Senate, given all of the allegations of misconduct against her in that particular case. So the nitty-gritty is what we're talking about, but it points to a broader infection at the Department of Justice. You know, the fact that you and I have to regularly report on vindictive prosecution motions being successful, grand jury misconduct leading to the dismissal of indictments. If the Comey and James Comey and Letitia James indictments had not been dismissed because Lindsay Halligan and was found to have been illegally and unconstitutionally appointed to her position as U.S.

attorney, it was pretty clear from a magistrate judge's order that she had violated Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights in the way she handled the grand jury, likely to be dismissed. Another indictment dismissed. In my entire career, I've heard of, I don't know, one, two indictments that got dismissed for real, You never get the grand jury transcripts. But now it is just, it has to be part of the pattern and practice of every defense lawyer to suspect, rightfully so, that something went awry inside the grand jury with a beleaguered and corrupted Department of Justice.

And I'm going to, I'll move on to Abrago Garcia. Yeah, definitely move on to a Brago because to Brigo, not grand jury misconduct, although, you know, who knows, maybe. you know, got dismissed on the prosecutorial misconduct aspect of vindictive prosecution, which I want, when you go over this, I want people to pay attention to because it's exactly the argument that, you know, that James Comey is going to make when he files his, amongst many other things, First Amendment, a bunch of, with the seashells, the 8647. But it's the clearest case of addictive prosecution.

And the vindictiveness, Popak, as I said at the outset, that Trump creates the record of the vindictiveness. I mean, Trump basically on his social media every day, I know our corporate news likes to ignore it, but I'll tell you who isn't ignoring it. The criminal defense lawyers representing these people, they're compiling them and saying, hey, judge, if any one of these things happen during a deposition,

this would be the biggest smoking gun for vindictiveness that there is. I've got a thousand messages of Donald Trump saying, I'm a vindictive asshole. Watch me do vindictiveness. things, which maybe if you were in North Korea, and this is how, you know, we used to perceive Kim Jong-un's behavior, but here in the United States, you know, not, not so much. But before doing that, I want to take our last quick break of the show, Pope. I want to tease it out right now. And a quick reminder, everybody, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. Also,

subscribe to the legal AF YouTube channel and the legal AF substack. Also, if you or somebody you know has been injured in an auto accident, a trucking accident, any type of non-examine, negligence caused by somebody else, a negligence of a corporation. If you know tragically a situation where somebody died in a horrible accident or a trucking accident, those are the types of cases that the Popak firm handles. Also, sexual assault cases where people are sexually assaulted, representing victims and survivors. Call 877 Popok AF or visit thepopak firm.com.

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That's 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats. for life when you head to smalls.com slash legal a.F. Welcome back to LegalAF on Saturday with Ben, Myceles, and Michael Popak. And thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors without which, frankly, I think we'd be off the air. So I really do appreciate all of our sponsors who protect our First Amendment right and your First Amendment right as well.

Two last stories here. And not a rank order. These are very, very important. We were waiting. I was waiting patiently for the last three or four months, and judges often have exquisite timing for when they finally land the plane on an opinion. And the order we've been waiting for

was from Judge Crenshaw in the Middle District of Tennessee about Kilmer-Abrego-Garcia. Yes, that poor soul, who's been put through a Kafka-esque turmoil, has been abused by every level of the Trump administration, including on television, including being tortured in the El Salvadoran prison of Seacott, and has won every case about his civil liberties that there has been, from the Supreme Court to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals twice, to multiple rulings by Judge Zinnis in Maryland, and yet the Department of

Justice in retaliatory fashion brought an indictment against him in Tennessee about a traffic stop in 2022 where he had a bunch of guys in the car that didn't even result at him getting a citation for a traffic light, you know, a taillight being out. And yet that was the trade bait that the Department of Justice was using to try to squeeze Abraigo Garcia to port him, remove him out of the country away from his U.S. wife and U.S. American children and sent him to like Cameroon or Liberia or somewhere else. And his lawyers, Some of which I know, like Sean Hecker, who we're going to have on legal AF hopefully next week to talk to our audience, I've just been putting their head down and filing motion after motion after motion against the indictment.

And their primary argument was this is an example of vindictive prosecution, which is a term of art for a doctrine that says that the primary purpose of a prosecutor prosecuting you is not because you committed a crime, but is to pay. you back for something else, your indictment should be dismissed. And we should have safeguards against an out-of-control prosecutor doing exactly that. And Judge Crenshaw has taken this case seriously. Back in October, he made a fundamental, he made a sort of a fundamental ruling that led to the dismissal of the indictment yesterday for human smuggling charges, some trumped-up charges, because he found, the judge found, that there was a presumption, presumption of vindictiveness. He didn't find actual vindictiveness, but he found a presumption of vindictiveness,

which shifted the burden to the government, right? It's called a burden shifting device. Somebody's got the burden to prove something in a courtroom. And depending upon it, if you're in a criminal courtroom or a civil courtroom, or there's a different standard depending upon what the issue is. And on this issue, it's the one of one party has to prove by clear and convincing evidence or a preponderance of the evidence that, that they should win their motion. Once the judge flipped the table and said that it's the government, because there's already been a finding of presumption of vindictiveness, they have to prove they have not been vindictive. That kind of changed the weather in the room.

Now the burden is on the government, not on Abrago Garcia. And you think the government would do everything in their power. They'd bring in every witness that they could, and they would ultimately prevail to show that they didn't do anything vindictively. Unfortunately, they didn't prove that. Because the judge went through a distinct timeline and said there were at least 11 communications between Todd Blanche's right-hand person. a guy named Akash Singh, the assistant to the deputy attorney general,

with the acting U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee, effectively a one-way street commanding that U.S. attorney to indict. They served up a witness on a platter, who was a witness that was so not credible and disreputable because they were trying to throw a brago onto the bus in order to get their own conviction overturned or to get a lesser sentence, that a magistrate judge completely refuted the testimony of the person, yet that's the testimony that was delivered to an investigator just a few days before the indictment who had no knowledge of anything about the

case. And so the judge said, look, I told you that there was a presumption of vindictiveness because of a statement that Todd Blanche made on Laura Ingram, on Fox, in which he effectively conceded that the reason for the indictment is because the Department of Justice was pissed off that they were losing in front of the Supreme Court and Judge Zinnis, so they ended up indicting him. So they went from saying, we're going to remove him from the country but not indict him to we're going to indict him and not remove him.

And that was the presumption of vindictiveness that the judge said, you never overcame that presumption. Let me show you the clip from Laura Ingramham interviewing Todd Blanche, which is at the heart of this entire order granting the dismissal of the indictment. Play the clip. Many members of Congress. We had a senator fly down to meet with him. Question that decision and said, oh, no, he's just a family man. And so we said, okay, we'll look into it. And when we started looking into it, and we have great law enforcement officers and prosecutors

who started studying this man and investigating him. And what we found is that we were right. We were right. He is a criminal who should be deported. And at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to protect the American people and to keep our country safe. Right. And that is the clip that the judge referred to at October. and said, now the burden's on you to prove me wrong.

So you think they bring in Todd Blanche into the hearing, the trial? Nope. You think they'd bring in anybody in the Department of Justice to refute some of the emails? No. All they put on was the former acting interim U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, a guy named McWire. And they put on Agent Sayud, who just got the case like several weeks before the indictment. And the judge is like, what about the rest? What about Akash Singh, the guy that wrote all the emails, basically instructing the U.S. attorney to indict, why don't you bring him in so I can hear from him?

Nope, no, Blanche, nope. And that's what the defense lawyer said early on. They said, Judge, they can't carry their burden with these people. Judge says, it's their, whatever they want to do. It's their show. Put it on. And here's how the judge led off his opinion. A lot of, you'll see a lot of judges in the, in the second.

that we do on Legal A.F. and on Midas are quoting, you know, George Orwell in 1984, or they're quoting the founders or the framers or the Federalist papers or Alexander Hamilton or George Washington's letter to the troops. Or here, a very famous former Attorney General Robert who became a Supreme Court Justice, Robert H. Jackson. Here's how he leads Judge Crenshaw in his dismissal of the indictment against Abrago Garcia for a fine. of vindictive prosecution. Then Attorney General Robert H. Jackson warned his fellow prosecutors long ago of the danger of picking the person first and the crime second. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor, that he will pick people that he thinks he should get

rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. That is the situation here. In fact, when he repeats that quote at the end of his decision, he says, his own conclusions, he said that there is, I have to, sadly, make a finding, but there has been an abuse of power and abuse of the law by the prosecutors. What I loved about the opinion is that he lays out the timeline, and I often, in my own filings, will use a timeline without any rhetorical flourish, no big words, no argumentative language, just the power of the momentum of the events lead inexorably to a conclusion. And for me, sometimes there's nothing more powerful and more persuasive in a brief or an order

than lay, and that's what the judge did here. The heart of his order is this timeline of events. And then he says at the end of his order that the government never meets the evidence, never challenges the evidence in front of them. They ignore the United States Supreme Court decision, finding that he was illegally, Braygo Garcia, illegally sent to El Salvador. They just ignore it like it didn't happen. They just ignore all of the one-way emails between Akash Singh and that office

to compel an indictment, right? They ignore all of those rulings and elements of the timeline. And they're like, that's, the judge says, it's very telling. But they're not even engaging on the key evidence in the case. So what's going to happen? I'm sure. At one point, I was sure Trump would appeal. Because Abrago Garcia was a convenient punching bag, human punching bag for Donald Trump

and for Greg Bovino and Christy Noem and Pam Bondi and Tom Holman and all these other people and Stephen Miller in the immigration world for Donald Trump. But things have changed in the last year. Donald Trump's poll numbers, especially when it comes to immigration and migrant issues, is in the toilet. I mean, he's 75% of America rejects him on what he's done to human beings. Bovino, gone. Acting ICE director, Todd Lyons, about to be gone. Christy Noem, gone.

Greg, you know, all of them gone. So times have changed. If somebody can get in Donald Trump's ear and tell him that politically bashing Abrago Garcia doesn't make any sense any longer, they should just take him up on his original offer. Abrago Garcia was willing to be removed to Costa Rica to be near his family, just not to Cameroon or Liberia. But this is an example. This is the first time in 19 months that this administration has been found to be having committed vindictive prosecution, which is a very rare occurrence, but it's not the last.

I assure you that by the time, you know, another year rolls around, there's going to be one or two more vindictive prosecution cases. I can see James Comey bringing it, you know, against his seashell indictment. You know, if they ever get around to indicting the CIA director Brennan, I can see Brennan bringing it. You know, anybody who's one of Donald Trump's perceived enemies, has a natural, vindictive prosecution motion to bring. And they have to be encouraged by what just went down with Judge Crenshaw and Abrago-Garcia,

which leads me, people might be going, where's Ben? Is Ben coming back? Popak has been tied up? No. Ben had a leave for a family issue. You know, we have this long weekend here. And so I told him I would, of course, fill in for him. He's done it for me in the past. Then we have Judge Bates. Let's flip the page here. Judge Bates, George W. Bush appointee, people weren't really covering the story. We were on Legal A.F. pretty intently. As issued a preliminary injunction to stop the White House, the office of the president,

the office of the vice president, Stephen Miller, Susie Wiles, and everybody else you can think of, stop them from destroying documents or using disappearing messaging apps like Signal or WhatsApp and to ignore the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which was put in place by Congress to direct a repository for all presidential papers and vice presidential papers, that it be with the National Archive, which as a concept has been completely supported by the United States Supreme Court in past rulings involving Richard Nixon,

where they were ruling about who owned, his secretly recorded audio tapes. He had this secret taping system in the White House that nobody learned about. We didn't learn about until Watergate. And then he was like, he tried to own them. They're mine. Like, no, they're not yours.

There's a whole lawsuit that went up to the Supreme Court. And he tried to argue separation of powers. I'm the president. They're Congress. They can't tell me what to do with my papers. And the Supreme Court said, no. They, the National Archive is an executive branch office, they're just directing which of the executive branch offices it goes to,

and it doesn't interfere with your presidential power to have a repository for your papers, which is what we need for future presidents and for the press, the media, the public, and the like. But Donald Trump, of course, sticky finger Trump, who took 15 boxes of top secret classified documents with him to Mara Lago and declared there is personal papers, of course he was going to have his lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel write a memo a couple of months ago declaring that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional because it's Congress telling the President what to do. And they were like, what? So this guy who's the Office of Legal Counsel head wrote this entire memo and said the Supreme Court was wrong in the Nixon case

and separation of powers, but that issued guidance. Like, we're not going to respect the Presidential Records Act, but we're going to do, like, records retention guidance policy, like it's some sort of handbook for employees in some company. Oh, yeah, you should try to keep your docs, and if you can't, I guess that's okay. And nothing about text messages. And Judge Bates said, what are you doing? You can't ignore the Presidential Records Act

and substitute it for some sort of records retention guideline policy. And so I'm going to stop you right now. Starting, I think it starts on Tuesday. You cannot destroy any documents. You have to retain your documents. That means you, Susie Miller, Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, I mean, Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, Council of Economic Advisors, National Security Council, Vice President Trump, everybody. And while we continue this appeal, or we continue this litigation.

which will probably go towards an appeal. And, you know, once again, you've got, you know, citations to different things. You know, you just had Robert Jackson being quoted by Judge Crenshaw. And now Judge Bates, in his decision, he starts quoting the George Orwell in 1984 and talks about the following. This is how he leads off. Now, he's not the only one. This quote has been used by other federal judges in the Trump era.

But here's how he's, Judge Bates, starts his decision. And we'll put it up on the screen. Who controls the past, controls the future? Who controls the present controls the past? George Orwell, the book 1984 from 1949. Perhaps with that lesson in mind, Congress enacted laws to ensure that government records are created, preserved and made available to the public, and then goes through the Presidential Records Act.

Later, he reminds everyone of the inscription at the National Archives. If you haven't been to the National Archives, you should go, some of our foundational documents are housed there. It'll bring a tear to your eye to see them under glass and in a cage. Well, Trump runs wild, but you should go look at them. And at the National Archive, it says the past is, Prologue, meaning we can't destroy our history because we're doomed to repeat it. And just because Donald Trump's in office doesn't mean he gets to rewrite history and throw it into an incinerator.

You'd think this wouldn't be controversial, but of course Donald Trump wants to not have Presidential Records Act responsibility. He's the same guy that told the National Archive to effectively go fuck off. He wasn't returning any of those 15 boxes or more of documents. They knew that he had left with them. And then when all negotiations failed, they turned it over to the Department of Justice who started to negotiate. Then Trump started lying to his own lawyers. This is all in the indictment, all in the grand jury material in Mar-a-Lago,

sort of lying to his own lawyers so that he, so they wouldn't know what to say to the National Archive or the Department of Justice, which led the Department of Justice to get a subpoena from a grand jury and executed at Mar-a-Lago. That's how Mar-a-Lago came to be. So, of course, that guy who said, well, they're declassified, or they're my personal papers, even the Iranian war plans. That's come into popularity these days, or the nuclear plans of some other country.

Of course, he was going to say, nothing is subject to the Presidential Records Act. Now, what's going to happen next? As of tonight, they haven't yet appealed. I assume they will. They will. It'll go up to the DC federal appellate court, depending upon the panel, as long as there's not two trumpers on there. They should continue to abide by Judge Bates and not block his injunction, meaning no records get destroyed. And then it's going to go up to the United States Supreme Court. You see it going. It's not going to be an I don't think it's going to be an emergency shadow docket application this summer. but I've been wrong before. The Supreme Court seems intent to giving Donald Trump a short-track path to the Supreme Court.

My gut is it would be more like a first term next year starting an October thing, but you never can tell with the Supreme Court. But these are important matters, and that's why we curate them for you here on Legal A-F. So many great ways to support what we do. The Legal A-F YouTube channel, is up and running 1.12 million subscribers. We're growing, growing, growing, but only with your help.

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listen there watch on YouTube go back and forth that keeps us afloat it really does and I do want to do a for Ben and me a special shout out to veterans and those that have served this country honorably in the military. It's a very trying time right now, but we do appreciate your service. My dad was Army, and so, you know, we've always been great supporters of those who, you know, who are patriotic in that way and serve their country in that way and were made the greatest sacrifice. So, you know, I never want to forget what these holidays are about.

And so we wanted to do a special shout out for that. In the meantime, we'll see you on. layoff YouTube channel. We'll see you. I'll see you on Tuesday on the intersection podcast here on the Midas Touch Network, a live podcast at 8 p.m. They have two special guests. I'll be teasing over the weekend. Join me there. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popock. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal A-Effers.