Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF - 5/27/2026

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

The award winning Legal AF Podcast is back with Popok, joined by constitutional expert Lisa Graves and renowned legal commentator Dina Doll, in for KFA, commenting on breaking law and politics events in the last 24 hours, coming out of the Supreme Court, DC, Florida, Alabama, and so much more. 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. Boxie: For a limited time, get 30% off your order when you head to https://Boxiecat.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF IQ Bar: Get 20% off all IQBAR products. Text LEGALAF to 64000. (Message and data rates may apply) Mud/Wtr: Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% OFF your @MUDWTR by going to https://mudwtr.com/LEGALAF #mudwtrpod 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

Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal A.F. And standing in from Karen Freeman, Ignifalo, who's traveling, is Dean Adal and Lisa Graves, who are amazing contributors on Midas and on Legal A.F. And the hosts of the Monday Night Live edition of Legal A.F. Over on the Legal A.F. YouTube channel. So I thought it would be a great opportunity for those that don't know them from there or otherwise. It's going to bring the band back together again and co-hosts here. on Legal AF. Hi, Dina and hi, Lisa.

Hello. So much to talk about, even since I did my show last night. Let's kick it off with something that happened, just as we were coming on the air, a friend of the show, friend of the pod, Judge Michael Ludig, along with 34 of his colleagues, filed a paper just in the last few moments with the Southern District of Florida, Judge Williams,

imploring her to find that she's been having. had that she's been deceived, that there's been a fraud on the court, and that she should reopen the Trump versus IRS scam lawsuit that was used as a cover-up, as a cover, as a smoke screen, to use the DOJ's judgment fund in order to fund this $1.776 billion victim weaponization thing and to absolve the Trump family of 16 years of tax and audit exposure. We don't talk enough about that in the second part of the settlement. But when I saw that settlement, I said out loud on one of the shows, when the judge sees this, the way they've described the lawsuit as the basis for the settlement,

the way they lied about and ignore the fact that she questioned whether there was jurisdiction at all. And I would have thought the thing that would have gotten her goat is when they said in the settlement document that the plaintiff's lawyers who represent Trump were seriously considering amending a lawsuit that the judge was about to toss out the window to bring it as a class action. I'm like, okay, this is too much. The judge should use her inherent authority

and reopen the case. That's me saying it. But when 35 federal judges file a brief to get Judge Williams to do it has a lot more power, including one that when it comes back to me, I'll talk about with you guys, Judge Ungaro, Ursula Ungaro, who is a colleague or was a colleague of Judge Williams on the Southern District of Florida, a very well-respected judge. I don't know if they went to lunch together.

I know I appeared in front of those judges myself, but her being part of the 35, I think, was a very, very smart move. And the lawyer that helped bring it is a friend of the pod, Andres Rivera, a friend of mine at a firm called Rivera Mestri in Miami, Florida. So let me kick it over to you both, now that you've had a chance to look at it. Lisa, you and I will start with you. You and I have had Judge Ludigan on a number of times. I probably have interviewed Judge Lutigant a dozen times in the last two years. What did you make of this filing and using Rule 60 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to bring a fraud on the court to the court's attention?

I think it really is an extraordinary breakthrough and so important. this is very rare to have federal judges, former federal judges, weighing in litigation. But the fact that 35 retired federal judges are weighing in to say that there's been a fraud on the court by this Justice Department, by this Trump administration is extraordinary. And I think it's true. I think they have a very well-pleaded statements that they filed with the court, this request to have the court reopen these matters and assess and address this fraud

on the court because this really is a fraud in plain data. light, in my opinion. You have a justice department led by someone who is basically just doing the bidding of Donald Trump. No Justice Department in my lifetime has ever engaged in this kind of activity where you have the justice department not filing any motion to dismiss in the case that Trump bought this ridiculous $10 billion claim against the IRS for documents that were leaked along with dozens of other documents but other people during the first Trump administration. There were no motions filed, as Dean has pointed out, there was none of the action that you would ordinarily see by a Justice Department defending the interests of the American people. Instead, what you see

is collusion, in my view, in plain daylight, where the Justice Department has agreed to settle a case, claimed to the court that there was no settlement, allowed, basically, or exceeded to the plaintiff's claims that there was no settlement. Meanwhile, announcing a settlement, defending a settlement, going to the Hill to try to get Congress to not be upset about this absurd settlement. which is really designed to pay off Donald Trump, his family, his companies, and anyone who claims that they were part of the January 6th or were convicted of crimes on January 6, including people convicted of very serious crimes of violence and seditious activity. And so between that and the other part of this so-called settlement,

which is that assertion that according to the Justice Department and the IRS under Donald Trump, Donald Trump and his companies and his family can never, ever be investigated, for any IRS violations ever, this is the most blatantly corrupt situation I've ever seen, and I think it is right for these judges, these former judges, to have filed this extraordinary request, and it would be appropriate for the court to grant it and reopen this case and sanction the activities that we've seen play out. Yeah, Dina, what did you, what did you, we'll read some passages from it. It's pretty powerful.

I don't know if Judge Ludig wrote it, but I can see his hand, his handy, work there. Dina, what did you think about it? And what do you think Judge Williams should do next? I mean, Tom Blanche thought he would be cute. This definitely, a fraud of the court is something he could be disbarred over and he should be. And that's frankly what Rudy Giuliani, John, John Eastman, disbarred over fraud of the court. That's how serious this is. The reason why they crafted this as a settlement agreement is because Congress has authorized this judgment fund. Because the government settles civil lawsuits all the time, right? Just like corporations, they get sued. They have have leeway. The lawyers have to have leeway, the ability to settle cases in real time and not go

back to Congress. Well, Trump sued himself and Trump and Taub Blanche thought this was going to be some cute idea and that they were going to give him this huge, you know, multi-billion dollar settlement amount through this pre-authorized judgment. But they knew that a judge wasn't ever going to allow that kind of a settlement. So they didn't tell the judge about the settlement. And as you pointed out, Popak, the judge actually wanted to or question whether or not there was even subject matter jurisdiction at all. So Todd Blanche essentially handed over a settlement of like almost $2 billion without filing one motion in defense that's clearly malpractice, clearly a fraud, and that is what these judges are saying, that the agreement, the DOJ agreement specifically says,

it's titled settlement agreement, and it says, we are settling the, case, Trump versus IRS. They caption this case. And so they're telling the American people, we don't need congressional approval because it's coming out of the judgment fund, but at the same time, they're telling the judge, oh, we didn't have a settlement. We're not filing a settlement. We're just asking for a dismissal. They want it both ways. They can't have it both ways. Great motion here by the judges. It's clearly fraud and there definitely should be consequences as a result. Yeah, I agree. Let me read to you from some of the filing here. I mean, powerful, they don't pull any punches.

They say on page two, the court was deceived, despite plaintiffs not having mentioned any settlement in their notice. The Department of Justice publicly announced a settlement of this action shortly after plaintiffs filed their dismissal. And then goes over all the ways that they've been deceived. They say that the candor to the court obligation has been violated. there's a bit of manipulation of the judicial system, which threatens to undermine the confidence in the administration of justice.

In other words, the court's been used, the court's been had. And then they remind the court that even though they're strangers to the lawsuit, who else but strangers to a collusive fraudulent lawsuit can bring the fraud on the court allegation? Trump's not going to do it. His lawyers aren't going to do it. He owns the DOJ and the IRS. So who's going to do it? So of course, if people might be saying,

how do they even have the right the standing to come in and file the brief? Because Rule 60 says if it's a fraud on the court, even an innocent bystander could step in and remind the court if the court doesn't do it on their own. Look, I always thought that Judge Williams should have done it on her own. I was very public about that, that she has her inherent authority. I thought that when she saw the settlement agreement, it was public, that she would have been like, I've been had.

and I don't like being had, and let's get everybody into the same room at the same time and have that kind of conversation. But she didn't, but she's being implored to do it now and to undo that collusive settlement. If she finds that there was an announces that there was a fraud on the court and that this was collusive and that then there's no legitimate lawsuit to be settled pursuant to the judgment fund, the judgment fund statute, which is now we're back to where I said we were going to be a month ago. That it's just Donald Trump robbing the treasury, which Congress is not allowing him to do. But you see how they had to do it through this. Attorney General has the right through

the judgment fund to get money to settle legitimate cases. Right. There always has to be that consideration. But if she announces that that is a fraud, they're going to have to figure out another way to fund that fund, right? Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, this, I think that I had also hoped that she would have rejected that motion to dismiss given what was being said in court versus what was being said in the public arena. It was a dismissal with prejudice, meaning it could not be filed again.

But as you point out, and as these judges have pointed out, this is a fraud on the court and the court cannot allow it to stand. And under this issue of what that settlement fund is, I remember that settlement fund when was working at the Justice Department and how it was used for settling cases, just as you describe, it wasn't meant to be a slush fund for presidents. It wasn't meant to be a slush fund to pay out people who engaged in violence against the United States. It was designed to pay settlements where there was a just claim of a violation of the law. For example, it was used to pay black farmers for years of discrimination by the USDA. It was used to agree to a settlement. That settlement took

years to reach. This is extraordinary to have this like insta settlement that goes to the benefit of Donald Trump personally and his followers in innumerable ways. And to your point about robbing, you know, robbing the treasury, I think it's robbing the treasury either way. There's a famous lyric that says, some men rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pin. This is robbery by fountain pin by Todd Blanche and Donald Trump. Absolutely. So I'm so glad to see that a friend of the show, and I know Lisa, you and I are working on. I think I shot Ludig or an email already to get him on the show. And now is his chance because last month I told him,

look, when Fox News was bored, they're bashing legal AF and you judge Ludig. I think they had a title on it. I think it was Laura Ingram. Little known fact, she used to clerk for Clarence Thomas. Just you know where her politics are, in case you thought she was an independent journalist of any merit. She was also a John Robert.

priests wearing in and there's a photo of his arm around her. Yes, by the way. Okay. All right. Well, we knew the arm was somewhere. So the, so she, she, she ran a thing, a story against Judge Ludick, calling him a small man, you know, because he's out now, freed the shackles of being a federal judge, speaking out against the Department of Justice and Donald Trump. And he does it from a conservative Republican, although he said he's never going to vote Republican as long as Donald Trump's in control. A vantage point. You know, he's not a left-wing, Marxist, radicalist, not that any of the judges are, but you can't call him that.

He was this close to being John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. So hopefully we'll be able to get him back on. Let's switch gears for a moment and go to, we're going to go to Alabama. We're going to visit Alabama twice on this show. Roll Tide. we're going to talk first about the Southern Poverty Law Center who's been indicted in Alabama and has brought a motion to dismiss for lack of prosecution, a motion to dismiss for vindictive

prosecution in the afterglow, the immediate afterglow of Judge Crenshaw granting just such a motion in favor of Kilmer Abrago Garcia. That has now opened, I think, the proverbial floodgates of, we're going to see you and I. and Dina, we're going to be talking about dozens of vindictive prosecution motions being filed. This is now the second one. I want to talk about the Southern Poverty Law Center there, and then later we'll talk, after our break, we'll talk about Alabama. And it's maps, it's inherently, intentionally racist maps. And the Supreme Court set in an early briefing schedule, again, related to that.

Let's kick it off with the SPLC. Dina, why don't you frame the issue of what's going on? So everybody knows, because I'm very public about this. I have been an admirer of the Southern Poverty Law Center since I was a teenager. Okay. They are the leading anti-hate group in America. They've identified 4,000 hate groups in America, regardless of where they are on the political spectrum, left, right, center, socialist, white supremacist, whatever they are.

Their goal is to put those hate groups out of, business and to identify them. Their hate map is famous. Their year in hate, their annual report. It just got under the skin of Donald Trump after the Charlie Kirk murder as he's going after all the lefties and he wants to go after the Southern Poverty Law Center. So I wanted, Dean, talk to our audience about the indictment and then, of course, the motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution. Well, and it really is to your point, and this is why they have actually a very strong argument to dismiss based on vindictive prosecution. Now, Trump is going after them because of all of the good work they have done for years. And we can really tie this to our first story about Trump wanting to pay off, you know, the proud boys and the oathkeepers and the DOJ dismissing those indictments against them.

We are in a period of time where Trump is literally rewarding insurrection. and trying to harm people who are trying to eliminate hate groups. And of course, as we know, they indicted them because of, you know, payments they made to confidential informants. That's kind of what the DOJ is hanging their hat on. And the motion here really is saying that this is a via charge, their indictment is a violation of their First Amendment rights and a vindictive prosecution. And to your point about Judge Crenshaw kind of opening up the floodgates, you know, the DOJ's indictment of Abrago-Garcia was just such an obvious. vindictive prosecution, the timing of it when he came back, when they were forced, basically, to bring him back. Trump always gives the best evidence against himself. He actually did that

with the slush fund, too, that Judge Kathleen Williams quoted him and questioning whether or not there was jurisdiction. And here, again, the law center is quoting Trump and what he's saying about them. You know, we're not even at the point where there's really, there's really, any evidence being presented at trial. Of course, we have innocent until proven guilty. When you have the president of the United States going out there talking about how awful you are, how guilty you are, you know, it's clear that this is not about justice, but this is about Trump and its vengeance and vindictive prosecution. And so as awful as Trump is, that actually is helpful and will be helpful to them in this vindictive prosecution. Now, the Trump DOJ, we have seen,

And I mean, there's like so many cases we can cite where they go after somebody, right? And then they, but they fail to get either the grand jury to come back with an indictment. Or if they do like with the Broadway 6th in Chicago, they did it through such prosecutorial misconduct. It gets dismissed. Trump's DOJ is really more about the PR strategy than whether or not what they're doing has legal basis. Unfortunately, you have, you know, know, somebody's good reputation like the law center and all the amount of money they have to spend and defending it. But this is a strong motion on their part because this is clear. It's vindictive

prosecution. And again, Trump gives that evidence for that. Absolutely. Lisa, take it from there about what, you know, how do you think a judge is going to handle this? Do you think they've, they've at least made their prima facie case on presumptive, a presumption of indebted? the prosecution to shift the burden to the government a la Kilmer Abrago-Garcia, which puts the government back on its heels by citing all of the government statements out loud against the Southern Poverty Law Center. You know, one thing I'll leave you with is the fact that Trump has captured the Department of Justice, made himself the head legal officer, and flattened the hierarchy, made an argument about

Washington controlling prosecutions easier to make because there's no longer these barriers between Maine Justice and the local prosecutor. Yeah, that's exactly right. And here, as you said, and Dina, everything you said, plus one or plus 100, that's exactly right. In this instance, what we're seeing is that dam break. I think with the dismissal of the charges against Kilmar of Regal Garcia, where it was clear that was a vindictive prosecution.

Here, I think the evidence is crystal clear that this is obviously a vindictive prosecution against someone who's perceived by Trump as an enemy or by some of Trump's core allies as an enemy because SPLC has dared to document the white supremacist, violent white supremacist movements in the United States and groups that are tied to hate and promulgating hate. This is a situation where I wonder, in light of the revelations over the past week, in the Broadview Six case, where it's clear from the record, at least the record that has been described in the press, that the grand jury was manipulated to get that indictment initially out of Chicago, that jurors who were opposed to that indictment were dismissed, that facts were hidden. I wonder whether the court will take a closer look at the grand jury transcripts here to see the basis for this indictment, whether there was any similar. manipulation. And we know that there's enormous pressure from Washington, from Trump and from Blanche and et al to pursue his enemies. At one point a month ago, Todd Blanche gave a press conference right after we became acting attorney general after Trump dismissed Pam Bondi. And he was asked about whether he feels any pressure, any concern of the pressure from the White House to go after people that he directs him to go after. And Blanche said he sleeps fine because his only concern is whether he's going after them hard enough.

You know, that, that along with all of the very specific statements about the Southern Poverty Law Center, I think, are really damning and show that this prosecution is just another act of a vendetta. Now, to be clear, it's actually very hard to prove a selective prosecution or a vindictive prosecution case because they actually are pretty rare in the federal system. This is like basically a case in point of how you can make such proof, how you can put such group forward. And it's also a circumstance where you can see with the other things that are alleged in this complaint how absurd they are on their face. One of the allegations is that supposedly

the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has devoted its entire history to documenting hate crimes, documenting lynchings, showing who are the groups behind the violence, the white supremacist violence, the hate mongering in the United States, that because this organization, you know, helps, you know, pay, you know, some people to help infiltrate these organizations to get evidence against them that somehow this organization is engaged in wrongdoing or illegal action. I know for a fact that that's exactly what the Justice Department does. That's what the FBI does. That's why I had Mike German come on Legal A.F to sit down for us for a little while.

He's a former FBI agent who spent a big part of his career on behalf of the American people, being paid by the American people to infiltrate white supremac. violent groups and help get them convicted for the crimes that they were plotting or the crimes that they had engaged in. And so the idea that it is it is unlawful for a group to help pursue to infiltrate one of these white supremacist groups to expose them that supposedly they're violating a law by by aiding them could not be more wrong. But that's the issue kind of on the merits in terms of the allegations and how wrong they are, how absurd they are. But on the bigger picture, this is absolutely, in my view, a case of selective and vindictive prosecution. I hope it is dismissed quickly. It does cost an organization like SPLC a lot of money to defend itself against such criminal charges.

I hope there's also an investigation, at least an examination by the court of the full grand jury transcripts to see how this indictment even was allowed to go forward. Back to you, Dina. Absolutely. I mean, that's what they are realizing with the Broadway. the judge at first gets a redacted transcript from the grand jury and sees the full one and the prosecutorial immersed his conduct. So now the defendants, the Trump DOJ is going after, realizing we need, the judge needs to see these full transcript

so they understand exactly what is happening. So we have our first ad break, the legal AF sponsors, so grateful for the sponsors, help have this show and not censor us, which right now is so critical. It's amazing actually that they have sponsors. that allow us to speak freely about truth and justice. So we'll take an outbreak and we'll come back to talk Alabama and the Supreme Court. My cat, Chanel, she runs the house.

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That's B-O-X-I-C-A-T dot com slash legal AF and make sure you use my code legal A-F so they know I sent you. Oh, I'm very excited to tell you about the world's number one expanding garden hose and their brand new product, the pocket hose ballistic. I used to have to buy a new hose every year due to kinks and tangles, but the pocket hose ballistic is the upgrade I've been looking for my entire life. It's the toughest pocket hose ever built, reinforced with a liquid crystal polymer used in bulletproof vest. Pocket hose is the number one expandable hose in the world.

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sent it down in order to draw another majority black district of Alabama was kind of still dragging its heels. It was even under a court order to do so. And then, of course, we had the new voting rights decision, Kelly. And so Alabama thought this was an opportunity to not do what the Supreme Court had told them to do and to not have the other majority black districts. as they were told to do. Now, it went in front of the Supreme Court about two weeks ago, and the Supreme Court sent it down to the lower court, asked it to reconsider based on this new Calais decision.

Justice Sotomayor dissented at the time, saying the lower court has shown intentional discrimination. You have said that that's the one carve-out. The one protection that the Voting Rights Act still has is if you can actually prove intentional discrimination, which, as a side note, is extremely hard to prove somebody's intent is almost impossible, but it appears that is what they have done because a three-court judge, after the reconsideration request by the Supreme Court says that, yes, there was intentional discrimination by Alabama

and not drawing this extra-majority black district that would have been proportional to their, voting population. So now the Supreme Court is giving until Monday at 4 p.m. We're talking, they are fast-tracking this thing very quickly for civil rights groups to argue why these districts should be allowed. And so the Supreme Court, not delaying things, this is right around the corner. What do you, I mean, we never have much hope with our Supreme court, but they did just two weeks ago say the intentional discrimination was not allowed, but yet they did send this down for reconsideration. What do you think is going to happen, Lisa? Well, I have thoughts about this, Dina, so let me unpack them because, you know, this is a

situation where, you know, this goes back to the 2020 census. And that 2020 census, the white population in Alabama was reduced. It lost about five, you know, five percent of the population, more African-American population in that state. And yet that white-dominated legislature, the Republican legislature in Alabama, drew a map that had six white majority districts and one black majority district. That was contested in 2021, 2022. The lower court found that that map, the map of six to one in terms of one black majority district in a state of the population of about one-third of the state is black, was a violation of the Voting Rights Act. And the court, the lower court ordered the maps to be redrawn.

But John Roberts and the Roberts Court did not allow the maps to be redrawn in 2022 during that midterm election in that decision was issued in January. In February of 2022, the Roberts Court said, the election could proceed with six to one, a six to one white majority map because it's too close to the election, even though election was months off,

too close the election to redraw the maps. And so they allowed Alabama voters to go forward with maps, that were in violation of the Voting Rights Act, that diluted the black vote in Alabama. And that meant that the Republicans took control of Congress. That helped Republicans take control of Congress. It helped make Mike Johnson Speaker of the House. Then you fast forward to after that, after that election,

after the Republicans took over, suddenly the Roberts Court, you know, decides they're going to hear this case in full and they say, okay, you have to go back and redraw that map. Go back and redraw the map. What happens next is the Alabama, Alabama legislature refuses to draw the map because some of them connected to Leonard Leo, who helped mastermind the capture the Supreme Court, some of them said that they had Intel that the court never really intended for them to create that second map. But lower court,

you know, did order that to happen. The second map was created and then that was challenged. And so you have a situation where right now this Supreme Court is considering intervening in basically June of of an election year to block that second map that this court, just two years ago, three years ago, required be added to the congressional district. And so this is extraordinary intervention by the court. The easiest thing the court could have done, the Roberts court could have done,

is to let the lower court stand. That lower court finding, that three judge panel, as you point out, Dina, found that there was intentional discrimination, found that the maps as they were drawn, not fully proportionate, but more proportionate, have two and five versus maybe four, you know, four and four or four and three, pardon me, that that map needs to go forward. And the lower court judges in this case are very clear.

They, the lower court found that what was going to go forward was a racially discriminated aory map. And the lower court reaffirmed its own findings back in 2022 that the map's dilution of black voters violated not just the Voting Rights Act, but also the United the state's constitution. And so you have this court, this Roberts Court, demanding arguments right away to decide what it's going to do. And we know just two weeks ago when this issue came up around Tennessee and the Tennessee white dominant legislature was trying to destroy black representation in Congress by dividing Memphis three ways, this Roberts court had briefs come in at 5 p.m. and issued a ruling in the face of thousands of pages of oral, of argument, a written argument, like 39 minutes.

later, slapping down the people seeking to protect black representation and siding with that white legislature. So what is the court going to do at like 539 next week? Is it going to basically, you know, ignore its previous findings and allow Alabama to go forward with maps that absolutely dilute the black vote, and intentionally so? Well, that's the stunning part, is the Supreme Court, the point of the Supreme Court, the point of the Supreme Court, court, the point of there only being nine justices, the point of them having a lifetime appointment, the point of them only reviewing select number of cases, is they are supposed to be a stable, you know, a captain of the legal ship, let's say. And they're not supposed to

make that many turns. Chief Justice Roberts, the most advocate, like talk about, you know, like activist judge, the most activist Supreme Court ever, upending, legal precedent over and over and over. But just this one case, like you said, we are talking about them saying that this same Alabama map was a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Two, three years ago, now they've completely changed their interpretation of the Voting Rights Act despite the fact that Congress has not done anything different. Congress, of course, wrote Voting Rights Act.

And now are they changing even their interpretation of intentionally? discrimination that they just said two weeks because to your point, the easiest thing to do would just have been to let the lower court decision stand. The lower court in, you know, re-reviewing based on Kaleigh said, okay, we do find intentional discrimination and it really should be case closed. The fact that there's any open issue to this point, I can't imagine they're going to somehow narrow it even more. I don't know how they could do that without completely losing any sense of justice. But I don't know, this is the Supreme Court. The fact that they are even briefing it seems to me like they are planning on narrowing

it even more. And to your point about that Purcell doctrine, right? We are at a point back in December, if you all remember, is when Texas tried to redistrict and the court there said it was a violation of the Voting Rights Act. And the Supreme Court back in December said it was too close to the election. And so that decision could not stand. And we are in in the middle of primaries or right around the corner from primaries. The fact that they are fast-tracking decisions to perhaps rewrite a decision they made two weeks ago, Chief Justice Roberts not that long ago just spoke out about the fact that American people have it wrong. And they think that this is too political of a court. You know, I think he needs to kind of do a little self-reflection in the mirror because you're supposed to be the steady captain of the shift.

Like, things shouldn't be changing this rapidly if this is really like what the law is. Yeah, I think Roberts is gaslighting America about this. These are the most political partisan decisions a court has issued in the modern era. This is the Roberts Court helping southern states resegregate their legislatures and their congressional delegations. The absolute obvious outcome of the Clay decision was that white dominated legislatures were going to go through their maps, claim it was all just for partisan gain while removing representation for black Americans in Congress and in the state legislatures and in other venues where people are elected. We are looking at a return to the post-reconstruction

era. In that brief 12-year period, you know, after the end of the Civil War, more than 2,000, black legislators at the federal state and local level were elected. But then the white supremacists got their hands back on the levers of power. And suddenly for more than 90 years, there was no black representation in, you know, from those southern states in Congress or the United States Senate. And that was, you know, by design, that was the effect of Jim Crow. And so here you have John Roberts. At the helm of the court, this supposed institutionalist, which he's not,

he's wielding the power of the court in order to, advance this very regressive agenda, in my view, and he's doing so knowing what the consequences would be. They knew when they issued that Calais decision where he handed the pin like a dagger to Sam Alito to crush Section 2 the Voting Rights Act that Southern States would take up their invitation and bleach out black representation in the South. Now, it didn't happen at least this week in South Carolina where the South Carolina legislature felt that they just could not get rid of the one single black representative in Congress, James Clyburn, get rid of that seat. But already a few years ago, again, John Roberts with Sam Alito taking the pin, the Supreme Court,

the Roberts Court, had allowed South Carolina to bleach out 20,000 voters out of the first district, put them into Clyburn's district in order to expand white dominance in the legislature in Congress by protecting that first district in South Carolina. So right now, at least in South Carolina, the map eliminating black representation in Congress is not going to go forward. It could go forward next year. It could go forward the year for that

because that's what John Roberts has allowed. But he's, you know, he's not a fair umpire despite his claims of the American people that he made in his confirmation hearings. He is not the institutionalist that he claims to be when he says there are no Republican or Democratic judges because this court is operating. in a way, basically at the back end call of Donald Trump, who has said he wants these southern

legislators, legislatures and others to rewrite their maps, to give him more representatives on the Republican side of the aisle to protect him from any oversight investigations from having to negotiate with Congress and possibly from being impeached for his wrongdoing. And so the stakes are super high, and the Roberts Court is putting its thumb on the scale of justice in favor of the white-dominated legislatures. You know, it is, though, a very hopeful now, and we should kind of, you know, give a shout out to that, that the Republicans

failed in South Carolina. That is the takeaway. Republicans fail to redistrict Representative Clyburn out of his seat. In part, perhaps, because of his popularity, I imagine there in the state among the voters and the colleagues, and perhaps that was a step too far.

But that was a real failure by the Republicans who wanted that even that extra seat. So perhaps we're seeing the end of the redistricting in the South. We'll see what happens with Alabama, but at least the Republicans did fail in South Carolina. Yeah, I mean, it is, I really think when you look back at the history in the United States and including the History of Voting Rights Act and how when it was signed into law with Lyndon Baines Johnson,

the president signing law, with Martin Luther, King and others there who fought these enormous battles to get the Voting Rights Act passed, that right to vote, the right to representation is such a vital right in our representative democracy. And we know that there have been efforts by some Republicans to try to nullify that right, to make it meaningless through eluding the vote so that you can vote, but it doesn't really matter because you're not going to win, you're not going to get representation. And we've seen the effect of a lack of representation. When people don't have representation, their issues don't come forward.

We saw in, you know, way back when in the Mobile versus Bolding case, because the white state and the White County had basically jerry-rig the system so that they would basically only be able to elect whites, then there was less trash removal. The roads weren't cleared. The schools were inadequate because all that power, the power of having your voice heard was taken away from black voters. And that's what's at stake here.

If you are going to take away the voices of black voters by basically diluting their vote, you are diluting their ability and our ability to have a democracy that's more fair, to have an economy that's more fair that reflects the desires and interests of working people versus the billionaires that John Roberts and his Republican appointees have put in the driver's seat in our election. And so I was going to say, Dina, one of the things that I realize now, after many years of really being such a devotee to that, you know, the Constitution and to these statutory rights that were earned with blood and sweat and tears,

is we have to remember that under Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to change the jurisdiction of the court. And if this court cannot be trusted to defer to the will of Congress on protecting our voting rights, if this court is determined to usurp Congress's power, which was given to it in the 14th and 15th Amendment, to implement those protections voting rights, then I think we have to have a serious conversation

about invoking that clause of the Constitution to limit the power of this captured court to issue rulings that are at odds with the findings. Thousands of pages of factual findings about the necessity of Section 2 and Section 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act in protecting our rights. And we're seeing the effect of this court's intervention,

its usurpation of congressional power. And so, you know, I'm watching this very closely, as are you, and it's really great to have the chance to have this conversation. your illegal AF with Udina. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely ushering a new Jim Crow area, which is being coined the John Crow era.

And he should have his name attached to this. He is the one who is ushering it in. And to your point, I think that we can't count on the Supreme Court, but this is a co-equal branch of government. Congress, we need Congress to step up and to have a

check, either to enforce and write better voting rights acts, because this This is not a constitutional issue so much as Congress can rewrite the act or, as you say, have limits on the Supreme Court. But in addition to ushering a new John Crow era, it's also ushering some new civil rights leaders. I mean, Congressman Justin Pearson and Tennessee, I mean, his advocacy speaking out about the fact that Memphis was being redistricted was so inspirational. you know, and we have to remember that we are the majority and to not get cynical and to vote and vote in numbers that even with this redistricting, that, you know, people show their voices because as you said, that's how people can be heard and represented. So we will take another ad break. You're here on the legal AF if you haven't subscribed and the Midasage Network. Be sure to do that.

Michael Popok has a legal AF substack that has a great number. of contributors. Check that out. Subscribe if you haven't. Lisa and I post articles there as well. And as Popok said, Lisa and I are anchoring a new Monday night live Legal AF. We love doing it. Help us grow the audience. If you were one of the early members of the LegalAF podcast way back when Michael Polpock started with Ben in the early days of Midas Touch Network, come be one of the early of people here with our podcast and help us grow it. We love doing it. We want to continue to do it.

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See terms for details. Joe Biden is coming out of retirement for a very good reason. He's suing the DOJ, in particular, around those interview tapes. As you remember, he was interviewed in connection with the classified document investigation that his own DOJ did with him

because Trump basically was complaining that he was being targeted with his classified document case. So they also investigated Joe Biden. Of course, nothing came of it. But the Heritage Foundation is filing a Freedom of Information Act in order to get those tapes.

The obsession with Joe Biden no longer being president. So Joe Biden is suing saying that this is politically motivated, that there's no public interest in getting the tapes. As we know, that we have actually gotten transcripts of what was said during that time. There was no indictments. The prosecutor decided not to indict. So at this point, he's saying this is just a matter of politics. Interestingly, this story is kind of breaking at the same time as we're hearing that Trump is planning on having

federal employees sign non-disclosure agreements. evidently it's voluntary, but this stunning development that a federal employee paid by taxpayer dollars, and everything, of course, is public government and transparent, may be signing nondisclosure agreements. At the same time here, Heritage Foundation is trying to have these tapes released. I have to say it's personally satisfying to see Joe Biden stand up for himself here. What do you think, Lisa? Yeah, I mean, I think this is a well-pleaded argument by Joe Biden and his lawyers. He talks about how these tapes, these audio tapes of his recordings with the author he was writing a book with about losing his son, Bo Biden.

I worked with Bo at the Justice Department in the Office of Legal Policy, the Office of Policy Development briefly. He was a very good man. He died from brain cancer early on far too early. And this was a very private book that Joe Biden was working with this. author on. This all came about, as you point out, because the Justice Department appointed a special independent counsel, special counsel, to look into allegations. Basically, not even allegations. What happened was the Biden team, after he left office, disclosed that they had inadvertently taken some files, some classified files, not the way that Trump did, not the boxes of files,

you know, stored in a ballroom bathroom at Moralago. But just in the name of disclosure that they had someone, they returned them, unlike Donald Trump, which fought who fought to keep them. The contrast here is also that in the case involving the classified documents that Donald Trump took, which were commingled with documents about business interests, suggesting, as Jamie Raskin wrote a letter to the Justice Department earlier this spring, suggesting that the documents were actively being used and were used in part or being used potentially to aid Trump's business interest in that investigation by Jack Smith, another special counsel appointed by the Justice Department, the Biden administration. Eileen Cannon, the Trump appointee to the federal district

court down there in Florida that has Mara Lago within its jurisdiction, Eileen Cannon, who repeatedly tried to swing the scales of justice toward Trump, has ordered that Jack Smith's findings in that classified investigation case never see the light of day, notwithstanding the fact that Donald Trump was indicted for those crimes, numerous crimes related to keeping documents that were of top secret or letter clearance, documents that were super important for the national security that Donald Trump took with him and, you know, that he tried to keep from returning to the United States government. Meanwhile, Joe Biden was never indicted. Bob, Robert Hur did not choose to pursue an indictment against him for this inadvertent retention of a few documents that the Biden

Biden team admitted, you know, voluntarily said that they had. And so there was no indictment, no prosecution of Biden. But on the other hand, you had an active prosecution of Trump. And the Trump, you know, Trump-aligned judge, Eileen Cannon is working to keep that under wraps. I'm sure the Justice Department under Trump with Todd Blanche, the helm, is happy to keep that secret. But it seems like they may be more than happy to aid the Heritage Foundation's efforts to to get information more than the information that's already been revealed, the redacted information from those interviews with Robert Hur about that book,

about Biden's recordings, to get more information in the public domain. The Heritage Foundation, as people may remember, was at the forefront of a thing called Project 2025. This was a project that was funded by groups, almost the majority of which were funded in part by Leonard Leo, the guy who helped capture the Supreme Court. The guy Donald Trump chose to choose his picks for the U.S. Supreme Court, the candidates for those appointments. And the Project 2025 agenda has been fully embraced by Donald Trump. It has Russell Vott over at the head of OMB, who's doing all sorts of destructive things beyond what Elon Musk did in the first, you know, a few months of what they call Doge or I call Dodgey. So the Heritage

Foundation is, you know, actively aligned with this administration. And it is, it is a few months. is actively seeking these materials, likely to try to embarrass Joe Biden for those interviews. I'm not suggesting that there is actually embarrassing information. What Joe Biden's legal team has said is that every American, I'm going to quote, every American, including a sitting or former vice president, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home. This is part of the filing. And they add, and when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure. So these were private conversations

about Joe Biden and his family and his sons, his son who is still living, who struggled with drug abuse, his son who died prematurely from brain cancer. These are private conversations. The fact that they came into the hands of the Justice Department don't have any bearing on criminal misconduct or misbehavior by Joe Biden. And yet, this Justice Department is poised unless this lawsuit proceeds successfully, this Trump Justice Department is poised to release those private conversations. And that's what's so disturbing is really to put a point on it. These were recordings about 70 hours of interviews that he gave to his author, the book author, back in 2017. This was not while he was president. He wasn't working on a private project while he's president. This was before he was

president, before perhaps even thought about running for president. As you said, he was talking about very private information about his family. And the only reason why the government has it is because he turned it over in this investigation. And so the special counsel had it. The special counsel didn't determine that it was worthy enough, right? That it wasn't as if the evidence was persuasive enough to file a criminal indictment. So it seems like just a roundabout way for the Heritage Foundation to get some private audio of former President Biden, which just, again, it seems like the obsession with him is perhaps also a distraction as we see Trump's health declining in real time is is former President Biden going to be speaking in a way that they are going to say,

oh, he's not speaking fast enough or, you know, whatever. I mean, I don't know. Like I, you know, like you said, we haven't heard it. But this was not a conversation he thought was going to be in the public eye. Who knows if it's emotional or not emotional. But the fact is we see the man who's sitting in the Oval Office falling asleep, you know, with people standing behind him. I mean, in real time.

falling asleep again and again and again, having his third health visit to Walter Reed, having bruises on his hands. And he's turning 80 in just, what, two short weeks. I think honestly, his UFC fight is probably trying to be a distraction of the fact that we are going to have an 80-year-old president, an 80-year-old president. I just want to underscore what you said, because these tapes are from after Joe Biden finished serving, you know, his dignified service as the Vice President of the United States with Barack Obama. I think Biden was at the top of his game in, you know, 2015, 2016, 2017. I certainly had some policy difference with him over the years, but I really, you know, definitely believe in his, in the goodness that his inherent, like, decency

and his deep devotion to his kids and his family. And so these were, recordings had nothing to do with the documents that were inadvertently retained in, you know, at the end of the Biden, you know, at the end of the administration, you know, his time in government and as a vice president or as a president, these were these personal conversation with a, with a writer where they're working on a book together. And so some of those conversations probably made it in the book. Some of them didn't make it in the book. Maybe they were sensitive. Maybe they might, you know, have an effect on his grandchildren or the spouses of his children, what he might say. say. And so he does have a right of privacy. And this just seems like the type of gamesmanship, as you suggest by heritage, to try to paint Biden in a false light or paint him in a negative light. As we see Donald Trump, you know, 10 years older than Biden was back then, I think maybe even more than 10 years older than Biden was back then. Now, you know, really, I think he is deteriorating before our eyes. We can see it in these weirdo sort of posts at like 5 a.m. or 3 a.m. and the memes, the disgusting memes that Trump is putting out,

his statements, the statements that he voluntarily makes to graduates, like at the Coast Guard Academy, things that are totally inappropriate, something that shows someone who does not have any mental capacity left to, like, limit his inhibitions in saying things that he just thinks, whether they're true or not. And then obviously we see this persistent falling asleep, where they say that he's just long blinking or something, you know, where Donald Trump is falling asleep while his, his, you know, operatives, his cabinet and other members, pretend like this is just normal and nothing to worry about and, you know, speak to the camera. You know, there are just so many ways in which Donald Trump is acting in ways that are abnormal for someone who is really healthy. Even like when that guy collapsed in the Oval Office and he basically, everyone turned to help the guy who collapsed and he just like looked off into the distance, it's strange, it's sad, it's disappointing, but it's also the man who has drawn.

us into a war of choice with Iran, a man who has been seeking to use our funds to basically erect all these statues to himself, to his name, and someone who is actively using our Department of Justice to pursue his enemies, including, you know, possibly this instance, where the justice is complicit in trying to further cast his versions on Joe Biden, who Donald Trump continues to blame things for, like, the price of gas, even though it's gone up under Trump, and the grocery gun up under Trump. So I think it's a distraction, but I think it's important that Biden has come in to defend his privacy rights. Absolutely. And, you know, it's the contrast. Trump's DOJ giving him, you know, access to this almost $2 billion fund to pay off his, you know, enemies.

And then Biden's DOJ investigating him, right? I mean, this is, how far we have fallen extreme. And I am glad that Biden pardon his family members because I'm sure Trump's DOJ would go after them. And I'm glad that he's suing the DOJ. And I'm glad the former federal judges are intervening and calling the attorney general somebody who committed fraud on the court. I don't think we can overstate how big that is actually, right? They are saying the attorney general of the United States committed fraud on the court. Gloves are are off. People who care about the rule of law cannot care about tradition or what that means in the Oval Office or should we do them or not. Biden absolutely has a right of privacy over

private conversations he have with an author years before he became president. He turned over what he needed to. The DOJ decided it was not enough. And that should be case closed. But the Heritage Foundation, as you said, with the Project 2025, you know, I mean, are just pervasive and what they're trying to do. But I do think that hopefully there's some hope here in this podcast. Also, we're starting to see people stand up, which they have to, which they have to. Yes. So it is, it's wonderfully part of this Wednesday edition of the Legal AF podcast with Eudena

and with Popak who had to go. He'll be back. We'll be back also on Mondays and I'm looking forward to seeing you all again. Thank you for tuning in. And as always, Dina, it's a joy to do these shows with you and talk about what's happening in our world. And also the hopeful notes that we can bring from what we're seeing, where the mask has fallen, where some of these strongholds

are cracking. And we can see people standing up in ways we've never seen before, like those federal judges, those former federal judges saying, hey, we cannot stand by and let a fraud be committed on the court. And we know that the parties who are complicit in it are not going to bring that forward. So I hope that that motion is honored. I hope the case is reopened. And I hope this fraud is investigated and pursued for all the ramifications of it.

Because it really, it's so wrong what's happening with this slush fund, with this theft of our dollars to aid Donald Trump's loyalists. And as you and I were talking about, I think, on Monday night, like, who knows how that money would be spent after enriching people who have, you know, been stockpiling weapons who were actively violent against the Capitol police and more, we have to make sure that that slush fund does not proceed. It's illegitimate, and I think it's morally wrong. That's certainly my opinion. Oh, absolutely. Morally wrong, ethically wrong, and scary whether or not he's trying to create some sort of private loyalist army for himself. So if you haven't subscribed to the Midas Touch Network or Legal AF channel, be sure to do that. Check out the Legal AF substack. Subscribe if you haven't already. Lots of great articles and posts that Michael Popock puts up there.

Great. He has compiled so many contributors to the Legal AF channel. There's so much great news putting out there. And Lisa and I are Monday night, 5 p.m. Eastern Live. We always take questions in the chat or comments. Love to grow that community. And we will, of course, always here on Legal AF Podcast update on these many legal developments. Thank you, Dina. Thanks, everyone.