Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 10/4/2025

Episode Date: October 5, 2025

What does winning look like against Trump in the federal courts during the Shutdown Showdown with the Democrats? What does winning look like when you bring a motion to dismiss a criminal indictment brought by Trump’s corrupt DOJ for “vindictive prosecution”? What does winning look like if you are Former FBI Director James Comey and the FBI wants to “perp walk” you for next week’s arraignment? What does winning look like in cases filed about Trump’s using tax payer dollars to generate political propaganda on Government websites, emails and voicemails? What does winning look like when the Supreme Court’s new term opens this coming week? Ben and Popok define “winning” in all of these contexts on the top rated Legal AF Podcast exclusively on the Meidas Touch Network. Support Our Sponsors: Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Dose Daily: Dose: Save 30% on your first month of subscription by going to https://dosedaily.co/LEGALAF or entering LEGALAF at checkout. Magic Spoon: Save $5 OFF your next order when you go to http://magicspoon.com/LEGALAF Prize Picks: Go to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LEGALAF and use code legalaf for a first deposit match up to $100!? Check Out The Popok Firm: ⁠https://thepopokfirm.com/⁠ Subscribe to the NEW Legal AF Substack: ⁠https://substack.com/@legalaf⁠ 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 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen⁠ The Weekend Show: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show⁠ Burn the Boats: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats⁠ Majority 54: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54⁠ Political Beatdown: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown⁠ On Democracy with FP Wellman: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman⁠ Uncovered: ⁠https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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advisor free of charge. BedmGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. We have a lot to discuss on this episode of Legal A.F. The Legal ramifications of the government shutdown. Also, the implications as it relates not just to the courts, but the fact that Maga Mike Johnson is not swearing in Congresswoman-elect Adelaide from Arizona 7th congressional district that she would lend her name to the Epstein Discharge petition to force a vote. Donald Trump's been golfing all day, and the MAGA Republicans seem outright giddy about this government shutdown. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the Eastern

District of Virginia shit show. You have some more prosecutors leaving that office and posting scotch taped resignation letters saying that this is a downright dangerous office and a dangerous place to work in terms of America's national security. You've got Abrago Garcia having a major victory in that Middle District of Tennessee criminal case on a vindictive prosecution dismissal. The judge there ordering discovery will break that down. some opening major moves by the United States Supreme Court, and even this Trump-appointed judge who got assigned the lawsuit in Oregon based on Donald Trump sending in troops to invade the city. Even this judge is a bit skeptical of what the Trump regime is doing.

In many ways, we'll see what this Trump judge does. You never know what a Trump judge is going to do. But it may actually be a better thing that the case was, moved to this judge in order to just stop the freaking whining to the extent this judge is able to uphold the law. We'll break it all down to spring in. Michael Popock. Great to see you, Popak. A busy week for you. I guess this is what Legal IF was made for, huh? Oh, you ain't kidding. And it's funny that because we had that sort of placeholder in our getting ready for the podcast for tonight. I wrote shit show. But it, you know what, it's perfect. There's so many of them.

I joked on a recent hot take. It's a day of the week. It must be another Trump scandal. And one thing I want to do just to take the plane up 5,000 feet before we dive in is just to give my observations about what we're watching with the Trump administration. We are watching an incredibly shrinking presidency. I don't mean that as a pun against the size of the government. I mean in terms of the person. all of his actions, all of his cosplay, whether it's the, well, I need to change the new cycle,

so I'm going to do a military review of stone-faced admirals and generals who don't agree with anything that I'm saying. Although that didn't work, oh, let me pull the emergency break and shut down the government. Oh, let me send out AI, let me retweet AI generated images of my political oppose. saying crazy shit. This is that and the positions that he's taking, like we're going to get to the Eastern District of Virginia and the fact that they want to perp walk the former FBI director

with, quote, unquote, beefy agents wearing full kit with FBI emblazoned everywhere in order to violate the Department of Justice Manual about publicity and to try to embarrass Comey, knowing that the indictment against Comey is so weak, is so subject to dismissal on its face and for vindictive prosecution. We'll talk about how that's going in some courts as well. But these are the acts of a desperate, weak, shrinking presidency, and it is starting, thank

God, to show up in the polling. You have 61% of America effectively that have completely rejected Donald Trump and every major tenant of his, every major plank of his platform, from economic to public health to national security, global economy, you name it. It is a complete and utter rejection in the polls. And more, and even more recent polling, Donald Trump's efforts to exploit, and we're going to kick off the podcast with the exploitation attempt by Donald Trump of the shutdown, to pin it on the Democrats, to have snarky emails and voicemails and post-it notes, posted to websites, blaming the radical left and all that. It is backfiring, and the public is not falling for it.

They're not blaming the Democrats for their attempts to get back funding to help the American people. They're blaming Donald Trump, putting the blame, putting the tail squarely on the elephant for this particular thing. So I see all of this as, even, though we could start every, I could start every one of my hot takes with, well, another loss of the United States Supreme Court today. But that's not the way I read this. The way I read it is Donald Trump is demonstrating to the American people, his unfitness for office and to prepare for the all-important midterm elections and beyond. And we need to win the midterm. So he's helping us out because whether it's a hot take that you do about him going out the back door in the White House or

posting an AI generated of Schumer and Hakeen Jeffries or doing something else depraved, it is starting to show up in the public's rejection of Trumpism. So I interviewed former FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, and that interview is appearing on the Midas Touch Network. And I asked him, I said, you know, with all of this going on, what gives you hope? He goes, you know, when I was the commissioner, when I was the chairman of the FCC during the Obama administration, no one knew who I was. He said, we would work in the background and do the work as public servants and occasionally, don't get me wrong, the media would report on you. But the general public has no clue who the chairman of the FCC is.

Now we all know it's Brendan Carr. The public didn't really know who the head of the EPA would be. Maybe you'd know for like the initial appointment, but you ask a regular person, you know, who's watching football on Sunday. You know, who's the head of the EPA? They wouldn't be able to tell you. How about the Bureau of Labor Statistics? The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the head of the National Oceanic Administration, who's actually running FEMA on a day-to-day basis. So what Wheeler told me, though, is that people are understanding the importance of this system.

and that there are these public servants behind the scenes who did this with their heads down and made it work. And you see what happens right now when you have all of these people who don't take their job seriously or who just are put in positions to destroy their agencies. And I want everybody to remember, these agencies exist because of bipartisanship. an agency doesn't just get created the way a rain cloud forms from a cumulonimbus in a no an agency has an enabling statute so congress came together for example in 1934 and created the communications act creating the FCC the modern version of it which in its enabling statute

talks about diversity of ownership and diversity of viewpoints in 1934 on a overwhelming bipartisan basis, they use the words diversity of ownership, diversity of viewpoints, the EPA, bipartisan, all of these agencies that now Trump and everyone go, oh, this is woke, this is woke. This was Democrats and Republicans coming together when we talk about some of these areas regarding the shutdown and you really try to, I guess, drill down on what the Republicans are saying if you want to say, oh, right, is there any government money that's going to migrants at all? The answer is no. It's going to potentially hospitals in this one example,

EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment Act, that was shepherded through by Republicans and Democrats and Reagan. And no one thought this was a controversial topic that if a human being is bleeding out and is about to die, that an emergency room physician treats the individual. And then the emergency room physician either needs to get paid for it somewhere or else the hospital's going to go bankrupt. And you can view this through a very selfish lens. In these life or death matters where every second is meaningful, what if the doctor asks you for your papers when you're in the emergency room?

because you look a certain way. But you see why we have EMTAL, but when it comes to is the federal government providing Medicare, Medicaid, or Affordable Care Act subsidies to undocumented migrants, the answer is no. It's just blatantly against the law. So in all of these areas,

MAGA is bringing us to, you know, have these fake fights and just divide us. And what we try to use legal AF4, and this Midas Dutch Network, is just to educate. So I just want to, I'm going to turn this over to you, Popak, to talk about all of the shutdown ramifications, but I just want to bring up this one point, and this is this morning, where Cash Patel posts the following, FBI director Cash Patel, the former podcaster. He's responding to Barb McQuaid, University of Michigan law professor, former United States attorney out of the Eastern

District of Michigan, right, someone who knows what she's talking about, through the U.S. attorney. And she goes, DOJ policy prohibits perp walks in which arrestees are paraded before the cameras. She's just citing policy. Then Cash Patel gets so triggered on Twitter, now X, he goes, MSNBC, still an ass clown factory of disinformation. Same circus animals that slobbered all over perp walks of Stone, Navarro, and Bannon. MSNBC has no facts and no audience. in this FBI, we follow the chain of command or you get relieved. And we'll talk later in the show.

This is about Cash Patel firing the FBI personnel who refused to perp walk James Comey out. And as Anna Bauer points out, what would be the legal basis for arrest in Comey? DOJ requested a summons, not an arrest warrant under Rule 9 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. So is the Department of Justice going back to the magistrate to ask for a warrant, even though Comey hasn't failed to appear? If not, what's the exigency for a warrantless arrest? So this is not a Democrat, Republican, or independent issue. This is like just an adult behavior issue and knowing what the facts and the law is. So when I look at Cash Patel, you and I and our host on this network, I'm not looking through it. Oh, I'm a Democrat. He's a Republican. He's a stupid guy.

That's not the way I'm thinking about it. I'm looking at his behavior. and saying he's not behaving like a grown-up, he's not behaving like a leader, he's not behaving like a leader of the FBI, which is a big position, and he's wrong on the law. And I'm not okay with that as a lawyer, as an American citizen,

and you all should just want to know the facts and the truth. So with that said, Popat, let's give people the facts and the truth. I want to turn it over to you to frame the, we'll get to Patel in a bit. Frame the issue, though, of the shutdown and its consequences. All right, first of all, on the same, staying on the same topic of we don't have an adult in the room. And the Trump administration made a calculated decision that has backfired that they would try to exploit the shutdown, having no intention of negotiating a good faith with the Democratic leadership to avoid the shutdown for those around the world.

We're not out of money, but more money has to be appropriated in order to keep the government operating. the we've run out of money on a prior appropriation. And normally this leads to policy discussions. And when there's adults on both sides of the equation, which there isn't now, we have a policy discussion in public about how to fix things like the bill that was shoved down the Democrats' throat and the American people's throat to make them suffer to have Medicare, Medicaid, social security, things related to helping seniors and children ripped out of the budget and to hold them politically accountable.

That's how we got here. And so there's just certain things that are worth the fight. Even when the Democrats knew that if this goes 10 or 30 or 50 days or whatever it could be, that Donald Trump would try to exploit it, they made, the Democrats made their own political calculus, that it would backfire. And the more that Donald Trump tried to exploit, the more it would backfire politically on them. And it's going exactly according to plan. Donald Trump, of course, is helping the Democrats and giving them a gift a minute when you have things like, I want to just play, we'll do two quick things before I get to what's happening now off the shutdown that the Democrats and courts and judges and parties are using to their advantage against the shutdown that overwhelmingly in new polling, rapid polling, the Americans are blaming Donald Trump for.

So when you phone into the White House, you get Carolyn Levitt, Caroline Levitt, on the answering, on the voicemail. And here's what she says politically propaganda and sloganeering in violation of the hatchack. Let's play it. Thank you for calling the White House comment line. Hello, America. This is White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. Democrats in Congress have shut down the federal government because they care more about funding health care for illegal immigrants than they care about serving you, the American people.

Until Democrats vote for the clean Republican-backed continuing resolution to reopen the government, the White House is unable to answer your call or respond to your questions. We look forward to hearing from you again very soon, and in the meantime, please know, President Trump will never stop fighting for you. Thank you, and God bless you. All right. Not only is that a Hatch Act violation and likely a violation of anti-deficit laws because they're continuing to spend money for political sloganeering,

which you're not allowed to do on the public toll. She has a job to do. She's getting paid by taxpayer dollars, as is all the other departments and agencies, which have posted snarky emails and messages, or even gone in, in the case of the Department of Education, gone in and changed emails and outgoing email messages for employees in order to make this course political point that's actually boomeranging against them. It's gotten so bad speaking about a lack of adults in the room that Donald Trump, from one of his social media accounts, thought it was funny to post an AI-generated image of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. we've seen the original press conference.

Let's just show a short clip of that. Look, guys, there's no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke trans bullshit. Right. Okay, with Hakeem Jeffries and some sort of stereotypical tropey Mexican garb. So it's racist. It's, I mean, it's obviously no one would think that's actually Chuck Schumer talking in.

It's scary, though, how AI can do your voice that way. But that's what the president of the United States is doing when he's not trying to lobby over the next six days, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and the Norwegian Parliament to give him the Nobel Peace Prize, which was what all of that ordering of Israel to stop Bob in Gaza, which they quickly ignored, was all about announcing a peace deal that doesn't yet exist because he's trying. to win the award on the 10th of October. That's what the President America First of the United States is doing. So in response, there are impacts of the shutdown and ways to hold Donald Trump responsible. I mean, the Democrats are getting very good at counterpunching Donald Trump. You did a great video. I did a version of my own about, where's the $17 trillion, Donald?

It either came in and you're hiding it from the American people from all the nations that invested in America off of the tariffs or you're bullshitting America and we're going to call you out on your BS and I think that we know it's the latter. So you have, first you've got what's going on to the courts. Criminal cases like Comey apparently are going forward and they're even wasting money violating the Department of Justice Media guidelines principles about perp walks on the criminal side. But there's, there are hundreds, I mean, 300 or more. civil cases in federal courts around the country, as we all know, because we cover them so extensively, brought by groups like the Attorneys General and California and the 23 Blue

Attorneys General, the ACLU, Democracy Forward. They're all with us in collaborating with us over on Legal A.F as well. And those suits, I mean, are starting to be stayed, meaning they're going to extend the time, like Judge Bozberg just did in D.C., extend the time to match. the length of the shutdown for the government to respond to the lawsuit. It doesn't stop the filing of new lawsuits. It doesn't stop the filing of emergency applications, which will be put in a special category. But like all those cases we've talked about, about civil rights and the National Guard

and voting rights and big law firms and attacks on education, they're kind of at a slowdown mode because the government is out of money. Again, this is an attempt by Donald Trump to change the weather in the room and hit the emergency break because he's doing his Trump presidency is a train wreck. It's one we can neither look away from nor look at, and he knows it. And so, hey, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is about to come out with the new job numbers that the Federal Reserve needs in order to set interest rates. I have an idea.

Let's shut down the government, and we won't issue the report. How convenient, except all the prime. private entities around our economy, like the payroll services and others, have issued their reports and said, you are not creating any new jobs, and we're in trouble. And so he's got to deal with that. So courts are starting to issue standing orders of the chief judges of their federal district courts to give the Department of Justice a little bit of breathing room on the civil side.

It doesn't affect. Apparently, you know, that's a good question. I'm not sure what's happening at the United States Supreme Court because the Solicitor General's got to show up the first Monday of October for a case about transgender rights. And I haven't received any notice. I'm going to look back up on the Supreme Court website. I haven't received any notice that the first Monday of October with the new term has been canceled due to the shutdown. That's an interesting question, though. Is that an essential service that has to happen? So you've got that going on. Then you've got the lawsuits that have been filed by the major federal worker labor unions in the,

the Northern District of California, which are calling out Donald Trump's efforts, along with Russ Vote, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, and the architect of Project 2025, to shrink further the federal government, which means destroy further the relationship between the American people and the funding, the federal funding and programs that they desperately need. Because this administration, if anything, does not care about the American people, all it cares about is increasing their suffering. So if the economy across the board wasn't causing enough suffering and the immigration policy linked to that wasn't doing it for them,

you have Russ vote trying to kill transportation programs and public works programs, but only in blue states under the, well, you know, they're trying to hire women and blacks. I'm like, okay, then that, where's the problem? So they're trying to use the smoke screen and exploit the shutdown to shrink the government further. And the federal workers, federal workers union has run into court to say, well, how can you implement and execute the RIF, the reduction in force, the firings? That violates the anti-deficit laws. That violates many aspects of the government shutdown and calling them out for that. And then you've got the public watchdogs who are filing dozens of Hatch Act violation notices because of the websites and the voicemails that we played at the top of the segment because they are all in violation of the Hatch Act.

Now, the problem we have with that, which is the law that says that while you're on the government time and doing the taxpayers, supposed to be providing honest service to the taxpayers, not politicking. You're supposed to be nonpartisan at your job. If you're politicking, which is all that we've been watching, you violate the Hatch Act. If you're found guilty of it, you could be barred from federal service for five years, Caroline Levitt, and a fine. It usually starts with the Office of Special Counsel, but right now that's been furloughed and doesn't have a permanent head because of Donald Trump, among other problems. But eventually, the federal courts are going to get involved with these Hatch Act violations. and I'll just add the segment this way, Ben, recall that they're currently, they were investigating prosecutor Jack Smith for violating the hatch act because he did his job to get and to do an investigation

and obtain indictments against Donald Trump. And they said that was election interference instead of trying to bring Donald Trump to justice. So this is why Donald Trump and MAGA wants to rig this midterm election. so badly. They've known they violated so many laws. And for a lot of them, Donald Trump may be able to assert absolute immunity for himself, although I've argued in other videos based on a lot of his posting and funding on his social media platform, Truth Social, which is named that way in a very Russian and dystopian way, and based on the fact that a lot of his statements are tied to campaign fundraising because he's still campaigning right now and he sends these emails out,

give me money, give me money, give me money, that to me is going to be outside some of that absolute immunity ruling from the United States Supreme Court. But regardless, it's obviously going to be tougher cases there against Trump. His people around him don't have absolute immunity. So they're engaging in crimes against humanity, war crimes that we're seeing them brag about war crimes within the United States, the way ISIS behaving. I mean, this, let's just face it, these are war crimes going on in the United States. All these other people right now, because of the DOJ being utterly destroyed, they feel that they have immunity. But the reality is, is that there's criminal conduct taking place, my opinion. And I think the

American people see it. I think the American people see the lawlessness and they despise it. So when we come back, I want to talk about, though, the DOJ. I want to talk about Judge Boasberg, what he had to say to the D.C. federal prosecutor, Janine Piro, the former Fox host. I want to talk about the Eastern District of Virginia being absolutely destroyed. I want to show you how the fact that Trump has engaged in these vindictive prosecutions is backfiring in his face, as we see with Abrago Garcia and the implications that that's going to have for Comey. we'll talk about that and more when we come back. A reminder, Michael Popak has started a law firm. It's called the Popok firm. And so if you or anybody you know has been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident, you've been the victim of sexual assault, sexual harassment, if you've been the victim of somebody else's negligence, whether that's medical malpractice or otherwise, or if you know somebody who has been hurt or injured or is the victim of a wrongful death type situation, in any of those scenarios, the consultation is free. Give Michael Popop.

and his law firm a call. Go to the Popokfirm.com. That's the Popokfirm.com. Check it out. And you could also give a call. 1-877 Popak AF, 1-877 Popak AF. The consultation's absolutely free. They take cases on what's called the contingency.

So give a call. Don't be shy. I know you trust Popok to handle these cases. He's got lawyers across the country. Don't be shy. Give a call. Thousands of people have called Popok already. and he's representing a ton of listeners of the show.

Further, make sure you subscribe to Michael Popock's substack, the LegalAF substack, and LegalAF on YouTube. I'd love to get that LegalAF on YouTube. One million subscribers by the end of this year. We're really close, so make sure you subscribe there. All right, first break of the show. We'll be right back with much more here on Legal AF. This episode is brought to you by Price Picks.

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Welcome back to LegalAF. Thank you to our sponsors. The discount codes are in the description below. Support our show by supporting our sponsors. and I think you'll really like our sponsors. We spend a lot of time vetting them and seeing which ones we think that you'll like and working on those discount codes for you. Popak, let's combine these next two topics together because I think they're related.

The Eastern District of Virginia Shit Show, as you put it to me last night, another major resignation from one of their top terrorism prosecutors who's actually currently prosecuting the case against an individual who blew up at the Ahmed Karzai Air Force Base and killed 13. American soldiers who was extradited from Pakistan to the United States. This guy's the, this federal prosecutor, 20 years on the job, not a Democrat or a Republican. He once had some association with Lisa Monaco, who Laura Lumer and the Trump world say, you know, if you're Lisa Monaco, because she worked in the DOJ and, you know, in the DOJ investigated Donald

Trump when she was there, you know, she saw a Trump post. She shouldn't be able to work at Microsoft. Microsoft, you need to fire Lisa Monaco. They just kind of ignored her. I think that's a trend now. If you stand up and just ignore the guy and fight back, you win. That's the whole story of this guy's life. He's bluffs and he threatens and he tries to bully you.

And so many people fall for that stick. Stand up. He's weak. He's pathetic. Anyway, I digress there. Eastern District of Virginia, Judge Bosberg in monishing Janine Piro to her face. And then I think Popak, you also connect that to what happened in the Middle District of Tennessee, where the Trump regime put their finger on the scale and intruded on the independence of the DOJ

by making them prosecute Abrago Garcia when he returned to the United States for a 22 traffic stop where even the highway patrol officer didn't find any basis to arrest Abrago Garcia. They charged Abrago with human trafficking and then the Trump regime went out and made all of these false and defamatory statements about Abrago. They painted MS-13 on his knuckles. All of these things where the judge was like, you know, a vindictive prosecution is a hard showing to make because every criminal defendant thinks that the prosecutor is going after them because they're vindictive. So the threshold showing is high. If you make the showing, you get discovery on it. And that discovery can be brutal for the individual and behaving vindictively. And I think this may be foreshadowing what's

going on with Comey. So Popak, the challenge I'm throwing to you is weave that all together, my man. Weave it all together. I'm the big weaver. Thank you very much. All right. Let's start with Michael Ben Ari, who is the prosecutor whose departure involuntary has made us all less safe. Donald Trump is busy firing the best and the brightest in the Department of Justice, especially when comes to national security and terrorism, leaving us all less safe. Eastern District of Virginia is probably one of the top three or four most prestigious had been Department of Justice, sorry, federal districts in America, not only because it's one of the original created in 1789 when we created our federal court system, but because it's where

the Pentagon and the CIA sit. And so it is the home of the terrorism cases. It's the home of the espionage cases. And you want, to paraphrase a few good men, you want Michael Ben Ari, that prosecutor to be on that wall. You need him on that wall. And he's no longer on that wall. And his departing shot, he was fired literally because a Laura Lumer-like social media influencer, I don't know what makes her an influencer. She has no background. She's not a journalist. She didn't break a story. She's just a MAGA mouthpiece for propaganda, and she posted something about him being part of the resistance at the Eastern District of Virginia when Halligan, Lindsay Halligan, became the insta prosecutor with no prosecutor experience and was given the task by Donald Trump in the order to indict Comey at all cause. Now, there was a dozen or so prosecutors who put together a memo that advised. her not to bring the prosecution because the case was weak and violated the Department of Justice Manuel.

But Michael Ben Ari was not part of that. He was just doing his job keeping us safe prosecuting the cobble bombing that you talked about and other matters and had been doing so for multiple presidents over a 20-year term. He gets fired. Maya, I think Snow is her last name, sung, sorry, gets fired. She's right beneath him. The son-in-law of James Comey quits, who's also in that department in national security, quits the day of the indictment.

And Lindsay Halligan has nobody to guide her, but it wouldn't have been Michael anyway, in her obtaining of the prosecution. I've raised a question that is yet to be answered. Why did they use Lindsay Halligan in the Eastern District of Virginia? Why didn't Janine Piro bring it in D.C.? why didn't main justice bring it in D.C. if they cared so deeply about the case and thought it was such a good one. Because the testimony, although it was done by Zoom from Eastern District of Virginia, was in the Senate. And so they could have done it in Washington, and yet they did not because they

wanted to set her up as a Patsy. They don't care about the indictment. They don't care that it's going to be successful. They just want the headlines. Indictment of former FBI director. And they're going to try to get as much mileage out of it as they can. Purp walk of FBI director. This indictment is, I'm surprised it's still here. It is not only weak on its face deficient within its face, but the new developments in the Abrago-Garcia case, I'll get to in a minute, on vindictive prosecution, are being closely watched, I assure you, by Comey's lawyers, Pat Fitzgerald, the former U.S. Attorney for Chicago, and he's going to use it as a knockout punch against the Department of Justice here. And the more Donald Trump realizes he's not going to have an indictment get sustained or stay around long,

the more he rushes with high velocity to use social media to convict the person. And if I'm Pat Fitzgerald, I allow the perp walk. I don't fight off the perp walk. You can file motions and all sorts of things and say self-surrender. But, you know, Comey's a big strap. guy, let him take the perp walk and let them use that video with their own video group to support their future motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution. Here's what Michael Ben Ari wrote on the way out of being the Eastern District of Virginia

head of national security and in the middle of a prosecution that led to 13 American service people and over 100 Afghanis dying. He said, justice for Americans killed and injured by our enemies should not be contingent on what someone in the Department of Justice sees in their social media feed that day. And then, of course, he's embarrassed for the Department of Justice as well. Eastern District of Virginia has lost four top people, starting with Eric Seabert, who resigned rather than bring the charges against Letitia James, which I guess, or James. Komi, which was his test case. And he left, and we are a lesser of a nation as a result of that. Lindsay Halligan will now put all sorts of other meat puppets and crash test dummies into these various roles. And she's going to be way underwater very, very quickly.

Eastern District of Virginia judges don't play. They are used to a high level of sophisticated legal proceedings and operations. And if they think that Bose Judge Bozberg and the D.C. judges have not been kind to them. Wait till they see with the Eastern District of Virginia on espionage and terrorism cases due to Lindsay Halligan. They're going to eat her alive and for lunch. So we've got the chaos that is Eastern District, including a future challenge, I'm sure, that is coming against Lindsay Halligan being appointed the way she was appointed. Because there is a very good argument. It is violative of the statute. under the Vacancy Reform Act and of the Constitution, and therefore she is improperly the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District, and just like the Nevada U.S. attorney has been bounced by a federal judge and Alina Hava, although it's up on appeal, got bounced in New Jersey. Watch for the criminal defendants to file a motion as soon as Lindsay Halligan

starts touching something like a new indictment down there. now we have the what everybody's sitting in the front row ringside seats for which is one of the first vindictive prosecution motions being brought by a target of the trump administration we effectively have two out there right now one that was filed by representative mcgiver of new jersey that has not yet been fully litigated but the one that is not only moving very quickly but to my interpretation of the order by judge krenshaw that just got issued last night i think the Trump administration is going to have this indictment against Abrago Garcia for human smuggling. It's not trafficking. It's smuggling. Be dismissed for vindictive prosecution, which is another version of prosecutorial misconduct and abuse. Why do I say that?

Because I know the headline on a lot of mainstream media was like, discovery ordered in Braco Garcia. Not quite. There's already been a finding by the judge that Abrago Garcia has carried. his burden to show that there is at least a reasonable argument that he has been the subject of vindictive prosecution. And to win on that at a hearing, which will be coming in the future that has now been ordered because the appellate courts of the district in which this judge operates have said, you've got to do an evidentiary hearing, and you've got to allow discovery, meaning

sworn statements under oath, meaning depositions, get ready, Department of Justice, get ready, Todd Blanche, because the number one piece of evidence that Judge Crenshaw said supports both actual vindictive prosecution, which is usually so difficult to prove. You've got to have like an email or a confession in a video on Fox in which the link between the prosecution being started in retaliation for somebody asserting their rights. And the linkage is so clear from Todd Blanche, that the judge says in his order, which we posted up on Legal A.F. Substack, that this video clip not only supports actual vindictive prosecution, but at least it does what's called, I just blew out of my head. Give me a second. Presumptive, presumptive vindictive prosecution,

which is a lower standard, but gets the dismissal of the indictment, none the same. And when you're doing presumptive, you look at what a reasonable person looking at all the facts would conclude about whether this was retaliation for the exercise of some right, the due process constitutional right of Abrago Garcia in Maryland after he got sent to the torture prison of El Salvador in front of Judge Zinnis and won twice at the Fourth Circuit multiple times with Judge Zinnis and 9-0 at the Supreme Court. Then the indictment comes out from a traffic stopped during the Biden era that, as you said, didn't even result in a ticket for not driving without a license. Let's play the clip. So we always bring the receipts on legal AF and might as

touch. We have the actual clip that the judge was referring to that he says shifts the burden to the government now to prove that it's not vindictive prosecution. Let's roll the clip. So this had nothing to do with Judge Bosberg's decision, which I thought was, you know, over the top Supreme Court saying, you know, you've got to try to facilitate the return. So you're saying tonight that that warning of possible contempt charges against administration officials, none of that had anything to do with the investigation. No. I mean, first of all, the Supreme Court stayed any contempt proceedings by Judge Bosberg. That case has been stayed. In this case, we had a judge in Maryland tell us that, oh, no, there's not any evidence that he's a

member of MS-13. You had no right to deport him. And so we, what should we do as a Department of Justice? What a judge is accusing us of doing something wrong? We have an obligation to everybody, including you, to investigate it. And that's exactly what we did. And so the reason why he was returned and the facilitation that brought him back here is not a judge. It's an arrest warrant issued by a grand jury from the Middle District of Tennessee charging him with two counts of very serious charges involving nine years of smuggling aliens all over this country, from Texas to Maryland and other states. That's why he's back. And that's why the government of El Salvador agreed to bring him back because of a federal arrest warrant. Okay. So that's the clip.

And the judge says, and I've read cover to cover, of course, the 16 pages or so that, and this is something that sort of got missed by the non-legal commentators. Burden shifting is a big deal. let's do a little teachable legal AF law school moment here originally when you have when you file the motion the burden is on you on your defense to prove uh that it's more likely than not in this sort of circumstance that you that's something that your motion should be successful that that bad thing happened to you the burden's on you however here once the move it in this case of brago Garcia and his lawyers, came forward with all of the attacks on a Brago Garcia by Christy Nome, by Pam Bondi, by Tom Holman, the bribery accepting head of the borders czar, by Donald Trump,

as you alluded to earlier in the segment, and Todd Blanche, particularly. Once that came in, the judge says, all right, burdens on you now, you, to. Department of Justice, you now have to prove to me on a more likely than not standard that you didn't vindictively prosecute. And he gave them two examples, which they'll never be able to come over that hurdle. One is like if you came up with new evidence since the traffic stop about that matter, or it was impossible to prosecute for some reason at that time. If those are the examples, This is not the reason that they manufactured a indictment against Abrago Garcia. It was to retaliate against him being on a winning streak in front of Judge Zinnis,

the Fourth Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court 90 for his defending his due process rights, not to be sent illegally to El Salvador over his multiple orders to stay in this country and work here legally. So I see this as a winner. Here's what's going to happen. There's going to be a hearing next week. Judge Crenshaw is going to set the parameters for the discovery and the depositions because he says it has to be sworn testimony that he's going to set a hearing, maybe October, November. And I think that indictment gets kicked.

And that's great news to LaMonica McIver, representative from New Jersey, Letitia James, New York Attorney General, Senator Adam Schiff, could be Lisa Cook, certainly to James. Comey about how you effectively use the indicative prosecution as a way to defeat the Trump administration. You know, I just am looking forward to what this discovery is going to look like. That federal judge out of the Middle District of Tennessee was really smart, I think, in the way the order did not really divest the discretion that the judge has. you know, if you dismissed it right away for vindictive prosecution, what would happen? Trump regime would immediately try to appeal it, and they would, you know, try to rush to the Supreme Court. By making this factual finding in a very detailed way, the, and then ordering discovery,

the judge is well within their discretion to do that. And what I think will probably happen is you're going to see all these people like Attorney General Blanche who's made public statements. I mean, Donald Trump's made public statements. Pam Bondi has made public statements. In what world do they think that they are not susceptible to depositions and discovery here when they're out there saying all of these things about Abrago Garcia? Now, you may say, but I've never heard other attorney generals or heads of FBI or deputy attorney generals getting deposed in vindictive prosecution cases. Are these just leftist judges who are doing that? No, it's criminal actors in the executive office behaving in ways that the FBI, the DOJ, a president has never behaved before.

Attorney General Merrick Garland would not be out there making statements about, set aside Merrick Garland. Go back. Gonzalez, the George W. Bush, you know, attorney, you know, go back to any attorney general. They don't make public statements about specific cases or even. general cases. They're very circumspect in their interviews. They're not out there tweeting and posting because you make yourself susceptible to discovery in situations like this. And it's supposed to be independent. And then within the independence of the DOJ, the various districts are supposed to, they all report to main justice, but they're also supposed to act locally and in the interest and

and semi-autonomously, although obviously linked to the Department of Justice. I want to point this out as well, which is what Stephen Miller posted earlier. And this is what Miller is saying about judges. He goes, the Democrat Party has filled our legal and judicial system with radicals who protect left-wing terrorists. This is a very real and dire crisis for our radicals. Republican form of government. As our editor-in-chief, Ron Filipkowski says, this seems like incitement of violence against judges. It doesn't seem like it. It is incitement of violence against judges. And this is Trump's main guy, Stephen Miller, a weirdo, a weirdo, as

California Governor Gavin Newsom says, the guy, you know, with, you know, the guy in the armchair watching in the hotel room is what Governor Newsom. Governor Newsom actually wrote that and posted that. So I'm just, I'm just quoting. So this stuff is weird. It's deranged. It's weak. It's not the United States of America.

There are George W. Bush judges, George H.W. Bush judges, Ronald Reagan judges, Trump judges, Obama judges, Biden judges. At the district court level, I would say overwhelmingly, regardless of who's appointed you, they're ruling against Donald Trump at a very high rate. 93% at the circuit court level, pretty much also affirming what the district court judges are doing, certainly a less percentage, but still at a pretty high percent. Slightly, maybe high 80s. In the Supreme Court, different story. And this is why you've done multiple hot takes on what's happening there,

where on a procedural basis, not even on substantive and merits, on a procedural basis the Supreme Court right-wing justices have been stepping in and they've been saying we're going to stay or pause the lower court's ruling because we think that there will be irreparable harm to the United States presidency if the district courts, whatever the order was, stays in place. So all the Supreme Court's been saying, which actually has a merits impact because if Trump's able to do the unlawful thing, by the time it reaches the Supreme Court, it's often moot. The people are deported. The people die. The funds are removed. The agency is destroyed.

So the Supreme Court right-wing fascists are trying to be cute, and they're like, well, we're not ruling on the merits. We're just doing procedure. But they know effectively it neuters the case because Trump has the time to then engage in the unlawful acts because the Supreme Court's pausing what the lower courts are doing. And that's the major issue right now that we're dealing with. If the Supreme Court didn't do that on certain key cases, then there would actually be some layer and level of accountability, but we have to face it.

We have an authoritarian right-wing fascist Supreme Court run by six lunatics by and large. And it pains me to say that as someone who went to Georgetown Law, who used to admire the Supreme Court, who thought this was once an august body. But you see across history lessons and across the world, Supreme Courts in other countries capitulating to authoritarian regimes for whatever reason. But they are arms of it. When we come back, I want to talk about what the Supreme Court's been doing. That's a good segue there and more.

Let's take our last quick break of the show. A reminder, make sure you subscribe to Michael Popock's YouTube channel. That's the Legal AF YouTube channel. Okay, everybody subscribe there. Subscribe to the substack, the legal AF substack. And if you or anyone you know has been injured in an auto accident, a trucking accident, you've been injured by the negligence of others, victim of sexual harassment or sexual assault.

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meaning they don't recover unless you recover. Last quick break of the show, Homestretch coming up. We'll be right back after this last quick break. You know that nostalgic feeling of sitting at the breakfast table as a kid and pouring a giant bowl of cereal that just tasted amazing? Well, Magic Spoon has reinvented that feeling with cereal and treats that bring back the flavors you love, but in a way that actually fuels your day. Every serving of Magic Spoons, high-protein cereal, packs 13, grams of protein, zero sugar, and four grams of net carbs, and the flavors, straight out of your childhood, fruity, cocoa, and frosted. And then there are the Magic Spoon treats. Crispy, crunchy,

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and vegan. Save 30% on your first month of subscription by going to dose. Dostaley.co slash legal a.f or entering legal a.f at checkout. That's D-O-S-E-D-A-I-L-Y dot C-O-L-A-F for 30% off your first month subscription. Welcome back to LegalAF. Great to see everybody again. Thank you to our sponsors. Discount codes in the description below. They help us, help them, and they're great products and great services. So check them out. All right, Michael Popak, let's talk. I was mentioning how even Trump judges are ruling against Trump at the district court level because the stuff that he's doing is blatantly illegal over and over and over again, like blatantly. Like you couldn't write an easier con law question for first-year law students about Trump's

behavior. Is this constitutional or is it not constant? Basic, basic, basic stuff. But, you know, the Supreme Court is doing what it's doing. But let's talk about this Trump judge out in Oregon, how this judge got the case to begin with and what happened this week. And then let's talk about the opening term right now for the Supreme Court. And off to a bang, you can say, Michael Popok, off to a bang.

So talk to us first about Oregon. So in Oregon, there was a very quick filing by the Attorney General there and others. It's a governor who's also blue to stop the National Guard from rolling into Portland in other places. Now, look, I know people on the ground in Portland. In Oregon, I'm sure you do, too. It's been generally peaceful protests. It's been, I wouldn't call it a love protest, but certainly it's not marked with the type of violence or looting or other attacks on federal offices like we saw during some of the Black Lives Matter.

Pardon me, Black Lives Matter movement, not by the actual protesters and Black Lives Matter, but by those we're trying to take advantage of it, like Antifa and things like that. That's not what's happening in Portland. People may not like some of the encampments and sort of a little bit of the laissez-faire attitude about how the streets look, but that's not the equivalent of we have a rebellion or insurrection on our hands in Portland to allow Donald Trump to federalize the National Guard and quote-unquote clean it up. Now, we know what Donald Trump is doing because he set it out loud during that cosplay of a military brass review at Quantico last week that you and I covered extensively, including saying,

well, I think we're at war and we're at war with some of these states. And I think we should use the military to go after these states and use it as a training exercise for when the military goes after the enemy. I can tell you, I mean, the ones that are still in the military were sitting there stone-faced. Veterans have come out and said, what the F was that in terms of being so demeaning to the military, so demeaning to women in the military, and blacks in the military, that the consequences of that speech are still reverberating and will for quite some time within the rank and file and the command structure of the military in ways that Donald Trump and Hegsef, because they're too smart by half, could never have envisioned.

and you're starting to hear the reporting by newswires that are dedicated to military affairs and the life of people and soldiers and things. So you got that going on. And so right off of that, you know, he goes into Portland, threatens to go into Chicago. It originally gets assigned to a judge who set a very fast briefing schedule. So fast we were talking on our own text chain about when I should cover it. should we wait now, wait for the hearing, when's the hearing, you know, that kind of thing. But it was going to be very fast.

Then the Trump administration objected to the fact that the judge was married to a Democratic congressperson. And I don't know why he, to be frank, it's because of the obedience and obeying that unfortunately even the Democrats do. There was no good reason for the judge to step down. But having watched, you know, Judge Mershon and his family get bashed, you know, Judge Angoran and his family get passed, Judge Chutkin and her family get bashed. You know, Judge Zinnis and her family get bashed. You know, this judge was like, you know what, we don't need to give him that talking point. So I'm going to, you know, I enjoy my other brethren here in the courthouse in Portland. So I'm going to let it go back and go on the wheel.

It gets assigned to a Trump appointed. judge but if if the department of justice was celebrating and high-fiving uh i think that quickly got smacked out of their face where they got into the hearing now she hasn't yet ruled but the judge was none too kind it was very hot uh in her in her bench comments about the trump administration and the justification that they were using to federalize the national guard in portland she lives in Portland. I mean, people that live there, like you live in California and I live in Florida. You know, we experience it in real time in not the fictitious world, made up world for political points that Donald Trump lives in. I lived in New York for a long time. Donald Trump calls

it a scary, violent place. He's watching too many 1970s television shows or those set in the 70s in New York. It's not any of those things in Portland, certainly isn't the crime-infested, out-of-control, violent. I mean, it's almost, it's almost incoherent to argue or incongruous to argue that people, Portlanders, is that right? I think so, are violent. I mean, they're not. He doesn't like the fact that they're massing in front of ice buildings, but the, and this is where the rubber is going to meet the road when we get to the Supreme Court, you are allowed to take to the streets and protest. You are allowed to be vocal in the public square. If it crosses over into inciting and violence, then that's where the First Amendment does not come to your rescue. But short of

that, we want to feel uncomfortable in the public square with comments. Do you want to shout back? You shout back. The only violence that's happened is clashes between pro-Trump protesters and anti-Trump protesters, but ICE hasn't been involved. And these are the facts and the evidence that was put before the judge who lives a life in Portland and recognizes that this is a tremendous amount of overreach. We haven't yet, at the time we're on the air tonight, we haven't yet got the ruling. It may come any moment now. It may come on Monday.

But I don't think this delay is to the Trump administration's benefit. I think there's going to be yet another decision consistent with what we saw. with Judge Breyer, or what I call the revenge of the senior status judges against the Trump administration, I think it's going to be more like that than what I first heard was like, holy shit, it's been cursing a lot on this episode. It's a Trump-appointed judge, you know, I wonder what's going to happen now. And to your point that you made at the top of the segment, it's actually a good thing because it takes away the talking point when she rules ultimately, hopefully against him.

It'll end up in the same Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, because that covers Oregon as well for those that are not in our world, as the Judge Breyer decisions about California, and there's already some teachings up there that I'm sure she's going to have to figure out what's precedent and what isn't. But that wasn't a great hearing for him as he tries to continue to use the military against the American people. We still got the posse comitatis ruling. And just to touch on one point, this really is an unsung, unheralded group of judges that are hanging on by their fingertips for as long as they can to issue rulings that maybe they think other judges who are younger than they are and aren't out maybe one day going to be retiring. The service that these

senior status judges are doing to stay in office during this trumpet. administration can't be, we can't, we can't talk enough about it. We can't compliment them enough. The Judge Breyer's, right? We just got an amazing ruling from Judge Young in Massachusetts, a Reagan appointee. Breyer, I think he was a Clinton appointee. Judge Royce Lampworth in D.C., another Reagan appointee. The senior status judges in their late 70s and 80s are purposely staying in to to defend democracy and the rule of law and to fight against the Stephen Millers who think it's cute because, you know, he changed the name of the Democratic Party and he used the Republican Party in a different way in his statement, which is really an incitement to violence.

But the Stephen Millers and them trying, they're trying to win this in the streets and we're winning in the courts. And that's important. Now, just to answer two quick questions that have come up. staying in a senior status doesn't block Donald Trump from appointing new federal judges. Once they go senior status, it opens up a new spot, but they continue to take cases, and they can take as many cases as they want. Some of these senior status judges are pretty much full-time, and I don't think that's by accident right now.

They're like, no, I don't want to go play golf or go fishing. I want to stay here and make decisions that other judges may be too timid to make at this important junction. And one thing I want to note at 11 months into this administration is how few federal judges are being confirmed or even nominated by Donald Trump because there aren't a lot of vacancies because a lot of judges are hanging on and they're not retiring early and there's no openings for him right now. So some people might be thinking, how come legal AF and Popak and Ben don't talk a lot about this judge and that judge because it's not going on. He's had a couple of Trump's had a couple of appellate appointments. to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, one that got on already in Bovi. But there hasn't been this filling of federal judge positions, which is a good thing, because every minute that Trump is not filling one of these positions

is a good event for the rule of law. And then you switch to the Supreme Court, where you said, you write about it, the batting average for democracy is about 90 to 93% at the lower court level against Donald Trump, but at the Supreme Court, it's over 84% winning percentage. And to answer the question that I had to do a little research for during our break, the Supreme Court and the other federal courts are open through the shutdown, through October 17th because they found money. I love when these organizations find money.

They found money in their accounting from fees that are, because every time we file something, we've got to put a check with it. They found enough money to pay everybody through the 7th, and then after that, they feel like they can stay open because they're an essential service under the Anti-Deficit Act line of cases. So there will be the first Monday in October and the first Supreme Court case's oral argument of the new term. So that is leading us. You want to talk about the new term? Let's talk about the new term there, Michael Popach. I think you broke it down great, though. So if you can talk about, I mean,

We're already seeing Katanji Brown Jackson and others, you know, call out this shadow docket behavior and what the Supreme Court's been doing. Let me toss it back to you, Popak. And if you can, hit for us the main highlights of what people can expect and what we've seen already. Yeah, great. So we've got Katanji Brown Jackson, who is regularly writing dissenting opinions in the shadow docket cases,

It's just to do a little another teachable moment here. There's two ways that cases can get up to the Supreme Court for some sort of appellate ruling. One is the old-fashioned way that you and I learned about in law school. I didn't even know about the shadow docket in law school. It wasn't something we talked about because none of the cases in our case book, I had books.

You probably had an iPad, but I had a book. And in that case book, the cases came from the old-fashioned way. You do a writ of Sir Sharrari. The court looks at it. If there's four votes to consider it and bring it up to the Supreme Court, they do it, five votes to rule in somebody's favor. And there's, and you caucus and you decide and you list the case and you delist the case. And then there's three sets of briefs, maybe more.

Then there's amicus or friends of the court briefs. Then there's an oral argument five or six months later. And then there's deliberation. And then there's opinions being circulated, the old-fashioned way. Some are the majority. Then there's the dissent, the concurrences, and statements. You put it all together and you issue the opinion. And that is supposed to speak to the American people about the jurisprudential underpinnings, the logic of the case, the law that's being made or upheld or reversed, the new law that's being made.

And then it's also there to guide federal judges below the Supreme Court about the next case and what's precedent. Now we've got a Supreme Court who literally says out loud, and I now have a new name for them. The MAGA 6, Amy Coney, Barrett, Roberts, and the rest, they just come out loud and say, we don't think precedent is precedent. Clarence Thomas said out loud at Catholic University, among other things. He said, no, I don't think the precedent's gospel. I don't think I have to follow it. Sometimes the precedent's wrong.

Okay, I'm glad we're not doing stare decisis and applying our precedent any longer. So that's the old-fashioned way. the way that undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court, if that's even possible now, given their current reputation, and does not provide proper guidance and leaves the lower courts twisting in the wind and ends up being a procedural, what appears there's a thin veneer of it's a procedural ruling only not on the merits, but it's really on the merits, is through the shadow docket, which is an emergency. application that's directed to one of the justices for that particular circuit, who then decides whether to make the ruling on their own or now they have their new habit, is they just refer it over to all nine to make a decision whether they're going to stay, it's usually going to stop a federal judge lower court decision, appellate court decision that's probably against Donald Trump. And by blocking that decision, even though it's not.

on the merits, it really is because it takes the person out of a job, like the National Labor Relations Board or the FTC, or it defunds a program never to be restarted until the Democrats take power, or it destroys the Department of Education, or federal funding overseas or whatever it does, but only for a time. But a year from now, we'll come back and we'll look at the merit. A year from now, there's no program. A year from now is a year of human suffering. It's a year of women not having a certain right or immigrants being denied due process or voters being denied the ability to vote for the candidate of their choice and a district of their choice. And that's why these emergency rulings end up being an actual substantive ruling because it has that kind of impact. When you say under the Fourth Amendment in a one paragraph, we're going to grant the stay.

When you say that therefore becomes new precedent, it's one paragraph. and when you rip effectively the Fourth Amendment against illegal search and seizure out of the Constitution and you do it in one paragraph, that's a problem. And it's a problem when you do it, when you give the president the spending power of Congress and give the president in the name of Trump a pocket rescission to be able to cut federal aid overseas, even though the Congress has allocated it because it says foreign affairs powers, infringement and you do it in a paragraph, that's a problem. And so Katanji Brown Jackson has been religiously writing dissents about the abuse of the shadow docket to effectively

make major constitutional rulings on a short circuit, on a short track, without a proper record, without proper briefing, without the deliberative process that the Supreme Court is known for and issue these rulings that change lives and change precedent. And if we thought, which I sort of did at the top of this administration, that these shadowed dockets, because they keep saying, well, it's not an indication of where we're going to ultimately rule. It's just on the stay. If that's not precedent, we were like, is that really precedent?

Oh, yeah. Because Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have gone out of their way in concurrences to chastise federal judges like Judge Young up in Massachusetts who said, well, I mean, I understand there was a funding case about the National Institute of Health, and they allowed Trump to cut off the funding. But I'm over here, like Department of Education or something else, and I think my facts are different, so I'm going to rule differently. Oh, no, you're being disobedient. You're not following the precedent of the Supreme Court.

And all the judges are like, the precedent of the Supreme Court, this Post-it note, that's what you want us to follow? then give us the jurisprudence, give us the facts, give us the law, give us the logic, the radio, the gravamen, and we'll apply it to our next case. And judges are fighting back, even though, for instance, even though Judge Young got chastised it was like taking aback that he was being called defiant at the age of 80 as a Reagan appointee, Judge Lampert, who just issued a ruling against Christy Lake, sorry, Carrie Lake and Voice of America, he repeated it.

He said, I can't apply this precedent. This isn't precedent, this one paragraph. And I'm not going to allow the Trump administration to abuse and exploit these one paragraph rulings. So that's the two things that we're seeing. So to answer another question, does the emergency docket and emergency application stop when the new term happens? Is that just something that happens in the middle of the term? No, emergency dockets happen during the term. So we're going to be talking on legal AF and then I've got to show.

on a legal F YouTube channel called Unprecedented that I do weekly with Dean Adal where we look at the Supreme Court, there's going to be a mixed bag. It's going to be like, well, this is the regular docket, the 60 or 70 cases that they're going to take regularly, including the first case up on the docket,

which is a case about transgender athletes. And there'll be emergency applications, like right behind that. This job has now become 24-7 for the United States Supreme Court, and they're not doing well. I'm talking about the MAGA 6. Justice Kennedy, who used to be, we used to call it the Kennedy Court, because he was the swing vote, even though he was a moderate Republican. He ended up being in the majority more than any other, but he retired. He didn't stay on until he died. And he's come out now and said, what are we watching with the

shadow docket? He's almost embarrassed by the Supreme Court. I just did an interview with one of our contributors on Legal AF, Lisa Graves, who just wrote an amazing new book, an expose of John Roberts and how John Roberts and the other five have hijacked our Constitution, which is now up on Legal AF YouTube channel. So look, we've got cases that go to transgender rights that are coming up in the first several weeks. We've got cases about immigration rights. This is on the regular docket. We've got some voting rights. We've got some Second Amendment cases that are back. You know, another one about can a restaurant ban, now we're in trouble. Can a restaurant put a notice that no guns are allowed?

Well, you know what's going to happen there, Ben, on the Second Amendment. They're going to take a John Wayne movie and make it into a documentary. Oh, well, there's an old timey times. You went into a saloon. You went up to the bar and you got a shot. You had a gun on your side. Oh, here we go. Second Amendment now, a restaurant, you're going to have to have guns and restaurants and bars.

That doesn't sound like a great idea. You have that going on. You've got the major case for me that we're watching, but I already know the result, which is going to be the destruction of Humphreys' Executor, which has been a firewall to protect executive agencies created by Congress. We got that weirdo thing where Congress creates the agency, but the executive branch needs to execute on the agency. And the Supreme Court has said, well, it doesn't matter what Congress wanted.

if they turned it over to the executive branch, he can fire it will and restructure that and he can put it out of business. We're all like, really? Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's what you can do. Maybe not the Federal Reserve. We'll get back to the Federal Reserve in January.

There's a big hearing now on Lisa Cook in January about whether she keeps her job on the Federal Reserve. So you got on the emergency docket. So you got all that going on. And then finally, the way they framed Humphrey's executor, which was the thing that said you can't fire except for for cause, if Congress says so, they've said, should we be,

this is the question presented, and this is why I know it's dead. Should Humphre's executor be able to prevent, or should it be able to impinge on the executive power under Article 2? I'm like, oh, okay, why don't you just make the ruling now? Why do we have to waste time with the briefing and the case? Just make the ruling and tell us you want to destroy Humphrey. Jeffrey's executor to let Donald Trump fire everybody, but maybe the Federal Reserve.

But these are the cases, three, four, five oral arguments a week. And I got great news for the audience. We're going to put up on the key ones that I'll curate, the top oral arguments are going to be up on legal AF YouTube with commentary. We'll do sort of a pregame show and post game show as they happen. So we'll be advertising those throughout the year. There you have it. He weaved.

He came. He weaved. T Concord is what I wanted to say. Michael Popak, appreciate everything you do. Legal A. Fers, great seeing all of you. And for those listening on audio, you know, it's great spending time with you as well. Everyone, do me a favor. Subscribe to Michael Popak substack.

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