Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 1/10/2026

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Tonight on Legal AF, Ben and Popok are at the helm to break down the biggest legal battles shaking the country right now.  Congress runs to federal court demanding a special master to investigate the missing Epstein files, as pressure builds for transparency and accountability. State officials clash with Trump-aligned federal forces after the killing of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. As the public demands answers, federal stonewalling raises serious civil rights and rule-of-law concerns. Calls grow for the impeachment of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem amid outrage over ICE conduct and Homeland Security leadership. Federal judges continue to push back against Trump’s illegal U.S. Attorney appointments, with yet another U.S. Attorney fired by court order. The Supreme Court again refuses to side with Trump in major cases, signaling resistance from the Court’s moderates and liberals. All this and more on the top rated Legal AF podcast. Support our Sponsors: Mud Wtr: Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% OFF your @MUDWTR by going to https://mudwtr.com/LEGALAF #mudwtrpod Soul: Go to https://GetSoul.com and use code LEGALAF to get 30% OFF your order! Sundays for Dogs: Get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to https://sundaysfordogs.com/LEGALAF or use code LEGALAF at checkout. 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://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

We have a lot to discuss on this weekend's edition of Legal A.F. The Trump regime's Epstein cover-up continues, but now the members of Congress who led the discharge petition Roe Kana and Thomas Massey are calling them out in federal court requesting that a federal judge appointed independent monitor or special master to take over the review of the Epstein files and make them publicly available. We'll talk about the request by Congress to a federal judge in the Gilein-Massel Maxwell case. We'll talk about the cold-blooded murder by ICE by an officer named, or let's call him a

Gestapo or an SS named Jonathan Ross, who murdered Renee Nicole Good in cold blood. We saw what happened on video. The Trump regime immediately ran to the defense of the ICE Gestapo lied about what took place, lied about what we can see with our own eyes on the the video and then they refer to Renee Nicole Good again say her name Renee Nicole good they refer to her as a domestic terrorist who weaponized her vehicle as a terroristic weapon that's not what occurred on videotape and then they said the officer has absolute immunity which is absolutely false and as a former civil rights litigator who handled cases just like this wrongful death cases for families who

lost loved ones by police brutality, I'll break down my analysis of what took place. We should talk about a federal judge in the Northern District of New York and the southern, or a federal judge in the Southern District of New York who disqualified a Trump stooge, one of these federal prosecutors who Trump appointed to be a United States attorney in the Northern District of New York. This federal prosecutor was disqualified in a very scathing order, but in an even more scathing order, a Trump appointed judge in Virginia called out Lindsay Halligan for continuing to put her name on filings

as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia when she has already been disqualified by another federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Curry disqualified her. And then a Trump appointed judge, Judge Novak, said to Lindsay Halligan, you better answer for why you're putting your name on these indictments of other criminal defendants because if you don't justify what you're doing, you're making misrepresentations about your identity to the court. And that constitutes a major offense under the rules of professional

responsibility. Then we'll talk about a war powers resolution that was introduced and actually passed in the United States. Senate on a fairly bipartisan basis. And we'll talk about the Supreme Court delaying some of its key rulings. Michael Popak, it's great to see you right now. We have a lot to discuss. And that Trump appointed judge was basically warning Lindsey Allegan. You may be disbarred very soon based on what you're doing. You don't even have to read between the lines. Just read the entire paragraph of Judge Novak. He cited every rule of professional responsibility that she was violating. I'm glad to see it was a Trump appointed judge who did it. Yeah. And he's... He laid a trap for her, we'll get to in that segment.

And I want to see how she handles it. He said, and not only do I want the answers to my questions, i.e. why you explained to me how you did not violate about five different rules of ethics and professional responsibility, including candor to the tribunal, misrepresentation, not abiding by rules generated by this tribunal in your continued impersonation of a U.S. attorney. but he said, and I want you to sign the pleading. So now we're going to see, is it going to be citizen Lindsay Halligan, or is she going to triple down on a bad hand, and sign it as the U.S. attorney, Lindsay Halligan, which will only, only be additional evidence for him to bar her from continuing to practice, at least in front of him.

I think that's going to be a sizzling segment when we get to it. Just one comment before we get going. When you said in the opening about say her name, I thought you were talking about Christy Nome. Because one of the things we're going to talk about and call for here on Legal A.F. Is for the impeachment investigation by Congress, led obviously by the congressional Democrats and the ultimate impeachment of Christy Nome for the criminal enterprise that she's running and her rogue leadership, lack of leadership in ICE. The fact that she actually took to a podium, cost playing the whole way,

wearing some sort of, you know, some sort of sombrero or hat or whatever, whatever ethnicity she was stealing from at the moment, to declare without full evidence that Renee Good, 37-year-old mother of a six-year-old married with an old dog in the back seat, blowing a whistle to protest on a side street in Minnesota, ICE's arrival, that she was a domestic terrorist and did that. I mean, you saw the worst part for Christie is when they ran, and we'll show a video, they ran a picture of the, they ran the video feed

of what actually happened with her commenting on it. It was like, what is she watching? It's not the video at hand. And then for the Trump administration and Christy Noem to have released the video taken by ICE officer, ICE agent Ross, to think that exonerated them. First of all, why are they leaking parts of evidence? In order to try to, we know the answer, it's a rhetorical question, in order to try to support and defend the ICE officer,

why don't they watch, for instance, what the New York Times has done in reconstructing a 360-degree array from video that they've obtained, and then add to it the video from Jonathan Ross, which will show clearly, clearly, that Renee Good was an innocent, First Amendment protester at best, who got shot in the face three times in cold-blooded murder by an ICE officer. In any event, we always call for the same thing on Legal AF. We call for transparency.

We call for accountability. We call for an independent investigation. And while we do that, the Trump administration, under the stench of multiple levels of scandals and cover-ups, is calling for one again, blocking the Minneapolis law enforcement and investigation community, blocking the Oregon community from another shooting that happened the next day, from being involved in an investigation.

What all America is crying out for is accountability and transparency and a public reproach that we do not trust the federal government led by Donald Trump. We have a lot to discuss in this episode of Legal AF, in other words, but let's start off with what Donald Trump wants to. distract from what he wants to avoid talking about, what he wants to cover up. I mean, you talk about Christy Nome turning the Department of Homeland Security into a criminal enterprise separately. The entire Department of Justice is, in my view, a criminal racketeering enterprise covering

up child sex trafficking, covering up the biggest child sex trafficking ring. And in a document that they filed with Judge Engelmeyer in the Southern District of New York. Judge Engelmeyer is the judge who now oversees the USV Gilane Maxwell case, the federal government a few days back, the Department of Justice. Very cavalierly, very cavalierly, Michael Popbach said, we're giving you a status update per the court's request. We turned over about 12,000 350 documents that equals about 125,000 pages, about 10.22 pages per document. We're still in the process of review. We've got about another two million documents that need to be reviewed. Well, two million documents at about 10 pages per document. That would mean there's about 20 million pages

outstanding. But then previously there was a New York Times report said it was more like 5,000 documents or pages. The DOJ is not using the language that lawyers use to talk about document productions. So it's unclear what type of electronically stored information or ESI. They're actually talking about, is it documents, is it pages, is it files? And they've used kind of warped and conflicting definitions throughout this whole process. But if you take them at their word, which I wouldn't, because I believe there's a lot more documents, they say two million documents. So that would be extrapolated to be about 20 plus, 22 plus million pages. And they say, Judge, we've got 125 lawyers and agents at the Southern District of New York working on this right now. Plus,

we've got hundreds of other lawyers at Maine Justice in Washington, D.C., and other divisions across the country who are working on this. Let me just tell our viewers this. When I would do document productions of far more documents than we're dealing with here. When I would deal with three, five, eight terabytes of documents, the way that would often be described is enough paper, if you put it from the bottom to the top, to fill five or six, 80-story skyscrapers filled with documents. And back in the day, no offense, Michael Poppock, when Popock started practicing, he did document review like that.

You'd bring in trucks full of documents that you would actually have to do. Trucks, you know, the big U-Haul style trucks of documents. And so for me, as I look at all the language that they're using, Popak, I don't believe the DOJ is even telling us until of truth here. And Rokana and Thomas Massey are calling them out as well. and they're saying in a letter to the federal judge, whoa, they're just admitted too. They just put it in a document by their own admission

that they violated the Epstein Transparency Act, which we all know, right? It was due December 19th, with the only redactions being redactions for the names of victims and the faces of the victims. That's it. That's the only redactions, not the perpetrators, not anything else. And they're so cavalierly just putting in in filings,

Judge, we'll get back to you. And the fact that Popak, they have 125 lawyers working on this. When I was doing this, that's the point I wanted to make. I had maybe me and a team of five lawyers. It would take us about 45 to 60 days. Maybe we'd request a brief extension, but we'd be able to go through all of the documents in that period of time. So if you're telling me that I had 125 lawyers from the Southern District of New York

to go through documents and you couldn't get this done, but then we know they're even lying there. Popak is back in March and February. They claim they had all the documents on there. The document was on Pam Bondi's desk. And then we know from Jason Leopold that Bloomberg's great reporting in his reporting and FOIA requests that they had a thousand lawyers and FBI agents working on it from March till July with tens of thousands of overtime hours being billed that the taxpayers are paying for and they couldn't get this document production done. So anyway, let me pass it over to you so you can talk about what Massey and Kana are doing, requesting an independent monitor and saying the DOJ can't be trusted crimes were committed, as what they say in their letter to

Judge Engelmeyer. And they say to Judge Engelmeyer, we need an independent monitor. Just why Judge Engelmeyer, remember that the DOJ requested that Engelmeier released the grand jury transcripts. Engelmeier at first before the Epstein Transparency Act said there's something called grand jury secrecy. I'm not allowed, like by law, I can't release grand jury transcripts. Then the Epstein Transparency Act passed and the judge said, okay, now with this act, with this law, I'll allow the grand jury transcripts. I want to be clear that grand jury transcripts aren't going to add anything because it's hearsay based on an FBI agent. It's not the files at all. And there was a trial of DeLane. So anything that was in the grand jury was far more was discussed at the trial, but it's not

the Epstein files at all. It's a small transcript. But then the judge said, okay, well, you're making me turn over this based on the Epstein transparent. If you're requesting it, I want you to turn over everything else. So give status reports and confirm what you're turning over. And Popak, they confirmed to Engelmeyer that they were going to be producing these records, and they listed all the records that they would be producing, and then they didn't produce it. So now I believe Engelmeier has jurisdiction to compel the production. And I think, that Kana and Massey think that he has jurisdiction as well. And that's why they filed this amicus letter. Talk to us about the amicus letter. Yeah, I think, well, it got a lot there.

Look, the mistake that the Trump administration made was try to use, and I mean use, the federal judges as some sort of pawns in their attempt to continue to hide and delay the release of the Epstein files. So they ran to federal judges like Judge Engelmeyer, Judge Berman, Judge King down in Florida, Judge Rosenberg. And they went, well, we'd love to release the Epstein files. This is before the act was passed. But we can't because, you know, a lot of it's trapped behind grand jury secrecy rules or federal judges who were overseeing it. So, well, that was their first move.

Their first move and the reason why they're scrambling now because they didn't expect the discharge petition. sponsored by Rokana and Tom Massey to be passed. They didn't expect there'd be enough defection. Defections. There was only one person in both chambers that voted against it. They were caught politically flat-footed. So what they thought they'd be able to do is keep distracting and wasting time,

pointing to different piles of documents as being the Epstein files. The Epstein files were never with Congress. The Epstein files were always with the executive branch in the separation of powers. They're the judicial, they're the U.S. attorneys, they are the prosecutors, they're the FBI, they're the Department of Justice, the IRS, all the departments that have the records. So first they ran and said, well, we'd love to do it, but Congress.

Then they'd all, we'd love to do it, but federal judges. And federal judges, I don't know if you found this in your career, but they don't like to be used and used as pawns. So all of them wrote in the summer, before the act was passed, scathing criticisms of the of the Trump administration, effectively, including Engelmeier, saying, why are you coming to us for the Epstein files? The files that you think I have, like Engelmeyer said,

I've looked at. There's very little in there. You have the Epstein files. You have the mountain of evidence. You should be producing it. Then they came back to the judges like Engelmeier and said, all right, well, we got the act now, so we'd like to get everything released.

But what they really did was inadvertently subject themselves. That was the beauty and the brilliance of Kana and Massey. I wonder who were their strategic legal strategists on that one. Just brilliant maneuvering to go back to the same federal judge and say, all right, Judge, they've asked that you supervise this process. You've taken oversight of this process. Great. This letter that got submitted on January 5 by the Trump administration in which they They said, this just shows you how much they completely, the Trump administration completely disrespects the intellect of any voter, let alone legal AF audience members at all. They just shit on them all the time, thinking nobody will notice and that we won't follow

through with continuity here on legal AFA, might as touch. They said, we got a judge, we're going to give you an update. It's going to take us a while. We're still redacting to protect the survivors, which we know is a lie. We set up all sorts of processes for that. We won't tell you what they are. We won't tell you where we've looked. We won't tell you which agencies we've gone to

to look for documents. But we know it's about two million more. You and I saw that. We talked about it last week. We're like two million more. Todd Blanche let it out. And that's why the New York Times reported it. Then he thought it was 5.2 million during the holidays

with 400 people working around the clock and blah, blah, blah. All right. Well, how do you go from several hundred thousand to Midas discovering one of the only, they only produced 12,000 documents of 120,000 pages, which is 0.02% of the Epstein files, even at a reasonable estimate. But buried in there was a document you found that said,

hey, what about this assistant US attorney in New York talking about a million two in files related to the Maxwell prosecution? How about that at least? And then 12 hours later, the Trump administration, hey, we found a million, We found another million. That morphed and shape shifted into 5.2 million a week or two later, as if we wouldn't notice.

And then when they filed a letter with the judge, because now you're dealing with a federal judge, they lowered the number to 2 million. Nobody trusts the missing 3.2 million is because the Trump administration looked at all those files and determined that they were not responsive. They were either over-inflating the amount of documents to make them look better in terms of transparency, or they just lied to a federal judge about the total amount and just lopped off $3.2 million. We said last week, and I certainly said on hot takes, that somebody's got to get to the bottom,

like Judge Engelmeyer, to the missing 3.2 to 2 million. They didn't even drop a footnote, Ben. They didn't even have the courtesy of not insulting our intelligence and drop a footnote as to the change in numbers. So Massey and Kana, as you outlined, wrote a letter and said, why are their numbers changing? Why don't you set up an independent special master or an independent monitor to take over this process? See, this is the nightmare that's created by the Trump administration.

They shouldn't have run to the federal judges to begin with, but now that they're there, the federal judges aren't going anywhere. And it was so smart for Congress to use the federal judges in that way to provide oversight and monitoring over this. If I'm Judge Engelmeyer, who's a very good judge, who's frankly opposed the Trump administration in a couple of orders in the past, if I'm Judge Engelmeier, I say, you know what, let's brief this issue. I know other people have written to the judge as well. Let's brief this issue. I think it's an important one. He's already said, I don't really trust the administration in the way they've been handling the files to begin with. Lack of trust

combined with shape-shifting numbers usually leads to the appointment of a special master. Now, who is that? That is going to be somebody like a former federal judge that's well-respected, like a Barbara Jones, the person that was put in charge of the Rudy Giuliani, when Rudy Giuliani had, in the middle of the morning, had all of his devices picked up in a search warrant because he was criminally investigated. Barbara Jones was responsible for going through all those documents and making sure that the responsive ones were separated from the attorney-client privilege ones.

Same person who was appointed, because she's like very popular, to be appointed to be a monitor over the Trump administration. Sorry, the Trump organization. So it's one of the same. And it's business practices. So you hire somebody like Barbara Jones or you hire Barbara Jones to do that kind of work. And look at now all of the millions of dollars. And who pays for that? The Trump administration, taxpayers pay for that.

But I think now it's required. I don't see any way around it. I think that the attempt to stamp on the news cycle by stealing, decapitating the Maduro regime and allowing big oil to steal Venezuela's oil, I think, is now over. The death of Renee Good, I think, killed that attempt to distract. And now we're back to the things that two. There are two demons. No, they're not demons, angels, that are tearing apart the Trump administration.

from the inside. One is the continued Epstein cover-up and the cover-up of the cover-up, which is even pissing off MAGA and Donald Trump's continued assault on other countries, including allies, in getting us into wars and conflagrations that are at the, that are the antithesis of America first. Those two things are tearing the party and the Republican position apart before our very eyes. And there is authoritarian symmetry between what he's doing here, what he's doing abroad. I mean, and if you look also at the Orban regime in Hungary, one of the big protests that you're seeing with in Budapest was that the right-wing authoritarian playbook was to say, they're the ones who

who would be protecting the children and the women from the sex traffickers and that there's a sex trafficking Kambal and they're the ones who are gonna fix it. Well, Orban gets into power. And in Budapest, you've got their juvenile detention system basically turned into a sex trafficking ring over there and people protesting that the government is the ones covering up and perpetuating the sex trafficking ring.

It's just fascinating that the authoritarian regimes utilize that same kind of talking point. We're the protector, we're saving you who are actually perpetrating the conduct. And then you see here, whether it's the cover up of the sex trafficking ring in the United States, the cover up of Donald Trump's medical records, the cover up of the war crimes

that are being committed, and then the wag the dog go to war against the entire Western Hemisphere, threatened Greenland as Donald Trump did, you know, then lie and say the oil executives have agreed to 100 billion, billion dollar investments and then refer to the oil execs as Mr. Exxon and Mr. Chevron. And then Mr. Exxon speaks and says, it's uninvestable in Venezuela. So then Trump says, well, I guess the taxpayers are going to have to subsidize the oil companies

to the tune of $100 billion while taking away people's Affordable Care Act subsidies and kicking people off of health care and then threatening more war to distract from the fact that people can't afford things that he's covering up a child sex trafficking ring, that people can't afford homes right now and the cycle kind of continues over and over and over again. And then the authoritarian tactics, which is, you know, you take a look at Greenland, for example, and you go, Greenland basically has given the United States everything it wanted. There's a NATO alliance so that if Russia or China were to actually invade Greenland, NATO would join forces as it does under Article 5 to stop China and Russia. So when Donald Trump says we needed to stop China and

Russia, we already have what's called NATO. So Trump's explanation there makes absolutely, makes absolutely zero sense. And you reflect on, well, what's it really about? And it's about Trump asserting that basically he and MAGA and their vision of United States is that of a predator. And they just want to see on a map, you know, basically, you know, that that belongs to the United States. And they want to see Venezuela be operated and controlled by the United States. They want to see control and power and pain. And we see that here domestically when we get into the next segment with sending ICE Gestapo SS paramilitary forces.

And we've seen, you know, even like in Venezuela, Maduro, Delsi Rodriguez, Deidados Cabello, who's the henchmen over in Venezuela. They have the collectivos, you know, who are the repressive forces of the authoritarian. We saw that with Hitler and Mussolini. You see that in Russia. You see the paramilitary forces that go with the authoritarian. And that's to me how Trump has used ICE, which is totally unaccountable and border patrol. And he uses them like a paramilitary force to basically retaliate against states that he doesn't like that didn't vote for him.

So he's primarily targeting blue states. And, you know, I guess Donald Trump says, well, you know what? The Supreme Court said we can't have the National Guard. But why do I even need the National Guard in these states when I have a paramilitary force? So Trump sends 2,000 ICE Gestapo into Minnesota. And then he's now surged an additional 1,000 with the goal being to terrorize and provoke the community into protest. And then to surge more forces there to show power and to inflict pain and to make blue states suffer. You know, as Donald Trump is basically declaring war within the United States.

States. I mean, that's what we're seeing take place. So when we come back, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about when Trump and J.D. Vance say that Jonathan Ross, the shooter, the killer of Renee Nicole Good, has absolute immunity. And when they say ICE has absolute immunity, what does that mean? We'll talk about that. We'll talk about, you know, what we foresee happening in terms of criminal consequences, civil consequences, and more when we come back for our first break. Just a reminder, Subscribe to Michael Popock's substack. The substack is absolutely crushing it. One of the top substacks now in the country. So search legal AF on substack. Also, subscribe to the legal AF YouTube channel. Search on YouTube, legal AF. Hit subscribe there.

And also, if you or somebody know I've been injured in a car accident and trucking accident, if you're the victim of the negligence of somebody else, if you know somebody who is killed by other people's negligence, that's called a wrongful death. case, call the Popok law firm 877 Popak AF or visit the Popok firm.com. Call 877 Popak AF or go to the Popak firm.com. Popak has lawyers across this country. The consultation is free. So wherever you're living in the United States, give a call, see if you've got a case and the Popak firm will get back to you and we'll pick up your call. And they're representing a lot of people who watch and listen to the show. All right. Let's take our first quick break of the show. We will be right back.

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Please show your support and let them know we sent you. Welcome back to Legal A-F. I want to discuss the tragic, cold-blooded murder of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother recently had moved to Minneapolis as a city of love and inclusiveness. She was there observing ice and she was peaceful. We've seen the video that Jonathan Ross, the killer, the ICE Gestapo released to an outlet that usually is very supportive of whatever police do and whatever the police misconduct is.

And I guess he and the DOJ and Department of Homeland Security thought this was a helpful video for them. where Renee Nicole Good says, I'm not even mad at you, bro. I'm not even mad at you, bro. And then there's two officers, there's Jonathan Ross and another masked officer. They're kind of also giving like conflicting instructions for her to like drive away. And you see her very slowly turning her wheel slowly to get out of the way. And then this Jonathan Ross, you know, killer, this Gestapo goes and he shoots through the windshield, then shoots twice in the window and shoots her in her face.

three times and we can see what happened. There was a violation of all police protocols just from where they were positioned, but they're not police. This is like an unaccountable force, you know, that dresses up in military gear and has weapons. And, you know, and also that footage that we got at this point was taken from Jonathan Ross's cell phone. And so he was holding up a cell phone, taping it, and then all. also had a gun at the same time while standing in front of the vehicle.

Then he moved over to the side. But in any police practices manual, you don't approach the vehicle from the front like that. You don't even engage in the situation like that to begin with. And I handled these cases as a civil rights litigator who represented the families in wrongful death cases of people who lost their lives due to excessive force. And I've deposed hundreds and hundreds of officers. And, you know, what I saw here is one of the most obvious examples of an excessive force, of an unlawful shooting that clearly falls out outside any protocol at all. It was it was a murder.

And it's not subject on a criminal side of any form of absolute immunity. The officer can be charged with crimes, with state and federal crimes. Now, clearly at the federal level, this DOJ will never prosecute this officer. They will promote and applaud. And that's what we've seen the Trump regime do. In terms of state prosecution against Jonathan Ross, the problem right now is that the FBI and the DOJ has refused to allow Minnesota authorities to be involved in the investigation. They've cut them out entirely, and they've said it's just the DOJ who's looking at it, and if you can't get your hands on any of the evidence and or it's being tampered with by the DOJ and the FBI,

it becomes difficult to bring criminal charges. Now, there's a statute of limitations, which would continue past Donald Trump's term for a state charge of murder, homicide, against this Jonathan Good, against this ICE Gestapo. So, if anything, you'd probably have to wait until, you know, Trump is gone because Trump's DOJ will do everything again to undermine any type of criminal prosecution, including not allowing the Minnesota authorities, the Minneapolis police to get involved. But you already have, I mean, J.D. Vance went to Yale Law School. He knows what he's saying is a lie.

But he held a press conference where he says, the officer is protected by absolute immunity. which is false. And I'll explain to you why it's false. I mean, it's just patently, obviously false, but listen to what he says here, play this clip. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for taking it. Thanks for taking my question. So the head of Minnesota's investigations agencies says that the U.S. Attorney's Office has essentially cut off the state investigations agencies' access to the investigation. What is the precedent for that? And why shouldn't the Minnesota officials on the ground have access and evidence to work on this investigation? First of all, I wish the state officials in Minnesota would investigate why you have so many people who are using their vehicles and other means to actually interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation.

The precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That's a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job. The idea that Tim Walz and a bunch of radicals in Minneapolis are going to go after and make this guy's life miserable because he was doing the job that he was asked. to do is preposterous. Make this guy's life miserable?

What about Renee Nicole Good, whose life is over? It was killed, who was shot in the face. This guy's a murderer, and you're worried about making the murderer's life miserable? Are you out of your freaking mind? Here is what Christy Noem said when she was asked. How do you respond to people who say what you're doing and what you're saying is in direct contradiction to the video that everybody's seen. Here, play this clip. What I would, this vehicle was used to hit this officer. It was used as a weapon and the officer feels as though his life

was in jeopardy. It was used to perpetuate a violent act that this officer took action to protect himself and to protect his fellow law enforcement officers. So we'll let this continue to go forward and follow the same policies and procedures that every use of force. situation does. But we've had almost over a hundred times that these vehicles have been used to ram law enforcement officers and to do damage and to harm them. When you take an action and use a weapon to harm someone and to incite violence against them and try to cause them injury or death, then it needs to be labeled exactly what it was. Well, you've already violated every use of force protocol by labeling the victim of domestic terrorist before an investigation and

cutting out the local authorities from the investigation. We have a photo right here of Jonathan Ross. You see where he was positioned when he shot. You'll see there's an arrow going down. That's Jonathan Ross pointing the gun into Renee Nicole Goods car right there. And you see him right there. He was not run over by the vehicle. He was not injured at all.

And Donald Trump claims that he viewed the clip of the event which just took place. And he said the woman driving the car was disorderly obstructing and resisting. who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the officer and said that that officer who you see in that photo went to the hospital for the injuries because he was run over. That's him after. That's Jonathan Ross after he shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. And we have a video.

Then I'm going to toss it over to you, Popak. Here's the video right here of the cell phone footage. This video was taken by Jonathan Ross. Here, play this clip. That's okay. We don't change our plates every morning. Just so you know, it'll be the same plate when you come talk to us later. That's fine.

U.S. citizen, former fucking guys. You want to come out of? You want to come at us? I say, go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Out of the car. Get out of the fucking car. Get out of the car. He said, fucking bitch, and he said fucking bitch after he shot and killed her.

And then even before that, Popak, he was saying, get out of the fucking car. Like, first, like, who, she's driving in an area where she lives. Get the fuck out of the car, these mass ages. Yeah. Well, those are two different people. The get the F out of the car was his colleague who went to the door handle. The entire episode now caught in a 360 degree array, helped by the release, this spoon-feeding release by the ICE and the Department of Justice to reach a conclusion to protect ICE agent Ross before all the facts were fully investigated have left a

tremendous stain on the Trump administration a stain so bad that there's already a leak from an administration official that's been reported in which they said, I don't know how we recover from this, meaning Christine Nome's rushed to judgment to protect ICE, to comment about a video clip that clearly, even the clip she was commenting on was a distorted narrative of what had happened, to try to grab the narrative. We saw, what we saw in the Ross video is a peaceful First Amendment protester, partially blocking a road, an icy side street in Minnesota, to protest the arrival in Minneapolis of 2,000 ice age. She had just dropped off her six-year-old at school.

She had her aging dog in the back seat. Becca Good, her wife is the one that's interacting at the back end of the vehicle. She engages with law enforcement. When law enforcement, not Agent Ross, comes around to the front of the car, you can see in a very peaceful, even Christian way, Christian way, if you will, her engaging with law enforcement and saying, I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at you. In other words, why are you so angry with me? Why are you masked with such an angry face? Now, they were annoyed because she obvious, because she was blocking partially their departure.

So they couldn't take it anymore. You can hear the anger building. The officer, the agent has not been identified yet, goes and says, get the F out of the car. So already, already adrenaline is amped. You and I have handled plenty of police cases, right? Already blood is rushing in ears. Already bad judgment is about to be made when you don't follow standard operating procedures and protocol. He goes to the door handle.

Ross, who we now know from reporting from MS now, was involved weeks earlier with an actual case where the car was weaponized against him during an attempted arrest. He was dragged 100 feet while he was hitting the person in the face with a stun gun. So a little post-traumatic stress disorder, anybody, a little trigger-happy anybody? Where was the psychological evaluation to let him back on the street to begin with? Now, with that ringing in his ears, he's filming around the other side of the vehicle with his cell phone. Gun is holstered. Colleague, who I don't know if he's worked with him before or not, goes and tries to unlock the door.

The wife, Becca, is trying to get back into the car after her engagement, First Amendment speech, with the officer. Her hand is on the handle of the passenger side. Ross is in the wrong spot, by the way, as you properly commented, for law enforcement purposes. He should have been closer to where his partner was, but he was too busy trying to film, probably for posterity or posting on a social media or who knows what.

none of them are wearing body cam now he's got the phone instead of doing proper law enforcement so he's distracted he's standing in the wrong spot but not in front of the car as we now know from the videos that have been obtained by new york times and other places so she did not turn into his way she did not try to ram her car into him she wanted to try at a mile an hour or less to get away off an icy road there's many ways you deal with that if you're properly trained you take take down the license plate and you send for backup and you capture alive down the street. Maybe, and I think this would be extreme, maybe you shoot out the tires. But what you don't do is you don't drop your cell phone, pull out your service revolver,

and fire three times as the windshield is moving past you to get away. That you don't do. And the fact, and then as the person dying and the car is moving away, you don't say under your breath, fucking bitch. Okay? That's why we call it qualified immunity, not absolute. Nobody has absolute immunity. J.D. Vance's mind is obviously mushed because his boss has absolute immunity for certain things that are criminal, okay?

In the White House. But not law enforcement. And the signal that they've sent out is that this administration thinks that law enforcement on the streets, right, can do anything and get away. with it and will be absolutely immune. That's not the law, whether it's 1983 actions, or it's civil rights actions, or it's a deadly use of force actions, unreasonable use of force actions, and prosecutions as a result. It is qualified. You have to first show you were doing your job and the color of your job. Maybe he passes that test, maybe he doesn't. The second is that your actions were reasonable. And that's where the evidence,

to be considered by a fact finder and a jury, civil and criminal, will come into play. The problem is Trump administration has blocked state officials from doing their job. And I just had Keith Ellison on with an interview of a special briefing for legal AF audience on LegalAF YouTube earlier today. And what he had to tell us was his investigation has started. they're going to gather as much evidence as they can,

but the FBI is not sharing with them on purpose, to penalize the fact that Minnesota is a democratic state. So people are dying now because of politics. And even more so, I'll give you a clip from Keith Ellison, a very poignant message. Even more, the outgoing governor, Tim Wals, declared that he's mobilizing the National Guard. Think of this, Ben, to protect

Minnesotans from their own federal government. I mean, the fact that I even have to form that sentence is just, is just eye-watering to me. Now, Keith Ellison, let it be known that he is a prosecutor. He prosecuted Derek Chauvin, who killed, murdered George Floyd, and he is ready and prepared if the facts present themselves to prosecute a federal officer. He's done it before.

He will do it again. And we will let a jury and a judge decide what immunity is appropriate here. But leave it to the Trump administration to both make law enforcement and ICE unsafe and make the American people literally fear for their lives. And the other issue here that you and I've talked about at nauseam, but we will continue, is that Donald Trump, by flooding the streets with unqualified, ill-trained, ICE officers, Border Patrol, National Guard. He's effectively put Americans in harm's way.

They are not trained for de-escalation. They are not trained for First Amendment protests. They are a hammer in search of a nail. And everybody is a nail to ICE and Border Patrol. They come in, amped up. Many of them are not trained. They did recruiting recently, not that Ross Fitzgerald. the bill because he was in border patrol. He was an army veteran. But they're giving guns and badges

to 18-year-old ICE officers. Bad things will happen. And it's not helping that within 24 hours, another shooting, just to show and prove the point that he's under, he's actually undermining law enforcement, legitimate law enforcement, Trump and the administration. 24 hours later, allegedly two Trenda are pulled over in a traffic stop or an arrest attempt in Portland, Oregon and they, according to

reports, they allegedly try to run over border patrol who fires on them. Now, if that story stood alone, we would be like, well, let's get to the bottom of that. Was that trend to Aragua? But the instant politicization by the Trump administration,

these two trend to Aragua released on the streets by the Biden administration. They weaponize their car. The problem is we keep hearing about shoot first and defend and lie and lie and lie later. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's false. All you and I demand on this show and our audience demands is transparency and accountability, not a rush to judgment, not a rush to protect the federal officer over the fallen, over the U.S. citizens who are dying. And this is the fifth time that it's happened. You and I covered in September when a resident of Chicago, who also dropped his kid off at school, was shot during another traffic stop by ICE.

Okay, we should not, it should not be a death sentence to oppose and resist the Trump administration, but it is. So she didn't want to be a martyr when she woke up that morning, when she kissed and dropped off her six-year-old, but Renee Good is now a martyr for a cause. And people are taking to the streets this weekend with organized protests. And the only thing that I recognize, is something that, and I'm going to play the clip from Keith in a moment, is what Keith Ellison told me, is that he fears that people will take matters into their own hands, start battling it out violently with ICE, giving Donald Trump an excuse for crackdown and suppression, which we don't want. Let me play a clip with Keith Ellison, who briefed our audience about what's going on in Minnesota.

Where is the transparency and the accountability? That's what people are marching on the streets now for. Let me tell you, Mike. So there's about two or three seconds. which were determinative of why this officer discharged is used deadly force and why Renee Good lost her life. There's a very tight window. I think you're accurately pointing out that law enforcement policy is don't be parading in front of the car like that. That's bad policing.

But that aside, the real bad act, which I am. perfectly comfortable offering judgment about is the surge. The lack of cooperation with law and local law enforcement, the lack of engagement with community, the lack of, and then the escalating the raw number of ICE agents who've all been told, by the way, that the Somali community is garbage, that the Mexican-American community are all rapists and drug dealers, that and gang members, the bottom line is they've not only that not only has just been a rush in recruitment and a rush in training and a rush in evaluating the psychological fitness of somebody before returning them to duty. It is a blame and I mean a fault and a blame that must be lied at the feet of Donald Trump because it is his policy that, let us. to this. This was foreseeable. Yeah, so look, we're we are demanding justice in the name here on

Legal A.F. in the name of Renee Good. And for her daughter and for her wife. And I want the impeachment. And I won't rest. And I know you won't either, Ben, until we get the impeachment of Christy Nome, period. And now, I think we can do it. Look, the Epstein files and the crossover there of getting the Republicans that join the Democrats with the death of that recent Congressperson. It's a very slim margin, if any, for MAGA in the House. If Hakeem Jeffries can force the issue, we'll get oversight hearings up immediately, get Christy into the hot seat, get the funding cut or limited until there is a complete overhaul of investigation of Homeland Security under her control and start those impeachment

proceedings now and if by god that doesn't happen now i assure the american people in our audience that if you give us proper results at the midterm despite what donald trump's trying to do to suppress the vote and steal the democratic vote okay then the democrats will do the job of getting rid of people like stephen miller and uh i don't know about jd vans but we'll work on that later and don't Trump and certainly Christy Nob. She has to go. And just as a signal to Christy, she better watch her back because Tom Holman, yeah, the bribery-taking guy who's the borders are, he went on the new CBS propaganda network and gave an interview in which they asked him, what do you think about Christy Noem's comment about looking at the video and already

saying that the investigation is effectively concluded and she's siding with the ICE agent? He said, well, you're going to have to ask her about that. All the evidence is not in. I have not looked at all the video. There's no rush to judgment, and a full investigation hasn't even begun yet. All right. That is another major leader in the Trump administration, throwing Christy Nome under the bus. So just one other point, and I know people come to legal AF sometimes, so we get hyper-technical.

And as someone who previously litigated Section 1983 cases, I want to at least provide you all with the argument that I think J.D. Vance is alluding to as it relates to a civil section 1983 case, a civil rights case for wrongful death and what they intend to argue there in a civil case. Let me be clear. In a criminal case, there is no absolute immunity for this or any ICE officer. It doesn't exist. It's not a doctrine. And they can be criminally prosecuted by the feds or by the state or both. We've explained to you the hurdles already of both. The feds under Trump aren't prosecuting this guy. And they're preventing the state from doing a criminal investigation.

On the civil side, there is a case called Bivens versus Six. unknown named agents from 1971. And it says essentially that unless there is kind of a clearly established right to bring a section 1983 claim against a certain type of entity, unless Congress speaks and says that this is an entity that can be sued, unless they describe that the entity is subject to civil lawsuits, what this Bivens doctrine has basically held is that there could be immunity. And what I think J.D. Vance is getting at. And what I think the arguments were going to C.B. Made. You're like, well, Ben, you're giving them the arguments to make. No, I'm not giving them the arguments to make. If anything, I'm giving the civil litigators, the opportunity to think

through the arguments that the DOJ already knows. Because J.D. Vance went to Yale law school. And And this is what, I'm just letting you know what he's implying. It's not a doctrine called absolute immunity. But because ICE and Border Patrol have been constructed by Trump and MAGA as this unaccountable entity and they're doing things that actually they weren't designed to do, Border Patrol is supposed to be at a border, right? Not going through as a paramilitary force. And ICE is not supposed to be going through towns as a military.

militarized force the way they are and assuming the functions of an occupying military. What they'll argue is because Congress has not addressed via any law, a private cause of action to sue civilly against ICE agents for murder for death, until Congress says that there's a cause of action, the Bivens doctrine says, well, you know what, unless it exists, the case has to be dismissed and there's immunity for it. So I think what he's alluding to is the Bivens doctrine. And if that sounds familiar, do you remember the case where Michael Cohen sued the Department of Justice and Bill Barr for throwing him into solitary confinement? Because he refused to sign a document that said he wouldn't publish his book during the first Trump term, and he was there

for like more than 50 days. He sued for a civil rights violation, and the government said Bivens. This is not something that Congress has authorized you to file a lawsuit in this case. And you may be saying, well, Ben, how come there are lawsuits against police officers or how come there are lawsuits against highway patrol or others? It's because in the case of the state, or in the case of other entities who are sued at a federal level, they waive in law, something called they waive sovereign immunity. They specifically allow civil lawsuits for violations of civil rights. And so Popak, I know that's getting very hyper-technical,

but I think that that's an argument, that they're going to make a Bivens-based immunity argument for ICE officers and basically say, they are the Gestapo. They are an unaccountable force for which Congress never made a law to which the civil litigators have to say, well, this falls into that unusual circumstance in Bivens that there's an exception to it where you've now used these officers for where you've now used these unaccountable militarized palom paramilitary. It's more analogous to the types of cases where lawsuits have been brought before. But that's a case that will go to the Supreme Court. Yeah, I agree with you. I think, as I've said, I think that there's two ways we never bring back, we now have a

motherless child and a wifeless marriage with the death of Renee Good. So when we talk about these things, we talk about justice in the aftermath. And when it comes to civil, I said that there's a number of different investigatory bodies or entities that will take over here to do what the Trump administration is obviously too corrupted to do. One would be a congressional investigation, which I think the Democrats are going to hope to open, about, as part of the broader conversation about Homeland Security and ICE under the leadership of Christie Nome, they're going to have to also do the investigation, if you will, about Renee Good. And we're going to see the testimony of people that were on the street that watched it,

of Becca Good, her wife, and others. So there's an investigatory component there. We're going to see Minnesota, the prosecutors there are led by Keith Ellison and others, do their investigation as best they can. They're actually actually, it's almost like they're crowdsourcing, crowdfunding it. They need evidence. They're not getting access to the forensics. They're not getting access to the bullet-

casings. They're not getting access to the first round of witness statements. They're going to have to go reconstruct everything. Now, fortunately, there's a lot of video on the street. We've seen in New York Times did a very good video array. CNN has like a 3D reproduction, forensic reproduction of what happened. So they'll get enough for them to make to make the prosecutorial decision whether to go against the federal officer here in the, in the ice agent. Then we're going to have this battle of Minnesota versus federal officer versus the federal government. Then you've got this next layer, which, as you said, is the plaintiff's lawyers, the plaintiff's bar,

which I'm a part of, which goes after to get justice, the federal government. I'm representing a flight attendant on the American Airlines flight. that, you know, the Army helicopter, Black Hawk helicopter, collided with, you know, 10 days into this administration. I mean, if anything was a sign from above, that was it, man. And so her family needs representation against the federal government to take responsibility for her death,

both at the flight at the air traffic controller level and at the Army helicopter level. And so whether it's that or brutality by a federal officer, and boy, are we seeing that, lately, right? Are we seeing ICE and other federal security officers and National Guards people who are not trained getting into altercations with the public and sometimes leading to their death? That's where the plaintiff's bar comes in. And you walk through already the different causes of action and doctrines and immunities and defenses. They're going to have to pick through it. But very good plaintiff's lawyers

are skilled to doing this. And yes, it's going to be. to end up i i assure you among all the other trump precedent you could fill a casebook with from from this just this term this this year of trump cases that are reshaping the face good bad and ugly of our criminal justice system constitutional system constitutional law and the separation the the the relationship between the states and the federal government and the people and their federal government. And this is going to be another one of those cases where we're going to have to get to the bottom of what is,

can a person innocently protesting, can she lose her life because of a pissed off, ill-trained officer who decides that he's going to stop her departure the only way he could think of at the moment, which was shooting her in the face. So plaintiff's bar plays a major role here. And, you know, they have their own investigative entities. They use detectives and PIs and all sorts of things on the ground.

But you're right. This is going to come. Once again, it's going to be laid at the feet of the United States Supreme Court, which, of course, you and I'll talk about what the Supreme Court's doing in the current term later in the show. Everybody, make sure you subscribe to Michael Popak's substack. It's the legal AF substack. subscribe to Legal AF on YouTube and also make sure you, if you or somebody you know, have been injured in an accident, whether it's a car accident, a trucking accident, sexual harassment or

assault, wrongful death cases. You may know someone who is involved in a wrongful death. Call or text 877 Popok AF or visit the Popok firm.com. That's 877 PopokAF or visit the Popok firm.com. Popok's got lawyers all across the country for you to consult. with, the consultation is free. So give a call, see if you have a case or you can let other people you know who may have a case to reach out to Michael Popak's firm. We'll be right back when we come back. We've got a lot more to discuss our last quick break of the show. Lately, everyone's trying to clean up their habits. Alcohol may be normalized, but so are the downsides. Hangovers, poor sleep, excess calories, disrupted routines, missed workouts, and reduced next day

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slash legal AF30. Sundays for dogs.com slash legal AF30 or use code legal AF30 at checkout. Welcome back to Legal AF. I'm Ben Micellis, joined by Michael Popock. All right, let's get into it, Popak. There were two federal judges, an Obama appointed judge in Southern District of New York, a Trump appointed judge in the Eastern District of Virginia. They both issued separate rulings against Donald Trump's unlawfully appointed, so not appointed at all. United States attorneys, the U.S. attorneys, the top federal prosecutor of a district. So, for example, in New York, there's a United States attorney for the Southern District, the Eastern District, the Northern District.

In California, for example, there's Central District, Eastern District, Northern District, Southern District. Some states like New Jersey only have one district. And so like Alina Haba, you all will recall, was unlawfully appointed by Donald Trump. And when we say unlawfully appointed, there's a statute which says you can be an interim United States attorney for, I think it's 120 days. After 120 days, if you're not confirmed by the Senate, right?

You're appointed by the president. You have to be confirmed by the Senate. And if you're not confirmed by the Senate, the federal judges can extend your term. So you petition the judges to extend your term. and if they don't extend your term, then you're out. You're fired. You no longer have the job. And then the president can't appoint another interim.

You have to then go through the proper process of just doing an appointment and getting a confirmation in the Senate. You get one interim for 120 days, which can be extended. That's what the statute allows. So Alina Habas 120 days expired. She stayed on unlawfully. And then finally, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals there said, you're out. You're a squatter. Get the hell out of here.

And then she kind of refused to leave it first. And then she finally left because she realized that it could have major implications on her legal license and broader implications to all of the cases that she's affiliated with can be tainted as a result of her being an unlawful prosecutor. Now, Lindsay Halligan was moved into that position by Donald Trump after the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. was kind of forced out or fired because he wouldn't agree to prosecute Comey and Letitia James because there was an evidence to support the prosecution and because he was going by the law, even though he's a Republican guy, he was appointed by Trump. He's just like, there's no evidence to prosecute these people.

I'm not going to lose my bar license or my credibility in doing a case like this. There's no evidence to support it. So then Lindsay Halligan was moved to that position. But as I said, you only get one interim, one. And the one interim was the other guy. Halligan, you can't get the second interim. So she was unlawfully appointed. She was disqualified by Judge Curry, who was assigned both the Comey matter and the Letitia

James matter for purposes of dealing with disqualification. You had Halligan was ruled to be disqualified. But as we've been reporting on legal AF, she's continued to claim that she's the top prosecutor. She keeps referring to herself as the United States Attorney for the Eastern DHS. District of Virginia in press releases on documents, on pleadings. She doesn't even say interim. She promoted herself. She was disqualified. Then she promotes herself to the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. By the way, separately, she's been now, the DOJ

submitted her name to be confirmed by the United States Senate. Pope, I'll pass it over to you, but I wanted to, I wanted to give this one thing. She uses as the cases. She's like, there's a section that says what are like the key cases you've worked on in your career that exemplify the work you do. She lists the Comey case and the Letitia James case that she was disqualified as like her big cases to the Senate to be confirmed. And what else would she do? She doesn't list anything else. You can't list anything.

So that's Halligan. And then there is the guy from the Northern District of New York, the top federal prosecutor, who was also unlawfully appointed. So we have all these unlawfully appointed people, and the judges now on a bipartisan basis are saying no. So talk to us about what happened with Halligan and Judge Novak and what Judge Schofeld do with the Northern District of New York Act. Yeah.

So in the Eastern District of Virginia, there's now five separate judges, including Chief Judge Brinkama, now Judge Novak, originally Judge Curry. This will be sixth, who disquered. qualified and fired Lindsay Halligan and then three separate magistrate judges who have all said aloud in courtroom or in written orders

why is Lindsay Halligan still holding yourself out as the U.S. attorney after Judge Curry on November the 24th fired her? Now, Curry's order couldn't be more clear. She said it was an illegal appointment. It violates a certain statute that deals with this, violates the Constitution, does an end run around the appointment clause, and she is invalid. And her indictments, Comey, Letitia James, are invalid because she is illegal. Nothing that comes from her can be legal. And the position is vacated and vacant

and to be filled by the district judges. All right, that seems simple. And weeks went by, and the district judges didn't meet to fill the spot and try Trump filed an appeal but didn't get a stay of the order. So the order is still binding. And Lindsay Halligan just, it was like, it was like office space. She just showed up for work every day.

Like with her badge, you know, U.S. attorney, hi. Kept signing. It was like trolling America and trolling the judges. Signed Lindsay Halligan on indictments, on filings. U.S. attorney, Eastern District of Virginia. Judges started to get effing pissed off. So many of the judges would question. other assistant U.S. attorneys there on other matters and say, hey, why, well, I got you here?

Judge Nakmanoff did it. Judge Brinkuma did it. Why is Lindsay Halligan's name here on this pleading? And they all gave the same stupid answer. Looking down at their shoes. Washington told us to do it. Main justice told us in an email to put her name on everything. Brinkumma said, why doesn't she resign the way Alina The Hobbit did. Other judges said, you need to drop a footnote in all of your pleadings, like one of the judges will come to me in a minute, magistrate judge. He's a Judge Turner. He said, you need to drop a footnote and say that she has been vacated and that position has been vacated and disqualified by Judge Curry's actions. Others like Judge Nachmanoff, who's the Comey judge, said it is an abuse. It is, it is, it is, it is,

a cunt it is a inconsistent position to be taking and I don't want it to happen anymore in my courtroom and then it came to judge Novak a trump appointee who on his own nobody asked him to on his own initiative in another case off of an indictment from December he issued his own order basically in order to show cause which says to Lindsay Halligan Lindsay Allegan you ordered to inform the court in two weeks now about a week why your actions in continuing to hold yourself out, effectively impersonate a US attorney doesn't violate these five or six different professional rules of professional responsibility, which governed all lawyer conduct. I'm a member of a number of bars, I'm subject to it, as is she. Why you haven't violated misrepresentation

and fraud on the court, failure to follow orders of the court, all sorts of things related to fraud and misrepresentation and dishonesty. That's your first thing and why I shouldn't strip your name from everything. But he went further. He said, I want you to explain why and then reminded everybody the power of a federal judge and the inherent authority of a federal judge to regulate what happens in their own courtroom, why she shouldn't be banned and barred from continuing to practice in his courtroom at least, maybe not for the entirety of the Eastern District,

but in his courtroom, on all cases, explain herself. And he wants it signed by Lindsay Halligan. Here we go. Now, I think that's a invitation for her to resign al-Haba, because if she signs that thing, Ben, as Lindsay Halligan, U.S. attorney, he's going to freak out. And when you get a federal judge to freak out, that means sanctions.

That means she's basically going to invite him, but she doesn't need right now while she's in the nomination process, a federal judge barring her from his courtroom or worse. Now you got that going on. And I don't think she gets confirmed, by the way. I just don't. Maybe. We'll have to see what Thune can do.

Same time, you got Judge Schofield. in New York in the Southern District. And as you laid out, there's 93 districts. There's several in New York. And Donald Trump put in places to go after his political rivals or critics unqualified people who never have been prosecutors to temporarily fill positions in order during their tenure to go after his role.

rivals. Lindsay Halligan, he has no real hope of getting her confirmed. She doesn't really want this job. She shouldn't want this job. But he wanted her to indict Comey and Lettisha James. John Sarkone, up in the Northern District of New York, near Albany, that's who Ed Martin and Pam Bondi and Donald Trump, that's who he sicked on Letitia James's office in the New York Attorney General to investigate whether she violated civil rights. Now we've got the Civil Rights Division back open at the U.S. Department of Justice, whether her office violated civil rights by going after Donald Trump for fraud, may I remind everybody that the entire family, Trump, got a judge to be fraudsters and are still under a monitor for their independent monitor over their business practices

in a case involving Judge NGORON after a several-week trial. Be that as it may, that. and whether the National Rifle Association, the NRA, was improperly investigated by the Attorney General's Office. This all came out of subpoenas that John Sarkone issued. Now, if he's invalid the way that Lindsay Halligan is, that invalidly appointed and staying in that position and impersonating a U.S. attorney, then anything that comes out of him, any fruit of that poisonous tree, any subpoena or indictment is invalid. So smartly, after seeing what happened to Lindsay Allegan, the lawyers for Letitia James's office filed their motion to quash the subpoenas, arguing a number of things, including John Sarkone is a phony U.S. Attorney. Now, John Sarkone's a weirdo anyway. He, his 120 days, which is the most that a president or attorney general, can stick somebody in the seat while working through a confirmation process. expired. After it expired, the only way it can get extended is not through the, not through the executive branch, but through the district judges of that district. That's what happened in the Southern District with Jay Clayton. But in the Northern District, they were like, no. So they did not extend his time. But he told the world that they did. So he lied to everybody and said, oh, thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, judges. I'm now going to stay a longer. And they were like, we did not extend your time. So then he came back and published a letter that said, hey, great news. I'm a

special attorney. I get to be the U.S. attorney. A special attorney. You're like, no, you don't get to do that. We get to do that either. So it gets sent downstream, downriver, to the Southern District of New York in Manhattan because of the conflict with the judges if they have to pick the successor. And it lands before the chief judge, Schofield. And she says, I'm just going to handle one item. I'm just going to handle whether he's illegally appointed or not. She held a hearing on it and she issued her order. It came out about a day or two around the time that Judge Novak took on Lindsay Halligan. In an order, she said, it's very simple. There's only four ways that you can fill a vacancy. Three of them have to do with the presidency and the Department of Justice and one has to do with

federal judges in that district. And though the rule that they were using at the very end as a last gasp effort, or as the judge referred to it, in this kind of shifting titles thing, to kind of evade the statute and the Constitution, which doesn't work. One of them was referring to a statute that says you can extend the time for an additional 210 days under certain limited circumstances. The only way you can get the 210-day seat is if you were previously in the office for 90 days or more, which John Sarkoen was not, right? Or you were Senate confirmed for another position, doesn't matter what. You could be the Department, you could be the Secretary of Agriculture.

As long as you were Senate confirmed, you can go sit for 210 days and be the acting or interim U.S. attorney. John Sarko doesn't fit that bill either. He was. He can't be his own, he can't be his own deputy. They fired the deputy. They gave him another job. So she ruled, you're illicit. you're illegal, your subpoenas are quashed because they're illegal, and then she went further. Now, she didn't go as far as Judge Curry in the Halligan case, because, you know, every judge shapes his own remedies. And with the benefit of all these other decisions, she came up with what I thought was a good way to thread the needle for somebody that doesn't really want to be involved in the case much longer. She said, here's what I'm going to do. You, Mr. Sarkone, are barred from being involved

anymore with the prosecution of the investigation of the National Rifle Association case against the New York Attorney General's office, Lettisha James, or her office's investigation and ultimate going after Donald Trump for fraud. You are out. You're not to be involved any longer. And somebody else in your office that is qualified, they need to issue new subpoenas. And if they get issued, then the other side, of course, gets the right to quash. You're out, but she didn't declare that he's out as the Northern District of New York, U.S. attorney and create a vacancy. She didn't go that far, although I'm sure there'll be new filings that are going to be made

to have that accomplished. But that's not as far as she went in her remedy. But again, what we're watching is this is now the sixth time that judges, Central District of California, Nevada, New Jersey, two courts in New Jersey. two courts in New Jersey, including the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Eastern District of Virginia, and now in New York, where Donald Trump's hand-picked, unqualified MAGA prosecutor, gets bounced. Ultimately, this is going to come, but not probably this term,

to the United States Supreme Court, although it could be this term, to the United States Supreme Court. But again, this is district court judges and appellate judges, upholding the rule of law and not give it. into Donald Trump's worst excesses, which is to have anything he wants, anytime he wants, without regard to the Constitution or statutes. You mentioned the Supreme Court there, Popak. Before we go, I want to give our viewers and listeners an update on what the Supreme Court did,

or I should say, did not do. There were some expectations that on voting rights, they would issue a ruling and on Trump's tariffs against the world, there would be a rule. And at least people expected the tariff ruling to be handed down on Friday. That didn't take place. And it just goes to show you, right, because that federal trade court, what was it already? Now, seven months ago, you know, it was fairly soon after liquidation day or whatever the hell Trump called the Liberation Day. Fairly soon thereafter, the district court made the right decision, which is the federal trade court.

and then it was eventually affirmed by the intermediary court. But throughout this entire process, it was the rulings were stayed to allow Donald Trump's unlawful status quo to remain the status quo. And the Supreme Court's just been, you know, taking its time. And, you know, it was a pretty big area. And it just is interesting, right? Because the Supreme Court sure was quick to give Donald Trump absolute immunity several years ago. But when it comes to these issues of, you know, of potentially overturning his unlawful actions, it's like the level to which it just takes the amount of time is ridiculous.

And justice delayed is justice denied. And it's at this point, all the ramifications and harm, you know, have essentially, have essentially been felt. And it's like, I just think there are so many observers here in the United States and abroad who look at our system and say, it's so fundamentally broad. Like, what is your, what is you, what are your courts even doing? Like, what the hell is going on? So before we go, Popok, talk about that.

And I think you can also put in there also very briefly the war powers resolution. We've covered it on a lot of hot takes because I'm sure that's an issue that winds its way to the Supreme Court if it ever gets passed by both houses. And I know Trump will veto the war powers resolution. But in any event, talk to us about it all. Sure, sure. And we're going to be doing full coverage as we're. We always have on the Supreme Court over on the Legal AF YouTube channel for 2026.

Legal AF just launched a new podcast on audio. You can pick it up for your listening pleasure, wherever you pick up your audio podcast from called Unprecedented, a show I do with Dean Adol. Our recent episode, we just had Lisa Graves, who's one of the preeminent Supreme Court commentators out there talking about what we're watching in this particular term. But and we do the live oral argument live streaming. We'll be doing next week, Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve, trying to keep her job. More importantly, trying to keep Donald Trump's mitts off of the independence of the Federal Reserve. Huge oral argument next week, which will be up on Legal AF YouTube channel live. I usually do a pregame show right before that.

And then there's another case that's up next week about transgender Americans in sport. And we're going to hear how the federal United States Supreme Court feels about that issue, which divides America. So that's all for next week. Look, there is a certain stodginess about the United States Supreme Court that underlies a lot of what we've been watching with their complicity in using the shadow docket, the emergency docket, to give Donald Trump the upper hand throughout this first year with his executive orders. But there's a calendar and there's a process when you're talking about the normal appellate writ of certiorari route. We're talking about the 70 cases a year that come up that way with the hundreds of pages of decision related to each case with the three different briefs and then friends of the court brief and the one or two hour oral argument. And then the deliberation and the circulation of opinions and the writing of concurrences, which and the and the opinion, the majority opinion, the concurrence, which is, I agree with the outcome,

but I don't agree with some of the jurisprudence and analysis, and then the dissent, which is what it sounds like, and multiple dissents. And all these things have to be done and have to be finished before there's publication of the opinion or the opinion drops. And then it only drops on certain dates. Now, historically, because the calendar on the Supreme Court runs as follows, first Monday in October, term opens. And it runs until the last opinion drops usually in late June, mid to late June, right before they go away in summer holiday. Now, historically, the most controversial of their decisions, like ripping away a woman's right to choose, like that. Or immunity for the president. They'll drop in June so that they're off to.

Italy and away from America's press and the voters at that moment. If they start the term in October, then they have a couple of oral arguments in October, some in November, a couple of more in December. They take a break. They pick back up in the middle of January, February, March, and they usually stop taking oral argument around April or May. And then the opinions start coming out. But there's that process that they stick to.

they will not release an opinion, the majority opinion, unless all the other little sidecars are ready to go along at the same time. So if Sotomayor is taking a few extra days or weeks or months to write her dissent, that majority opinion is not going out until that dissent is ready. Do I think sometimes that gets gamed a bit? Yes, by both Republicans who aren't happy with the result, like Alito sometimes, and certainly with the liberals who only have that. as a weapon especially when they're in the minority so much so we don't we're not in the we're not in the world we're like you know john roberts or gorsuch or alito can go well we've waited long enough let's drop the may let's drop the majority opinion and the dissent will follow later no that's not how it works

because not in this court but in history sometimes what starts out as a dissent ends up being the majority opinion because of the weight of its persuasiveness as it's being circulated among the jurists now this this court is so ideologically divided and so politically divided that I doubt that will happen in this next generation, but it has happened in the past. In any event, there's a call and response that goes on between the opinions. The majority opinion will criticize one of the dissents. The dissents will criticize the majority opinion. The concurrence will criticize whomever, and they cite to each other, and that's because they're reading each other's. So all have to be done before it goes out the door. That is a long-winded way of saying that normally,

when the first opinions get dropped in January, as just happened on Friday, they're very rarely major decisions because they just had oral argument in October. These are not from last year. These are from this year. So October to January in the life of a life cycle of a case is very, very short to do all the things I just described. So was I shocked that the tariff decision, or the voting rights act decision that would destroy Voting Rights Act Act and allow redistricting all over again in many red Confederate, former Confederate states didn't happen? No, I'd be shocked if it did happen. That means if it happened, what I told people was if the Voting Rights Act decision

comes out, destroying the Voting Rights Act, and allowing all white districts in states as a result, That means MAGA MAGA has found a way to bend over backwards to help Donald Trump, and the dissenters couldn't stop it. But all you got to do is have Katanji Brown Jackson say, yeah, I'm not done. Like, I'm sorry, you're done. I'm not done. And just to show you the gap, I'll use an example that people will remember,

the Dobbs decision three years ago, which ripped away a woman's right to choose, was leaked. It was an Alito leak or it was a leak of an Alito opinion. I'll leave it at that. In March. March. The actual opinion, although it was pretty close, did not get dropped until June, along with the dissents and the concurrences and the rest. So you see how long these things take and when they time it. But because the Voting Rights Act did not come out now, I don't think it comes out next week on the 14th when they drop the next batch. Now we're moving into when major decisions do get dropped, March, April, May, June. Now we're too close to the election cycle, the primary and the ballot process, the general, and the ballot process.

And as you get in about another month, we're going to be probably out of the clear, in the clear, from this decision on Voting Rights Act affecting the midterms. which Donald Trump is hoping for. States like Louisiana have already thrown in the towel. They're like, oh, it's coming out too late. We're just going to have to go back to the old map. Good. The old map wasn't great, but it's better than the map that they would draw,

eliminating another black district if left to their own devices. So what I'm hoping is that by process, Trump's desire to grab another 10 or 12 seats before the election even begins will be thwarted. So that looks like it's going to happen. And we'll continue to monitor that here. On the tariffs, listen, one thing you can say about, one thing you can say universally about the Supreme Court is none of them are business people. And they don't give a shit about how big a refund is going to be if they rule against the Trump

administration. So they weren't going to, I never thought they were going to rush to make their decision in January because there was 140 billion in tariffs and it was running at 140 billion a month or whatever it was. They don't care. If they decide, and I think they would. will, five to four or six to three, that Trump does not have that tariff power over 200 countries. They're going to tell Trump to start refunding.

And if you figure out a way, I don't care if it's 300 million, 300 billion, 100 billion, whatever it is, they don't care about numbers. You go figure it out. And there's a little reported thing, Ben, that I did on a hot take recently. The Customs and Bureau, the Customs and Border Patrol, CBP, we talked about them a lot tonight as officers, but they're also in charge of tariff and exports. And they have changed on their website, and they've added a new feature to allow for electronic refunds,

which they never did before. It's not the automated thing that the hundreds of billions of dollars of importers and U.S. manufacturers want to see, but it is at least an acknowledgement that they might have to start making refunds. But I want everybody to tune in next week because we're going to have it up on legal A.F. That Lisa Cook, I want to get your impression on it, that Lisa Cook oral argument is not just about whether the Supreme Court is going to make good on its promise that it was going to protect the Federal Reserve from a presidential overreach and violation of its independence, which had said in another decision earlier in the summer when they allowed him to lop off the head of the National League. Labor Relations Board, Gwen Wilcox, they put a ring fence around the Federal Reserve.

I want to see if they make good on that, because if they don't, and they allow him based on social media posts and selective leaks about her mortgages to fire the Federal Reserve, they are going to tanned over that Federal Reserve and its interest rate setting capacity to Donald Trump. Now, one little manage of expectations. In May, Jay Powell is off as the chairperson and his seat will be replaced. So Trump is likely to get a majority, whether he gets Lisa Cook or not, and grab hold of interest rates, and then heaven help us.

Michael Popak, all well said. We'll be following that here on Legal AF. Just a reminder, make sure you subscribe to Legal AF on all platforms, specifically the Legal AF YouTube channel on YouTube right now. You're watching this there. Just search Legal AF. Make sure you're subscribed there. Legal AF YouTube is on his way to 2 million subscribers.

If you have substack, go check out LegalAF on substack. If you don't have a substack, download substack and search LegalAF. Michael Popat gives daily updates. He goes live there throughout the day. It's one of the most read and viewed substacks in the country. go check out legal a.F. on Substack. Also, if you or anyone you know has been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident, the victim of sexual harassment or assault, if you know someone who was killed in an accident, that's called a wrongful death case or any other negligence type of case or medical malpractice. Call 877 Popok AF or visit the Popok firm.com. That's Michael Popock's law firm. He has lawyers. across the country who will give you a free consultation, let you know if you have a case. Don't be shy.

Michael Popak is representing a lot of listeners and viewers of Legal AF. So give him a call if you think you've got a case or if you know somebody, tell them to call Popak's law firm. Thank you everybody so much for watching this episode of LegalAF. We're grateful for you. Hang in there. I know things are crazy. I know things are caused by Donald Trump can be depressing.

distressing, demoralizing at times. But remember, there's more of us than there are of them. Remember that we're in this together. Remember that people power prevails when we don't give up. And the Trump regime is hoping that we give up, that we allow the fascist march to continue. We need to stand up for each other, to stand up for our rights, to stand up for democracy, for this country, for a better, more empathetic, more loving a world than country. That's what we're going to do every day here on Legal AF. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate you.

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