Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 11/5/2025
Episode Date: November 6, 2025In addition to Trump’s and MAGA’s election night shellacking, Trump had a historically bad week in courtrooms around America. First Judge McConnell in Rhode Island issued a permanent injunct...ion forcing Trump to fund infrastructure projects in Blue States; then Judge Immergut entered a preliminary injunction to block Trump’s use of the National Guard on the streets of Oregon; then Federal Judge Currie ordered the turn over off all grand jury materials about Lindsey Halligan’s role in prosecuting Trump’s political rivals be turned over to her; then Judge McConnel (again) issued a temporary restraining order to ensure that 42 million Americans don’t starve to death and Trump pay out $8 billion in funding asap. Which brings us to the MAGA Supreme Court Justices looking their collective noses down at Trump’s Solicitor General as they consider whether to overturn Trump’s signature Tariff scheme. No wonder Trump chickened out and failed to even show up in Court for the Supreme Court today as he had promised. All this and so much more on the top rated Legal AF podcast with Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo. Support Our Sponsors: One Skin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code LEGALAF at https://oneskin.co/hair #oneskinpod Fatty 15: Get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to https://fatty15.com/LEGALAF and using code LEGALAF at checkout. Honey Love: Save 20% Off Honeylove by going to honeylove.com/LEGALAF! #honeylovepod Trust and Will: Get 10% off plus free shipping of your estate plan documents by visiting https://trustandwill.com/LEGALAF Subscribe to Legal AF Substack: https://substack.com/@legalaf Check out the Popok Firm: https://thepopokfirm.com 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 The Influence Continuum: 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 Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Oh, I love the smell of Democratic victory the day after.
We're here on Legal A-F, so much to talk about at the intersection of law and politics.
We may need two shows, but we're going to kick it off besides talking about things like tariffs.
If Donald Trump thought, Karen, that the Mississippi, talking about an area in the coal mine,
that they're flipping, the Democrats flipping seats in Mississippi,
last night, along with the rest of the blue wave in every other state and over, and
Democrats overperforming and flipping back to blue seats, that which Donald Trump had temporarily
turned red.
If he thought that was a bad day, then court happened today.
He gets, his DOJ gets scorer, gets just excoriated by a magistrate judge about the Comey
investigation and prosecution.
Then he's got to go, well, no, he doesn't go.
He's a chicken.
He threatened to go to the.
United States Supreme Court, take the walk down, Pennsylvania Avenue or whatever. He didn't
show up. And if he did, he would have been pretty upset because there's a lot of healthy skepticism,
even among the alt-right of the Supreme Court, about Donald Trump's tariffs. And so we'll talk
about that. We'll talk about the Comey hearing today in front of a magistrate judge. Judge Fitzpatrick
who used to be in Lindsey Halligan's Eastern District of Virginia, U.S. Attorney's Office, and he was
none too pleased with what the DOJ was bringing.
Lindsay Halligan's in trouble.
She's gurgling, if you listen closely.
You've got multiple judges ordering the grand jury materials get turned over about
her participation in the indictment of Letitia James and James Comey.
And I don't think it's any coincidence that they're the, along with John Bolton, which is
sort of a separate case, but they're the only two so far that have been indicted.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
the snap payments to help 42 million Americans and hopefully have $8 billion flow to them this month
because they're already short because the month's already started, they already can't pay
for food.
I'm talking basic necessities here.
The most fragile population in America, Donald Trump has decided on the day of election,
on election day, to go after and say he'll never comply with the orders by federal judges
to make the payments so people.
can buy food and avoid malnourishment.
Now, his administration then turned around and said,
this is my interpretation, ignore that crazy guy in the corner.
We're going to comply with the orders,
but that may not be good enough.
And Judge McConnell's holding a hearing tomorrow
about whether they're already in violation of a temporary restraining order
because they're dragging their feet to make those payments to people in need.
And that'll sort of under the radar because there's so much going on
between Prop 50 in California and the governor races in New Jersey and Virginia and the delegate
races in Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and center.
It kind of got lost a couple of other developments.
In one particular, Judge Imberguts back in Portland, Oregon, federal judge.
She held a three-day trial to get to the point of a permanent injunction the end of the
case about whether Donald Trump has the right to declare an emergency.
and use the National Guard in states or not, at least in Oregon.
And she issued a preliminary injunction on her way to, on Friday, issuing her
permanent injunction.
So much to talk about this podcast takes two.
Let's bring in Karen Freeman, Magniflu.
Hey, Karen.
Hey, Popak.
How are you today?
Fantastic.
After yesterday.
I know.
It was amazing.
Best night ever.
Yeah, exactly.
And I love that the Mod Squad, you know what I love about the Democratic Party, just to digress for a minute.
Well, it's not digressing with our audience, is we are such a big tent.
We're working out in real-time issues about are we Barnacrots with Democratic socialists like Mandami and New York, where you live?
Are we moderates like Governor Alex Bamberger and Mikey Cheryl?
in New Jersey, who were part of the Mod Squad when they were in the House, what are we?
But whatever we are, we're not MAGA.
And the Democratic brand, which pundits have tried to put on life support, buying into the attacks on
the brand by Donald Trump, I think we did a fair job of resuscitating the brand and saying
that we're here to stay with wins, not just in the, as one of my Republican friends wrote me,
Oh, sure. It was a blue wave in blue states. Yeah, not exactly. Not 13 delegates, you know, in places like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, you know, vote flipping, seat flipping, county flipping back to blue. That there's no, there's nothing that good came out of last night. What was your kind of your takeaway from election night that we can get into the law side of the show?
It felt like such a major rebuke to all things, Donald Trump. I think.
the country basically sent MAGA a huge message that we do not like what's going on here.
I mean, and to call Virginia a blue state, Virginia is not a blue state.
Virginia's the south.
I mean, I know it's not exactly, but it's not a blue state the way New York and California are.
And I think that those two governors, Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, are the new faces of the Democratic Party.
They are badass women, first of all.
They're young.
And one of, I think Mikey Cheryl was like a helicopter pilot in the Navy and Abigail Spanberger
was an ex-CIA agent.
Like, I think they're amazing and they're amazing women and they're also moms.
They're just really, I think we need more leaders like them.
And I think it's just great that they are both now leading two major states.
And as you said, there's so many other places that were flipped and state-level
and local seats that were flipped.
And it just was a huge spanking to MAGA.
And I think you can tell, because Trump is basically
now trying to blame Congress for the shutdown for this.
And he's doing all of his dissembling that he does.
And I think people need to see and need to stand up
and see what's going on here, that people aren't having it.
The whole country is really rejecting MAGA.
Even what happened here in New York,
York City with the mayoral race, it was really between two candidates, Andrew Cuomo and
Zoran Mamdami, who won the election. They picked Zoran over Andrew Cuomo. That was a huge
statement, too, that, look, we don't want the political dynasty that's the Cuomo's and the old
guard. It's time for fresh new faces and new leadership that the old guard has failed us in every
way. And I think it's just, it's a new dawn and it's a breath of fresh air. And I woke up today
feeling fantastic and really happy and really hopeful because this is what we needed. What's been
happening in the first 10 months of the administration is appalling, atrocious and destroying this
country. And I'm just so happy to see, in addition to a blue tsunami, the highest voter turnout
that I think we've ever seen in an election
that is not the midterms
as not the presidential elections.
This is just some off election.
And it was the highest voter turnout.
It was incredible to see.
Yeah, and to your point, Virginia had a Republican governor recently.
And I like our odds.
I mean, I think the polling numbers for Donald Trump,
which are in the trash, lowest ever for a second term,
at this point, are starting to show up in the water supply.
And people now are, they're just, just pent up demand to vote.
And we saw it come out in large forces last night because crowds on the street and the tens of
millions of people, if you put it all together, 40, 50 million people that took to the streets
and all these rallies over the last, less than a year are important.
The court cases were up to five, six hundred court cases against the Trump administration.
Also, so important.
Polling when you get a phone call or some sort of thing.
to ask you who you're going to vote for about your issue is really important.
But nothing replaces the polls.
Nothing replaces the ballot and being heard.
And it was just such a great night.
And it boats, I mean, Rahm Emanuel was on CNN, and he's been in the White House.
And he said, look, I've been on nights like this.
There's no champagne corks popping unless they're completely delusional within the White House.
And you can see by the conduct and behavior of Trump as we opened up today on post-election day.
And I'm not going to go watch the Supreme Court oral argument.
I'm going to authorize some crazy lawsuits to be filed.
I'm going to blame Congress for the shutdown because I know, you know, as a lot of the political
pundits said on CNN and on Midas and other places, they said, Trump has a Biden problem,
which is hard to believe.
Biden was not able to convince the American people that their economic welfare was in a good
place when everything in their life told them that it wasn't.
whether it was at the gas pump or in the supermarket.
And Donald Trump's got a Biden problem because he wants to tell the American people.
He continues to tell the American people that they are better off because of his economic policies,
because of his tariffs, because of his firing people, because of his chasing human beings through the streets
and the impact on what happens at the supermarket and around the kitchen table.
And the American people looked at him like, you're nuts because we're feeling the pain every day.
And that's why your new mayor in New York, putting aside some other issues that people
may have with him, focus squarely, almost exclusively on kitchen table politics and what matters
around the hearth and home.
And whether he's able to accomplish it, I don't know, but I mean, I like to start.
I mean, he started today with, speaking of women, he started today with the transition team
of all women, including those that were in the Biden administration, those that were
in the Federal Trade Commission.
I mean, he's got real hitters, real people in government, to supplement his, let's be
frank, his lack of knowledge at 35 or whatever he is and running, you know, one of the, you know,
top two cities in the world. But, you know, that's why they call it an administration. You know,
you were in an administration when Bloomberg was there. You know, there's a lot of different hands
and talent you need to pull all those levers with the spiritual leader and the judgment that goes
along with being a mayor, but look what it says about our party, Karen, that we can, yes, we can have
a Bernie Krat, we can have a social Democrat who wins in New York, right? And at the same time,
we could have the moderate wing being represented by Spamberger and Mikey Cheryl. And yes,
we have a national conversation that's got to be resolved by the time of the 2028 election
about are we going to be middle, moderate, pragmatists,
as Governor Spanberger now says,
or are we going to be, you know, over there on the other,
I should move my hands over here,
over here on the other left-wing extreme
or progressive side of the party.
But we'll work that out with the American people.
All I know is just a rejection of all things, Trumpism.
Yeah, I agree with you.
And I wonder whether we have to pick
and whether instead we can say there's room
for everybody under the tent.
And maybe it's not a one-size-fits-all country.
Maybe places like New York want to be further left and more liberal and that there are places
that want to be more moderate.
I mean, that's the beauty of this country.
But what we can't be is this lawless MAGA, which is what they are, who just drives
a truck over every law over the Constitution and just does whatever they want to people to just
suit Donald Trump and his friends and family so that they can get richer, tear down the White
House, whatever it is. It's just atrocious, appalling what he's doing. And I think this was just a huge
rejection of all of that. Yeah. So speaking of rejection of all of his signature items,
tariffs were up at the United States Supreme Court today, fully briefed, two and a half hours of
argument. And we got to hear more about judges' views on the major questions doctrine,
on the non-delegation doctrine,
on originalism,
on constitutional and American history around taxes.
While, you know, I listened to the two and a half hours,
we had it up on Legal A.F. as well.
I think John Sauer, who's so hard to listen to,
I mean, for various reasons, as our Solicitor General,
I think he took on water very, very early on in his argument.
And for me, it was,
questions being asked that were really insightful, but very, very scorching in their own way by Amy Coney
Barrett and Neil Gorsuch. And they got to get Gorsuch and Barrett in order to have a majority
to uphold those tariffs. And I'm not so sure having listened to it. What's your takeaway from
what happened today? It was an interesting oral argument. It's funny when people start citing the
Boston Tea Party, you know, as evidence of why tariffs should not be, why when the Constitution
was created, et cetera, why these tariffs are unconstitutional. It basically boils down to what
this argument boiled down to is that the power to tax or tariff is in Article 1, therefore
it rests with Congress, that the president does not have this authority. And the president was
relying on something called Aipa, which is a statute passed in, I think, 1977, that it's about
emergency powers that allows the president in certain emergencies to do certain things.
And the word tariff isn't in there.
And so the president's argument is that, look, it allows me to license things.
It allows me to do other things.
But what was the pushback was, but it doesn't say anything about tariffs.
And if Congress wanted to allow the president to have this fundamentally Congress's role, they would have said so.
And that's kind of what the argument boiled down to in the most simplest terms.
It was a fascinating argument to listen to because, as you said, Gorsuch and Amy Coney-Barritt really were just, it sounded like skeptical of this and really had to grapple with these arguments that John Soutich.
was making on behalf of the Trump administration
and really pushing back on many of these claims
that they're making.
And so when you listen to that,
and then of course there's Justice Thomas
who basically is like,
so you mentioned something about such and such case.
Tell me more about that.
It's like he just cherry picks like
the John Sauer and Trump's best arguments.
And I was like, just tell me more about that.
It's like he's giving a platform to the Trump administration
without asking hard questions.
It's just so appalling to me to listen to that.
But Gorsuch and Amy Connie Barrett really seemed,
I think, genuinely concerned and skeptical.
And basically, you know, what came out today
was that Trump is the first president to ever claim
that the emergency IEPA statute allows the president
to impose tariffs.
And Amy Connie Barrett basically said,
look, you know, how can every country be a threat?
and need tariffs. Every country. I could see one country. I could see whatever, but like Spain,
France, how are they a threat? And so, you know, the question that they're answering is basically
did Trump exceed his authority by trying to use this what's supposed to be an emergency statute
to put tariffs across the board on everybody. And it was all about how he can do things like
sanctions. He can do things like embargoes. He can use the statute for various things.
but tariffs equal taxes and taxation is all about Congress.
And so, and there is a different section
that the president wasn't relying on
that is an emergency power that limits the tariffs
to 150 days.
And Trump though, isn't trying to use that other statute.
He's trying to use this emergency power.
So I think that the separation of powers concerns
is what's going to carry the water here.
And, you know, one of the things that they were
talking about was, was if you give the president, if you delegate to the president to the executive
branch, if Congress delegates their congressional authority to the executive branch, which you can do
through just a simple majority in Congress, right? You pass legislation in both the House and the
Senate, and then the president signs that into law. Even Gorsuch and Barrett were saying, look,
what president isn't going to sign that because it gives him more power? Of course, he's always
going to sign that. But you can never get that back. Because in order to repeal a statute,
you need a super majority or to overcome a presidential veto, right? Because if they wanted to take it
back and the president says, I don't want to give back the power, they would need a super majority
to override that. And they said, they're never going to get it back. So I don't think they're going to,
I think this was a bridge too far for even the Supreme Court. But again, it's hard to read the tea leaves.
And so, who knows, with the Supreme Court, what they're going to do?
But it really felt that way to me.
What about you?
Yeah, I agree with you.
I think, I mean, Gorsuch is very untrustworthy.
He'll ask questions that appear, and he asked a series of questions that are against the Trump administration's position.
And tussled with John Sauer going back in American history to the revolution and the T-Tax, as you said.
Because the International Economic Emergency Powers Act does not use the word tariffs.
At best, it talks about regulation and licenses.
And it's a big leap, and really, I think, an unjustified one, to say that those words can then be used to allow a president to steal congressional Article I exclusive power to tariff and tax.
And there's a big difference.
As the judges all at, you know, you got Amy Coney Barrett siding with Sotomayorin questioning
and saying, no, no, stop, stop.
This is a tax.
He said, well, John Sauer, I think lost a lot of credibility when he said, but revenue, I can't
even do his voice.
Revenue is incidental.
Can you imagine a debate between John Sauer and RFK Jr.?
Oh, my.
It would be literally.
That's like a bad joke.
It would be unlessible.
But they said, he said, well, tariffs are, the revenue is incidental.
How is it incidental that he's really trying to control trade?
No, no, no, no.
As far as his foreign powers, Article 2, Article 2, he thought if he said Article 2 enough,
it's like a drinking game, he'd get the right result from his answers.
But that's completely at odds with what the Trump administration has said, which is, it's the
linchpin of their economic policy, and they need the money to replace the tax revenue, the real tax
income tax revenue that they've given up.
So I think that there's many places where he didn't concede
and he should have conceded for credibility.
And as an advocate like you are before appellate courts,
sometimes you have to concede when they're making a good argument
as when Amy Cody Barrett said,
you would agree with me that the word tariff does not appear in the statute, right?
Right. Okay.
Would you agree with me then why are you focused so much on the word regulate?
Why aren't you arguing to me that license
gives you the power to tariff.
I never thought of that,
but see, he thought that was a lifeline.
I didn't see it as a lifeline
in the way she, the context,
the way she came at it.
I think she was really arguing,
as she always has,
when it comes to statutory interpretation,
read the statute,
the plain language of the statute.
And as Attorney General Rob Bonta told me
in the last 24 hours,
during an interview from California,
Congress doesn't hide elephants
inside of mouse holes.
They're not going to give this tremendous power, stealing it from their own core constitutional
power in Congress and give it to the president by way of the word license or regulate.
No other president, as you noted in 50 years, has ever seen it that way.
And if you look at the legislative history behind Laipa, it was given to President Carter
during a terrible economic period in order for Congress to rein in what he would do.
Like, here's some powers.
We're going to give you a limited time.
toolbox. Use these as opposed, because they were fearful that somebody like, and Trump was like,
no, it's not a statute of limitation. I mean, literally, it's capacious. It's abroad. I can do anything
I want with it. I just don't see it. Now, the question is, is Kavanaugh, sorry, is Gorsuch
going to be consistent when he finally, quote, unquote, votes with the way he asked his questions?
Because if he is, because, you know, there's, as Rob Bonta told me in an interview that's going up
tomorrow in Legal A.F., because he was in the room watching it.
And he said, the mic-drop moment for him is when, yeah, it was Gorsuch.
When Gorsuch said, effectively, explain to me if Congress delegated this to the president,
how does it ever come back?
It's a one-way ratchet.
And how would they ever get the power back?
and they're very concerned about
both Gorsuch and Amy Coney-Barratt
are concerned about the separation of powers issue.
I think, if I'm handicapping this,
that Amy Coney-Barrant is already over
with Sotomayor, Kagan, and Katanji Brown-Jackson.
So there's four over there.
And there's at least three on the other side,
Alito, Thomas, and,
Kavanaugh. I mean, Kavanaugh's gone.
The question is Roberts,
Gorsuch, and Amy Coney,
really just Gorsuch and Roberts at this point.
And I didn't think Roberts was that helpful
to John Sauer's position for the government either.
When he acknowledged that this is a major question
that needed to be answered by Congress
affirmatively with clear language, and it wasn't,
and talked about,
but what he struggles with in public all the time
is how do you balance Article 2 powers, which reigns supreme for a president in foreign affairs,
and this is foreign facing with the limited power given about of a delegation by Congress to a president?
And that's the struggle you see with Roberts.
I think this is five to four to tear down the tariffs.
Could it be six three to tear down the tariffs if Roberts goes that?
Yes.
Could it be five four the other way and keep the tariffs in place?
Yes. But if you got sour making these ridiculous arguments today, the Great Depression will result if you don't affirm the town. What are you even talking about? The last time we had the Great Depression is because a president like Trump imposed tariffs. We've never had this before. And your point is very well taken about Amy Coney Barrett, which is like, I don't get how you can put effectively an unlimited tar, unlimited durational tariff on 200 countries.
all goods and you're not pointing me to a proper delegation of authority from Congress and
like you said they can't all be an emergency we're in an emergency status with France
with Spain they didn't spend that much time on the emergency which I thought was odd but
they didn't need that particular question perhaps answered and and we're going to see the
result it's either going to come in June at the end of the term like a lot of these really
tough decisions or it's going to some people wrote in a few weeks nothing happens
in a few weeks. We're going to get a full-blown decision with dissents and concurrences.
It's going to take a minute. It'll probably be in the next 60 days. If not, it'll be from there all
away till June, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, well, that's where we are. Yeah, but one of the things
they said was, well, what are we supposed to do? Give all the money back if it's ruled unconstitutional,
but they said, no, you can just say going forward, no more tariffs. You don't have to make this,
this crazy thing. But then they said, look, that shows you how complicated this is. That, what would
you do, right? That's why this is a major question. And that's why the major question doctrine applies.
Like, it was a really good, I thought it was a really good argument.
Well, Tadol said you can make it prospective because I think he wants to give them an out.
Exactly. But the states don't want that. The states believe that the businesses have been harmed.
People have been harmed. That this is a tax that has been passed through to the American consumer.
There should be refunded. It should put a chill down the spine of the part of the Trump
administration because Amy Coney Barrett said almost like, okay, I'm more, if I've decided already
that he can't do this, how do we handle refunds? I mean, I've been in situations where judges go
there that quickly and you're like, they're already at the remedy because they've already
made up their mind that you're, that you've done something wrong. I know in that case. So,
I know we say this a lot. Yeah. But I really mean it here. Trump is panicking about this because this is
truly, like, and you can tell he's panicking by the things he's saying. He is, this is truly
at the centerpiece of his entire plan. And I think he realizes that he's going to be slapped
back by the Supreme Court, at least potentially. And if that were to happen, you know,
listen, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. You know, he put all of his eggs in that
basket domestically and foreign policy economically. It's been rejected by the American people
because it's making them suffer. And if it gets rejected now by the United States,
State Supreme Court, his signature policy, and right before, let's say, let's say it comes out in
May or June, you know, just a few months before the midterms, he's just, they're just a world of
apocalyptic bad things that they're envisioning in the White House. That's why they're leaning
on it. Scott Bassett, the Treasury Secretary was there doing interviews afterwards, you know,
trying to lobby, trying to work the refs, as we say, in sport.
And we'll see what happens.
But when I do want to cover, now we're post tariffs in the election day,
we want to get to what happened in the James Comey hearing before the magistrate judge, Fitzpatrick
today because it was really eye-popping.
Lindsay Halligan's on life support in terms of her title, her holding her job.
A couple of judges are not happy with her, and they're getting to the bottom of what happened
in that grand jury.
Judge McConnell and Judge Talwani issued orders about.
restarting payments to human beings that need to eat, hunger.
We're not talking about, oh, it's, you know, this is an incidental they need for,
no, this is, people have already spent their snap payments of 42 million Americans.
Last month, we're talking about replenishing it so they can go to a supermarket and buy food
for their loved ones themselves, their children, their babies, disabled at home, elderly,
veterans, and the rest.
and Donald Trump's still playing games.
I think it's political suicide.
I think yesterday demonstrates that it was.
He was even trolling America on Election Day
about cutting off the food supply to Americans,
and he thinks this works.
But we'll talk about what's happening there,
and then we'll end the show on the National Guard
and a new ruling that came out in advance of a Friday ruling
that we're expecting from Judge Imbergat in Portland,
which will then back up to the United States.
Supreme Court.
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We got a courtroom today.
This is a bad day for Donald Trump.
That's why I'm so giddy.
Bad day electorally yesterday, you can't make lemonade out of those lemons that were dealt
to Donald Trump in any way, shape, or form.
And then he's got a couple of major court hearings.
He's had a bad week already.
You've got temporary restraining orders issued by Judge McConnell related to the SNAP payments, $42 million, $42 billion, sorry, 42 million people, $8 billion of food stamp payments.
You got Judge McConnell, same guy in Rhode Island, issuing a permanent injunction about the Transportation Department trying to deny cities and states money for infrastructure, like, you know, bridges and tunnels and roads, things that you can die at a high.
speed if they're not repaired in order to try to get blue cities and blue states to give up
their sanctuary status and help chase down human beings for immigration policy.
And Judge McConnell, same judge in Rhode Island said, no, you're not doing that either.
Permanent injunction.
That was all within the last 24 hours.
Got Judge Imurgut, who issues her preliminary injunction, soon to be a permanent injunction
about the use of the National Guard.
Loss, loss, loss.
And then you show up at the United States Supreme Court.
And things do not go according to plan for Donald Trump at the United States Supreme Court,
even among the justices that he chose.
And then you move to Lindsay Halligan and her crack team of prosecutors, wherever she can find
them, to go into the Eastern District of Virginia and appear before Judge Fitzger—Fittpatrick,
who used to be a prosecutor in her own office about all things related to Brady material,
which is the documents and information, the government has to be.
provide to the defense in order for them to put on a defense. And this trial, just to remind
everybody of James Comey, the former FBI director, is two months from today. And they should
already have all these documents. And so we have the Article III judge who sits over the
whole case, then delegates to the magistrate judge. And the magistrate judges in criminal and
federal court have a lot of power. They're the ones that are handling the day-to-day arraignments
and bond hearings and bail hearings
and subpoenas and search warrants
and a lot of motions that are referred by the judge
go down and issues about documents
end up with the magistrate judge
and they have a lot of power
even though they're not Article 3
lifetime appointed judges.
And this judge was not happy
even though they were there on a trump motion,
a DOJ motion, about setting up a filter protocol
for documents.
And he had a great line today.
I don't know if you caught it caring.
He turned to the prosecutors
And he said, this indict first and investigate second doesn't work for me.
So the fact that you don't have your documents ready to turn over and you've been withholding them ends today.
And then talked about the grand jury materials that he wants turned over as well.
Big win for James Comey and for justice.
You've been a prosecutor.
Talk about that kind of hearing and how you read Judge.
Fitzpatrick. Yeah, it's so confusing because you've got Pat Fitzgerald. Patrick Fitzgerald is
representing Jim Comey in front of William Fitzpatrick. So, but yeah, William, Judge Fitzpatrick was not
happy at all with the government at all. I mean, and it's just very clear. If any time you have
a federal judge say something like that to the prosecutor, federal judges often speak
colorfully, sharply to defense attorneys, partly because defense attorneys, look, you're, you're
trying to make arguments out of things that aren't always there.
But as a prosecutor, you have to have all your ducks in a row.
And the prosecutors are typically given what's called the presumption of regularity,
which means you assume they're doing everything right and they're doing everything above board
and you give them the benefit of the doubt because the Department of Justice is honorable.
Prosecutors, a lot of people think of prosecution and defense as adversaries.
and they sort of are, but they, but prosecutors, it's not like a plaintiff and a defense attorney in a civil case where they're true adversaries. There's one side versus the other. Prosecutors are, sit kind of on top because they have to do justice. They can't do things just as an adversary. Like you can't, you can't just push a position. If you have evidence, for example, that helps the defense, you're obligated to turn that over. They have to know about that. And so prosecutors have this added duty of sort of doing the right thing.
and justice. And so when you see a federal magistrate like Judge Fitzpatrick really attacking the
prosecution like they are in the Comey case, it is not looking good for the prosecution, which is a
good thing because this is a sham prosecution. And essentially what he said was, look, I want to see
these grand jury materials. I want to see the transcripts related to the indictment. I want to see
everything, including the instruction. This is all highly unusual. Judges don't typically give that over or even
look at that in detail like that.
They also, he also ordered the prosecutors, and this is by tomorrow, okay?
This is a short, tight deadline because this trial is going in early January.
Any evidence that was seized in prior investigations, material that Jim Comey claims may include some attorney-client privilege material, because Dan Richman, who's the individual in the indictment, person number one, I think they called him, or person number three, I can't remember which one he was, that he is, he is.
He is the individual in the indictment that supposedly they're alleging Comey lied about this,
authorizing him to leak or using him to leak.
We don't really know exactly what the facts are because the indictment is so spare and so
complicated, like, it's just so confusing and it's not really clear what they're referring to.
But if it's Dan, it's Dan Richmond, they have clarified.
And we don't even know the time period that they're talking about.
We don't even know which statement they're talking about exactly.
you can sort of glean it and guess.
But he basically, at a certain point,
Dan Richmond was actually Comey's attorney.
And so during a particular time in question.
And so any communications between them would be privileged.
And so the way that normally works is prosecutors have to,
when you get material that might be privileged,
you have to set up a taint team.
And so it's like a separate team, a filter team,
that comes in and looks at the materials
and filters out all the privileged stuff,
because the prosecution team, they're not allowed to see privilege material.
So this judge was basically like, not my problem, as you said, indict first, investigate later,
not my problem that you haven't done all this filtering and done all this.
If you've looked at attorney-client privilege material and used that for your prosecution,
that's at your own peril.
That could actually imperil the entire prosecution.
There's so many reasons why this prosecution is flawed.
This is just one more reason that might be built on attorney-client privilege
material which prosecution cannot use unless there's certain exceptions, but they can't just use
it willy-nilly like it seems like they did here. In addition to the vindictive and selective
prosecution claim, in addition to the fact that Lindsay Halligan, we're going to talk about, I know,
is invalidly appointed as the United States attorney. There's so many reasons why this indictment
is flawed and this prosecution is flawed. So this is just yet one more reason the judge is looking at
to try and to try to glean from this mess,
because it's a complete mess, what exactly do we have here?
And so the evidence today, or the hearing today,
focused on the legitimacy of the evidence collection
and the prosecutorial process.
And it's about these materials that were seized
under a separate FBI investigation called Arctic Haze,
and that was a leak probe, et cetera,
to see about what was used in this,
indictment. So it's at their own peril that they use this material. But the judge is looking
at scrutinizing this indictment very, very closely. And I don't think it looks very good for the
prosecution. Then you have Judge Curry in South Carolina, who's presiding over one discreet
issue, but it's a major issue in Letitia James and James Comey's prosecution, which is whether
Lindsay Halligan was illegally appointed or not. And that got referred to her by the fourth
Circuit Court of Appeals because if Comey and Letitia James are right and Lindsay Halligan
was improperly appointed, and the next pick to replace her comes from the judges of the Eastern
District of Virginia.
So they took that conflict away, sent it off to Judge Curry, a senior status judge, Clinton
appointee in South Carolina, and she's getting to the bottom of what happened in the grand jury,
even though that doesn't necessarily go to her analysis as to whether the statute.
statute has been violated. You don't need to know what she did in the room, but certainly it would go to remedy because the more crazy, crappy things that Lindsay Halligan did within that grand jury. Like, what did she say to the grand jury? What cardinal rules that she breach? What attorney-client privilege of either of them with material in her hands that she breach? Did she use all the right magic words? Did she hold the grand jury hostage? Did she violate rules?
rules, you know, and nobody would know it until they looked at the transcript. So today, on our
recording, on our live, was the day for Halligan to fix a mess because the judge ordered that on
Monday, all of the grand, and she meant all of the grand jury material information and documents
in and around the grand jury process be delivered to her with a red ribbon for a review in chamber.
And it didn't happen.
The Trump administration tried a spoonfeater, trying to hide documents again.
They love hiding documents.
And they sent her like half the transcript.
She's like, no, I want, here's, okay, we try it again.
All documents about the grand jury process, including the transcripts, including any audio recording
of it.
I'll give you one more shot.
Wednesday, 5 p.m.
Now, I haven't checked the docket.
but we won't probably know until tomorrow morning but um that's not good so now you've got
comysides got the grand jury transcripts for their purposes because they've already said we need them
because if there were if there was infirmities and violations of constitutional law or otherwise
and rights in the grand jury process we want to make a motion about it but we need the docs in order
to do that on the other hand judge curry's like yeah i want to take a look too what was said in
that grand jury by the incompetent or the novice prosecutor. And I just find it, I find it
very rewarding that no judge will refer to Lindsay Halligan as a U.S. attorney. She signs her name
to all the papers that are filed. But Judge Walker for Petitia James calls her government
counsel. Judge Curry, on the motion to disqualify, calls her the indictment signer. And
The indictment signer.
The indictment signer.
They will not call her by her name.
And even when Walker said, I'm just letting you know, because of this issue about your position,
I'm just going to call you the government counsel.
So they've already knocked her down a peg.
I think it's clear they're going to, she's not, I mean, because they've already ruled in different
jurisdictions.
It's clear she's not going to be validly appointed.
The more interesting question is what will happen to the indictments.
Because in the other jurisdictions, they did not dismiss the
indictments. And I think it's because they were actually indicted by validly appointed
assistant United States attorneys and people who knew what they were doing, et cetera. This is a
tricky one because she herself went in the grand jury. She was the assistant United States
attorney, if you will, who went into the grand jury and there was no U.S. attorney. I don't know.
I can't think of any other reason why the judge wants to see the grand jury minutes.
I think it's remedy and abuse. And maybe she'll make a referral about the judge.
something she saw that was bad.
And then, you know, you've got Pam Bondi who knows that she's in deep crap with this judge
and try to file a backdated document retroactively ratifying everything that Lindsay Halligan
has done since she's been in the office with this order and filed it just like, and that was
their final argument.
Well, even if you find and even if you find, and even if you find, don't get rid of the indictment,
I adopt it.
Well, that's not how that works.
And we're going to have to see, as you said, what the remedy is going to be related to that.
Let's move to Judge, let's move to Rhode Island and to Massachusetts.
So shutdown is now entered day, what are we up to?
Day 1,000?
What are we up to?
He's torn down the White House.
He's torn down the government.
He's put the government out of business, you know, controlling all three branches of government.
While Congress is basically on vacation, the House is on.
on vacation. He won't even call them into session. I mean, it's just atrocious to me that they won't even come to the table and negotiate and try to compromise or have a conversation. They are on vacation.
And two months of Donald Trump trying to blame the Democrats is backfired. That's why now he's switching gears and trying to blame everybody but himself.
He's trying to blame Congress, but Congress is doing this for him. Well, exactly. He controls them.
I interviewed Representative Grahava the other day and she's just waiting.
to get sworn in so she can sign the discharge petition to get the Epstein files and to represent
her district of 800,000 people and Mexican Americans and Latino women around the country.
She can't even get that done, you know, because they are willing to keep the government shut
in order to satisfy Donald Trump.
If he said reopen the government, Maga Mike would say, how high?
I mean, he does whatever Trump tells him to do.
True.
So we didn't Rahva's file a lawsuit, though?
Yeah.
Still waiting.
Still waiting.
She hasn't been sworn in and she's getting, you know, she's getting upset and I don't blame her.
Although she said there is one silver lining is that she's gotten more publicity and people
rallying around her than she ever would have, even though she followed her to father's footsteps
as a junior congressperson, you know, from the 7th District in Arizona.
She's great, by the way.
Talk about fresh leadership.
You haven't heard the last of Adelita Graha.
And that's where Mikey Sherrill and Amy Spamberger came out of.
They came out of the house.
They were jokingly referred to as the Mod Squad in contrast to AOC and Talib and the rest.
But these are our future leaders.
They're in their 30s and 40s.
And they are going to lead us to the promised land, hopefully of a return to the White House
and a return to normalcy.
And as you said, you know, the assumption of regularity,
I like to return that to government, but that's not happening.
Let's talk about McConnell and Snap and Talwani.
So two judges, two different groups run into court
in order to make sure that 42 million Americans,
20 million households have a way to eat during the shutdown,
just like it's happened in every shutdown.
Because until Donald Trump,
never been made. Other Americans who are the most fragile group, underprivileged group, below the
poverty line, elderly, disabled, babies, children, and the rest. Never been made political pawns
to make cheap political points and make them suffer. But Donald Trump's entire ethos seems to be to
make American suffer. I guess that doesn't fit on a red hat. Make America suffer again? I mean,
that's where we are right now. And so two different groups, one led by democracy forward,
Sky Perryman. She's going to be on with me tomorrow for an interview leading about 10 different
organizations, including church groups, who filed in Rhode Island with Judge McConnell, the chief
judge, and 23 attorneys general led by Rob Bonta and the Massachusetts Attorney General
ran into court in Massachusetts and got Judge Talwani. And within hours of each other, they issued,
I would say competing orders, but different.
orders. Judge Talwani and the attorneys general, what they got, was not an order compelling
the payment by this week. She issued an order that they, with her guidance, issue agency action
in order to do the funding. It was sort of like, but she held the TRO at abeyance on ice,
not Judge McConnell. Judge McConnell said, you are ordered, and here's your written order
that you've asked for on Halloween on the 1st of November. You are ordered.
by Monday, no later than Wednesday, to start making payments.
So Monday, they were supposed to make full payment.
Wednesday, they were supposed to make partial payment if they weren't going to make full payment
and tell the court and the public why they weren't making full payment, but payments had to be
made by no later than Wednesday.
Well, that's not what they filed.
They filed on Monday, this past Monday, a piece of paper from a guy who's
undersecretary of something within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is the
a regulatory agency in which they said, well, we're going to do partial payments.
Here's why.
It's only going to be $4.65 billion out of $8 billion.
And it's not going to be Wednesday.
It could be weeks or months.
We don't know.
We'll give them a table.
Maybe it'll work.
Maybe it won't work.
And Democracy Forward was like, are you effing kidding me?
And they immediately filed another emergency motion.
And Judge McConnell has scheduled tomorrow, I think, at 12 o'clock.
or 11 o'clock, another emergency hearing as to why they're not,
why they're violating his order and what they should do it and what we should do about it.
In the meantime, on Election Day, I don't have you caught this, Karen,
Donald Trump trolls the poor and says, we don't care,
I don't care what a federal judge says until the radical left reopens the government.
We're not making the payments.
What do you make about all this?
And what do you think is going to happen tomorrow at the hearing?
I mean, it's atrocious, right?
It's absolutely for all the reasons you said, it's absolutely atrocious that he's withholding this money from the poorest people in this country.
Meanwhile, he is suing the Department of Justice for $230 million.
Of course, the Department of Justice is going to settle with him because he controls them because those are his legal fees that he wants to pay his lawyers back.
And let's think about, I know I'm totally changing subject, but this is what appalls me when I think about how he's taking money out of the mouths of the people.
who, food out of the mouths of the people who need it the most.
Okay, who were his lawyers?
Because what he's saying is, I paid $230 million in legal fees.
I want to be paid back for those cases.
Who were his lawyers?
His lawyers were familiar names.
Todd Blanche, who's currently the number two at the Department of Justice.
Emil Beauvais, who he appointed to the federal appeals court.
Lindsay Halligan was one of his lawyers.
I mean, that's, I'm a, I'm a criminal defense attorney, $230 million.
That's a shit ton of money, okay?
That is a lot of money.
And he is, that is tax payer money that he is going to take from the Department of Justice
and line his pockets with that, that apparently he already paid his very now wealthy attorneys
that he's now appointing to all these government jobs.
That is money that should be spent on things like the SNAP program.
And it is just atrocious how much money.
he is just grifting off our tax dollars and not giving it to the people who need it the most.
So look, the reason he has to pay this money is because he, although he can, it's because there is
some money in reserve, but it's not enough. I think it's, I think they need $8 billion and there's
$5 billion. So it'll get at least $5 billion to people who need it in the month of this of November.
Let's see what happens in December. But this is, this is one of the most more appalling things he's done.
And I think he has to be called out for it, especially when you see what else he's doing with money, like renovating his ballroom at the White House.
I mean, it's just while he's flying around and people are, you know, you've got Cash Patel using a private jet to go see his girlfriend, right, the country music singer.
And, you know, those are all tax dollars.
Every time Donald Trump plays golf, you know, and his secret service detail, I mean, every time they're all running around doing things, it's all taxpayer dollars while they're,
living the life and the poorest Americans are not eating. It's just appalling and atrocious.
What I think Donald Trump has missed is that there's been a turn in the American sentiment
and what was once sort of Trump being Trump, boy, that's funny. And I like golden showers.
I like golden faucets and toilet seats like the next person. And isn't he great to watch?
There's been a turn in America because of his policies have caused such great suffering.
such great introspection about who we are as Americans. And he's still playing from the
2024 playbook of what got him elected. And, you know, the more outrageous he was and the more
bullets that flew towards him and all of that, the more he thought the American people rallied
around him. And that was the message he took out of the election. Things have changed.
Just as Joe Biden was once on top of his game when he was saving American economy.
after COVID, having inherited Donald Trump's failures,
he soon found that that didn't last.
And as he moved into year two and year three,
and as American suffering increased, no amount of saying,
hey, look at the numbers, you guys are doing great,
was going to work when people didn't feel that way
around a kitchen table.
Donald Trump has missed the fact that America has moved on
from all of his braggadocia
and grifting and, isn't it funny that he's making billions and billions of dollars for his family?
They're beyond that now. That may have been good enough for him to avoid being jailed and to get
elected and beat a relatively weak candidate at a weak moment in time for the Democrats. But that's
not what's happening now. It always is about people's dignity. It's about their ability to pay,
for basic necessities. It's their ability to sleep at night, knowing that they wake up in
the morning and they can look their loved ones in the eye and say that they can pay for medicine
and health care and school supplies and food and all of that. And they look at a president who seems
callously indifferent to all of it. And so when we come back from our ad break, we'll do the National
Guard and wrap this up. But thanks for
being here. There's so many ways to support what we do on Legal AF. One is the audio and video versions
of it. Keep us in the top of the ranks of the YouTube weekly charts where we've been,
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appreciated. Come over to the audio versions, which are up on the Spotify and Apple platforms and go
back and forth between the two and send these off and help continue to grow our audience.
Then we've got LegalAF, substack.
People are like, how can we help keep you guys on the air?
Substack, definitely a way to do that.
It just puts the ecosystem in the right place, and we put new material there and
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You can't find anywhere else.
And then help us towards our march towards one million.
It's not about numbers for the subscriber base.
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And that's, I'm not saying it's out of my hands or out of our hands, but it's, we need,
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And so we've just had a meteoric growth in legal AF, and I really want to thank the audience
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Go to trustinwill.com slash legal AF for 20% off. That's 20% off at trust and will.com
slash legal AF. Welcome back to the midweek edition of legal AF.
Kara, why don't you pick up with what's going on with the National Guard? We got just
Imurgat who issued an order and another order from Judge Imbergat,
Seventh Circuit, Supreme Court.
I want to see if you can stitch that together and I'll do some kivotsing along the way.
So Judge Immigate issued a preliminary injunction in a case challenging the federal
deployment of the National Guard in Oregon, in Portland in particular,
and she issued this preliminary injunction blocking the federal government from
deploying the National Guards until November 7th. So it's two days away. So the order followed
a three-day trial, there was almost 100 exhibits, many, many witnesses, and the court found
that Oregon was likely to succeed on the merits of their claim, and that the federalization and
deployment violated to Section 12, 406, and the 10th Amendment, and specifically found that
evidence showed that the protests outside of the ICE facility in Portland were generally
uneventful. I thought that was a great, you know, a great quote. And basically,
called them out and said, it's not a rebellion, it's not an insurrection, and it doesn't justify
federalizing under 12406. So, you know, look, 12406 is a statute that basically says the president
can federalize the National Guard when the president determines that the state has failed to
comply with the obligations under the Constitution or laws of the U.S. and the situation is a rebellion
or insurrection. And basically, the court said, look, there's no, not only do I drive to work
every day and see that there's no rebellion or insurrection, but no evidence, despite the almost
1,000 exhibits that were presented and the many witnesses, it doesn't exist. And so the evidence doesn't
support this. And states have the 10th Amendment give state sovereignty, you know, that basically
federal governments can't do this. So I think it's clear that, you know, but you can't do this in
Oregon. But, you know, meanwhile, well, go ahead. You stitch everything together. And then I'll
give some commentary. Meanwhile, I leaned in like, meanwhile. I know, because you're very good at that.
So let's see. You're very good at it, too. So the Seventh Circuit, it had issued an order
grounding the troops, if you will, in Chicago. That got appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
We're all kind of bargaining in the shadow of the Supreme Court here, as we like to say.
Supreme Court asked for additional briefing about one issue, which I don't think bodes well for the
Trump administration. That seems to be a theme tonight on legal A.F. Things are
not going well for the Trump administration in courtrooms because their legal arguments are
nonsense and their facts their fact um fact uh assumptions that's not the right word their their factual record
is a lie and federal judges are on to them and so the supreme court said when you look at 12406
there's a phrase about when a president can't execute laws using regular forces that also gives rise
to bring it in the National Guard what are regular forces you and I talked about this last
week the historical precedent going back to like the militia act of 1795 is that regular
forces are the regular armed forces and it's it's the navy the air force the Marines the Coast Guard
you know, the Space Force, and maybe you can add on their local law enforcement.
And then only if that group and federal officers can't do the job, then you call for the
backup of the National Guard.
And if that's the case, then Donald Trump's got a problem because he didn't send in the troops.
He federalized the national state militia, National Guard, which has a weird name, right?
We hear National Guard, you think, oh, that's like the President Command.
that. No, this is the state militia, which has dual commission. They're also federalized
under certain limited circumstances. And so there's no doubt in the record that if that's
a precondition in any of these places, he did not roll through with tanks in order to stop
chicken-suited protesters from stopping or slowing down some people getting processed at an
ICE detention center. So he'd be screwed if that's the requirement. Now, of course, the flip side
of that as he goes, oh, is that what you want? And he just rolls in the troops there. But listen,
the record is sort of where it is. It's sort of a flat record at this point, a dry record. And
I think he's going to lose at the United States Supreme Court after this last round of briefing.
In the meantime, judges, just to answer questions that often come up in the chat, until the
Supreme Court makes a definitive ruling or blocks a certain order.
order. Federal judges at the lower level, whether appellate or a district court, they just
continue chopping wood and stacking it up. They just do their job. That's why Judge Imurgat,
whose temporary restraining orders, or one of them at least, was initially blocked by a three-judge
panel at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That blocking got vacated by a vote of 29 judges
at the Ninth Circuit. They were like, yeah, we don't think that was decided right against
Imrigat, which said and said, we're going to have our own briefing schedule, try this over again.
In the meantime, you do you, federal judge Imbergot, with your temporary restraining orders.
She's already moved ahead.
We're now, as the Trump administration, as I thought they would, has told the appellate court,
the appeal is moot because we move beyond temporary restraining order.
This is why you don't bring an appeal in a temporary restraining order.
Why judges don't like, appellate judges don't like it.
You wait until there's at least a preliminary injunction.
the next step up, because they get replaced.
So now there's a preliminary injunction,
which is in place only until Friday,
only until this Friday,
when she's going to enter her permanent injunction.
That's what they should be appealing from,
the permanent injunction.
And then that'll go back to the Ninth Circuit,
maybe with a new three-judge panel.
See, Trump wants to dismiss the appeal
because he figured out that the majority of the 29
are not on his side.
So he wants to get, restart, it's like, you know, the kid that throws over the game board or like, you know, turns off the video game because he doesn't like how it's going for him.
Oh, well, we'll just, we'll just, it's moot.
We'll wait for the new order.
And then we'll take an appeal and try to get a three-judge panel again.
One third of the Ninth Circuit, which is hard to believe, that sits in San Francisco is comprised of Trump appointees from the first term.
So he could get another couple of, it only takes two Trump judges to side with.
him we see it time and time again in various courts but that's what's happening there well
i'll report on it on legal a f youtube and on legal a f substack live when friday rolls around so much
looks not loose ends but just things that we need to follow off of today's show we'll pick up
some of it on saturday with ben my salis to me when we pick up with the saturday edition
to kind of grab whatever hasn't been but there's so much going on that's why we we are so
dedicated to the YouTube channel and the ability in real time. We have 10 videos a day now up on the
Legal AF YouTube channel. The American Civil Liberties Union is about to join us as a regular playlist.
We have Democracy Forward there as a regular playlist. A court of history, which is Sidney
Blumenthal and Sean Willens as a regular playlist. They do six or eight videos a week.
Adam Classfeld, All Rise News, regular playlist. The pragmatic optimists, which are
Gen Z or Gen Alpha, lawyers and elected officials, Tiara Mack is a state senator from Rhode Island.
I think you'll find her fascinating on a regular playlist with Rachel Cohen.
And then we've got, for the things that happen in real time and real life, we have the legal AF substack and the lives.
I'm able to pull it together.
I try to do one a day just to catch the news that's out there because it's so important that people are educated and know
what they're talking about when they're having these debates around their kitchen table,
as we move forward now with a springboard trampoline from this election cycle
to the special elections between now and the midterm,
which are all been running in favor of the Democrats,
and then the midterms.
We can send the definitive message loud and clear once and for all
that we're going to run the bastards out on a rail,
and we're going to do it with the return of the House and the Senate
to sane people, to adults named Democrats,
D's next to their name, and those that'll caucus with the Democrats, and return checks
and balance and co-equal branches of government back to this nation and make Donald Trump
the lamest of lame ducks. The court system and the lawsuits are effective in getting billions
of dollars of aid to people in America. Fifty lawsuits by the attorneys general. They're winning
at 90 percent. A hundred lawsuits by Democracy Forward and other groups.
That's important to also slow down Donald Trump and tie him up in court as the clock continues
to run.
We're doing that as well.
That's going well.
The crowds in the street, amazing.
20, 30 million people total have hit the streets to protest the Trump administration.
And more importantly, they're showing up, as Karen you said, they're showing up in tremendously
huge numbers that we haven't seen, sometimes back to the 1960s in terms of turnout in an off
presidential year.
It just shows you the pent-up demand to be heard by those that are not MAGA.
The silent majority is silent no longer.
Donald Trump has awakened a beast, release the Kraken.
Karen, you're in New York.
There's a lot of jubilation all around.
Why don't you end this on a good note for us today?
Well, I ended on this episode of Trump's Bizarro world, and then all ended on a good note.
I just have to talk about this because it's just, I can't believe it.
So there is a trial going on in Washington, D.C. right now.
being prosecuted by Trump's Justice Department in federal court.
And it's the guy who threw a sandwich at an ICE agent.
Okay, literally, that's what he did.
He threw a sandwich.
The testimony, and this is what our taxpayer dollars are going towards.
Not, you know, of course, the insurrection of January 6th, people dying, people getting assaulted.
No, that was okay.
But a guy throws a sandwich at an agent and is being prosecuted.
And the testimony was literally, I don't know,
I had mustard all over my uniform, okay?
That's what he says.
He said, it smelled of onions and mustard.
This is what he is spending our taxpayer dollars on.
So I'll end in a high note that New York is absolutely jubilant right now and thrilled
because we are sending a big message to Donald Trump and everyone like him,
we don't want that, we don't want.
Spending money on your priorities, we care about other things like.
affordability, homelessness, and affordable housing, food, health care, all of those issues.
So I just, I just, people need to know what is happening and what Trump is doing because it's appalling
to me that that case is being prosecuted, but he pardoned all the Jan 6 people.
I think I got four different videos on Legal AF YouTube about the sandwich guy.
Everybody wanted to hit that one.
Because it really, I mean, when I first saw that, I thought it was.
was an article in the onion, you know, or, or I couldn't believe that this was actually what,
and again, as a former prosecutor, as you have scarce resources, a federal trial, you have 12
jurors plus alternates who are taking time out of their day to, to sit there and listen to this case.
You've, you've got ICE agents who, instead of doing whatever they're doing, they're testifying.
I mean, it is just, it's atrocious and appalling.
A federal judge who's spending their time doing that.
It's just, I can't believe that a guy who threw a sandwich is being prosecuted in federal court.
Legal AF, we will never throw a sandwich at you.
Thank you for being here at the midweek edition.
Karen Freeman, Ignifalo, Michael Popock, catch us on Saturday with Ben Mysalis and me.
And if you're Jones in for more law and politics and nerding out where a TED Talk meets a law school class,
come over to Legal AF YouTube channel and register your vote and your support for First Amendment rights
and hit the free subscribe button there
and come over to LegalAF Substack
and do the exact same thing.
So until our next reporting,
Karen Freeman, Ignifalo and Michael Popak.
Shout out to the Legal AFers and the Midas Mighty.
