Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 12/13/2025

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Starting point is 00:02:57 Massive lawsuit has been filed against the construction of Trump's golden ballroom. And this one is a serious lawsuit that could result in the ballroom being blocked from further construction. An emergency hearing has been set in Washington, D.C. by a federal judge on Tuesday, we will break it down. The Department of Justice got rejected yet again in trying to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James before a separate grand jury. If this sounds like Groundhog's Day, it is. The first time they brought the case against her, it was dismissed for an unlawful prosecutor. The second time they tried to get an indictment,

Starting point is 00:03:35 it was just outright rejected by a grand jury. They moved to another city and county, and it was still rejected by a grand jury. We will break down what took place there. Now, in the related matter of James Comey, where that case was also dismissed for the unlawful prosecutor, in another case involving one of the key witnesses In fact, the key witness, a guy by the name of Dan Richmond,

Starting point is 00:03:59 and it was only his documents that were brought before the grand jury in the Comey matter. A federal judge has found that there was an unlawful search and seizure of his emails. We'll talk more about that. In addition, more Epstein documents were released, and Judge Boasberg in Washington, D.C. is pursuing these contempt proceedings, and he's not buying the attorney-client privilege and executive privilege obfections by Christine Ome and others at the White House who were trying to block the release of the information about why they violated the court

Starting point is 00:04:35 orders. Lots of cover-ups, Michael Popak, but the wheels of justice now turn in the right direction. You're seeing a lot more judges, I think, be assertive in standing up to this regime, but we got a lot to discuss. I agree with you. I had Senator White House on a day or so ago, and he so eloquently put it, most everything that you and I cover since Trump took over again and took over the Department of Justice. It's just another version of corruption. It's just corruption by another name. Everything that you and I talk about today can just come down to the C word. And, you know, whether it's Donald Trump refusing to acknowledge the existence of Congress, whether it's trying to grab all the power from the other two co-equal branches of

Starting point is 00:05:28 government and the Supreme Court allowing him to do it, getting rid of regulators, getting rid of administrative bodies that would hold him back, getting rid of the East Wing, getting rid of migrants, some of the alien enemies act, without having federal oversight by judges. You know, we didn't even have on our list the National Guard decision that just came out, which is also corruption. So it's really, at bottom, if you were to put a header on the top of the Trump administration and its Department of Justice, it would just be corruption. It is the most corrupt in real-time presidency and Department of Justice ever in the history

Starting point is 00:06:14 of America, and I'm not being hyperbolic. And that's it. But the good news is we have to continue to report on it and commentate on it because elections matter. And 2026, as I've said before in other hot takes, is the most momentous year in my lifetime in terms of whether our Constitutional Republic survives or not. I mean, I hate to put, I hate to make it seem so, so, so, um, so, um, dire, but it is. And I, and so this community that's been built here by by my distinction legal AF are just so important. And that's why we got to cover these

Starting point is 00:06:57 stories the way that we cover them so that people have the knowledge and information they need to pull the right lever come election day. Like this would be one of the most corrupt regimes if we were talking about in Russia, like in Orban's Hungary. Like there is really no comp to another United States presidency because there There is no attachment to the Constitution to the norms and traditions of the country. It's just literally the attempt by Donald Trump to impose a Putin-style authoritarian regime here. You have a bootlicking United States Supreme Court that through procedural mechanisms of a shadow

Starting point is 00:07:41 docket is staying and pausing, the legal term is a stay, but that means kind of pausing the district court judges who are blocking Trump's unlawful behavior. So the Supreme Court allows Trump to continue under the guise of, we'll take this up in a few years when it comes back to us. And you know what they're going to set up is wait for a Democratic president. And then they're going to say, oh, we were right. All of these things were so wrong. And now we're going to, weren't we great? We're saying all these things are unconstitutional. Like, you know, they're setting it up to try to head, heads, I win, tails you lose it, no matter what, what the outcome. is and and what we need to do is we need to win the information battle not specifically in a partisan

Starting point is 00:08:26 way but in a factual way in a legal way that's why the show exists to just say to you the law matters and the law needs to be followed and there's a reason why our laws and traditions are important it's a reason why i and michael popock went to law school is a reason why i'm a professor at a law school right now it's a reason that we have a legal a f youtube channel it's a legal it's a reason why our country was you know was was viewed as before with all its imperfections as as a model not as the model of what not to be and unfortunately for the rest of the world they look at america with disgust right now so let's just get into first this ballroom lawsuit because popock you and i have been talking about this for a long time we wanted to see that lawsuit filed before the east wing

Starting point is 00:09:13 was destroyed or late than never better better late than never and this lawsuit can still stop the construction of it in the judge has a number of things that the judge could order also it's hard to say go back and rebuild it but all these studies need to be done i mean i think we've even seen for example when you rush it like this when you reject union workers uh the way trump has here and you don't go through the processes and protocols there's lots of concerns about asbestos clouds and whether people were exposed to asbestos there from a health and environmental impact people in the house around the white house and in the nearby community um then of course there's just the historical preservation component of it like there's a reason the white house looks the way it does the america

Starting point is 00:09:58 if it wanted to we could build castles okay we have disneylands we could build magic kingdoms we could build massive palaces there's a reason the white house is the people's house and it's a humble abode that that sends a message there's a reason we don't have golden ballrooms if we other presidents could have done it the right way but like there's a reason our found and the tradition of America rejected that type of motif. It's just not who we are as America or who we were as Americans. You know, and then there's, you can't just demolish the East Wing. There are processes in place and laws in place.

Starting point is 00:10:34 And so Popak, there's this group. It's called the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. They're a congressionally chartered group. If I were to say there was one good group that should be filing this, it's them. They know this area. their job, quite literally, as a chartered congressional group, is to be the voice of the people in things like this. So at the end of last week, they filed a lawsuit. It got assigned to Judge

Starting point is 00:11:01 Leon, who's a George W. Bush appointee, but from what I hear, he's a law and order guy who's a decent judge to draw. He's not one of these Trump-Lacky judges, but a law and order guy who will look at the facts here. And the National Trust for Historic Preservation, They're making a number of claims, and they're saying, look, you violated the Administrative Procedures Act by just ripping it down without giving a notice or public comment. You violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not doing any environmental impact statements, and you violated the National Capital Planning Commission-related laws by not going through the Planning Commission and not submitting the claims. and one of the things they point out is you also committed fraud you said you were going to go through the right steps you said the ballroom was not going to result in any area of the white house actually being physically touched it was going to be next to the white house but that there wouldn't be any

Starting point is 00:11:58 destruction or demolition you said you would submit the plans and they'd bring receipts popock they said look even when you wanted to get up a fence during the first term you had to go through all of these steps to change the fencing around the white house that happened during the first Trump term and then they went through every president whenever there would be any alterations, they would go through the planning commissions and they would do it the right way and you can't just rip it down. So Popak, I actually think that this lawsuit, the way it's crafted and framed, has a probability of prevailing on the merits. Ultimately, you know, the Trump regime's going to argue too late. It's already down. Now there's nothing we can do. That's basically they're

Starting point is 00:12:37 going to be their argument. I'm not sure Judge Leanne's going to buy it. What do you make of it? suit should have been brought in October, not in December. You and I had speculated about which groups of people and entities, and we even identified this one, as having standing to bring the case. But I'm only saying half and jest better late than never. Although, you know, Carolyn Quillen, who's the head of this organization, she issued a statement. She said, it's almost like she was like apologetic.

Starting point is 00:13:08 It wasn't step one. It was our last option. Construction appears to be ongoing. Appears to be ongoing. There's a giant crane that's referenced in your complaint that's been erected on the grounds of the demolition site. What is happening now at the White House could foreclose a meaningful review. It could determine in advance of the review

Starting point is 00:13:30 what the project footprint is making, making the review moot. So we felt we had no choice. He had no crap, Carolyn. So here's what the suit says. I'll just read the first couple of paragraphs. First, it starts with the description of the neoclassical design of the White House, as you said, a modest design. This would be almost three times larger, the Golden Ballroom, than the actual White House itself. Putting aside the history that went out the door with the destruction of the East Wing,

Starting point is 00:13:58 leave it to our derelict of First Lady, who is completely derelict in her duties as First Lady, to preside over the destruction of the East Wing, which is dedicated to, the first ladies and all of their history. Of course, it would be Melania. And it's obvious that Trump and Melania and the rest of them got a taste for doing this and scarring the sacred citadel of democracy when they tore down the Rose Garden, when they put in pavers in the, you know, in the Rose Garden area the first time. And the second time, I'm like, oh, what else can we do?

Starting point is 00:14:34 Let's tear down half the building. So the lawsuit says that they did so without, the Trump administration did so without seeking approval from Congress. See, Congress, there's that little stubborn little word again. Congress, the only ones who can determine what happens to federal property that can determine what happens to renovate or demolish it. Or as one reporter asked Carol Levitt about two weeks ago, is it your position that the president could tear down? the entire White House. What about the Jefferson Memorial? What about the Lincoln Memorial? Could he do that too? And then you just sat back and watched Carolyn Levitt just double talk her way into abusing the press. It goes on. The defendants did not stop with the demolition of the East Wing.

Starting point is 00:15:23 Recent reporting describes that on the former location, such sad words that you and I have to say out loud, the former location of the East Wing is a bustling construction site. Great, you can get a ham and and cheese and coffee at the White House these days with dozens of workers driving piles, stockpiling materials, and amassing heavy machinery, and erecting a towering construction crane. And then they come, I guess, to their point. No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House there, something every grade school kid knew finally writ large in their complaint without any review whatsoever, not President Trump, not President Biden, and not anyone else. And no president is legally allowed to construct a ballroom on public property without giving the public the

Starting point is 00:16:12 opportunity to weigh in and it should be immediately halted and paused and so on and so on and they said he may be right trump about a certain aspect of review process that he doesn't have to go through but he's not right under the national environmental protection act he's not right under the fine arts Act. He's not right under the Historic Preservation Act or the National Capital Planning Commission Act or anything else, including you've got to go to Congress

Starting point is 00:16:42 to get the funding. Now, we've got as you said, a doormat for Congress led by a doormat of a speaker in Maga Mike Johnson. And so, of course, the Trump is going to completely ignore and they're not going to do anything. Congress should have effing intervened.

Starting point is 00:16:58 They should have filed this lawsuit. That's something you'll never see, during this administration, and that's why they're going to go down in flames, I'm talking about Maga Congress at the midterms. You don't see any spine whatsoever as the separation of powers is violated and the co-equal branches of government is violated as core constitutional, our core constitutional arrangement. It shouldn't be private plaintiffs and attorneys general have to argue about the separation of powers, it should be Congress suing the president and getting it before the Supreme Court. But will we ever see that in our lifetime with this Congress? No way.

Starting point is 00:17:40 So they asked for, and they've been assigned, as you said, to Judge Leon, who I actually like, you and I covered him quite extensively. He's been involved with many, many things, including law firms being put on blacklists and, you know, federal officers being created by Congress, being fired by Donald Trump. And, you know, there's a whole lot of violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. There's in the suit. There's a whole lot of separation of powers violation and all the rest of it. He's smartly called a hearing on Tuesday.

Starting point is 00:18:15 I mean, look, the demo damage has been done. You know, we can't snap our fingers and reanimate the East Wing, but he can stop the construction of the ballroom. Two weeks ago, you and I reported on the fallout between the hand-picked architects, which I guess gave the National Trust enough time to get their suit together, because there was a fight because he said, I'm not building this 90,000. I'm not designing a 90,000-foot ballroom. It's the wrong size.

Starting point is 00:18:45 It's double what we discussed. It dwarfs the main building, literally dwarfs it, and I'm not doing it. And so there's this whole fight that broke out between this architect that had been friends with Trump over it. So fortunately, there's no supervising architect at the present moment. And that's a good thing. But why do you think it took two months? And what do you think Leon's going to do about that in the temporary restraining order aspect as to irreparable harm? You know, I think that to your point, there was an expectation of our checks and balances that the normal checks and balances work. I don't think that this.

Starting point is 00:19:26 group, the National Historic Preservation Trust is often in the game of doing these types of cases, not to suggest that they haven't before, but this idea of the White House being literally torn to pieces, like, you know, they're used to dealing with, you know, what happens where there is, you know, a slight dent in the bronze sculpture outside of something. And do we repolish it or do we you know so i think just something of this size and magnitude i think they had to figure out who's the right law firm to bring it what are the right claims i think they had to go through all of the prerequisite stuff and in the lawsuit they talk about look we sent a letter to you know trump fired a lot of these other like commissions that would be involved like the national planning

Starting point is 00:20:17 commissions we reached out to them they never got back to us so we followed up again And they did all the precursor stuff. And I think the speed at which it was ripped down, the fraud to which it was represented, it was going to be something and it wasn't. You know, I just, I just think it was a matter of time. They had to get their resources together to be able to file it. They have a great law firm that's bringing the case. Let's talk about that.

Starting point is 00:20:44 Let's talk about that. Because a very interesting person involved in this case, you know, you saw it and I saw it. Greg Craig. Greg Craig had been in the Obama White House as White House counsel. He wasn't only, he signed the pleading. He wasn't always at the current firm. He's at Foley Oak. He was at my old firm, Scadon Arps.

Starting point is 00:21:02 When he was at Scadon Arps, he got indicted for the Ukraine lobbying scandal involving Scadonarps. He was acquitted at trial. He's 80 years old. He was acquitted at trial. He had this illustrious career, mainly in Democratic causes and working for Democratic presidents in the White House. So very interesting that Greg Craig at 80 is signing this pleading and bringing it on behalf of the trust. So certainly somebody that knows his way around Washington and around federal courts, but I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that I was indicted,

Starting point is 00:21:37 but ultimately acquitted by a jury related to lobbying for Ukraine. We've got a lot to discuss, and we're going to talk a lot about just the overall incompetence of this regime. They say you can indict a ham sandwich, even innocent ham sandwiches a lot of times, but not when it comes to this regime. They've went to Norfolk, to Alexandria. They're like a band doing a tour, this DOJ, trying to get New York Attorney General Letitia James indicted, oh, they don't want to do it in this city. Let's do it in this city. I mean, and this stuff is just like we're reporting on uncharted territory. Lots of the stuff we're talking about, there's no way to go back and be like, well,

Starting point is 00:22:18 Actually, when this happened before, any normal DOJ would have fired Lindsay Halligan, like, immediately, never would have hired her in the first place. And then after all the stuff we know that happened during the first case, I mean, in my opinion and in Popox and I think in others, this stuff is the obvious, disbarable. And it's in our opinion, you know, yet alone, you keep this person on as the United States attorney, even though she's disqualified. It's very bizarre behavior. Let's take our first quick break of the show.

Starting point is 00:22:48 A reminder, Michael Popak has started his law firm about almost a year in, and he's been representing a lot of our viewers and listeners. Go to thepopok firm.com or call 877 Popak AF. That's the Popak firm.com or call 87 Popak AF. If you've been injured in a car accident, auto accident, if you've been injured by the negligence of others, medical malpractice, because. of sexual assault or sexual harassment or if you know somebody who's been injured or someone who is involved in a wrongful death case give a call the consultations free

Starting point is 00:23:25 also check out Michael Popock substack legal a f and check out the legal a f YouTube channel as well wait wait wait wait stop right there we're so achingly close to a million subscribers on legal a f the YouTube channel which will hit in a year. As I joked recently, we have 400 million views in the year of our work. If I just got 1% of that to subscribe, I'd be on the heels of the Midas network. But at the very least, help us cross the one million before Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza. You're never on the heels of the Midas network. Your shoulder to shoulder on the front lines. Let's take our first quick break on the show. During the holidays, we're all looking for gifts that are thoughtful and practical. And

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Starting point is 00:27:18 out the discount codes in the description below. Michael Popak, let's talk about what happened in New York Attorney General Letitia James ongoing being targeted by the Trump regime over and over again, and how she keeps defeating the regime without even really having to do anything in these grand juries. They tried last week we reported about it. They tried again this week and they were rejected twice. The grand jury did not return a true bill and rejected the claims of mortgage fraud against her. So you had that taking place. And then separately, as far as we know, the DOJ has not yet gone to another grand jury on the Comey case. And you'll talk about maybe why to try to get Comey indicted again, but there's been updates there as it relates to one of the key witness or the

Starting point is 00:28:15 key witness, the only person who, um, whose information was utilized during the first grand jury, although during the first grand jury, we know from all of the filings and what was exposed, uh, that, uh, the FBI agent had these documents that he shouldn't have seen. And the FBI agent by seeing attorney client information should never have testified in the first place, and then Lindsay Halligan gave fake, false instructions, and then gave a fake indictment signed just by the four person that the grand jury didn't end up seeing to the judge, which kind of the most basic grand jury procedure is you have to show the full grand jury your document, not just take one person and say, hey, sign here. So Popak, what's the latest

Starting point is 00:29:01 update this week? Yeah, well, let's start with Letitia James. That's relatively straightforward. We knew after Judge Curry three weeks ago had fired Lindsey Halligan effectively as the U.S. attorney, although apparently nobody's told Lindsey Halligan that she's been fired. She still shows up to work every day and signs things as the U.S. attorney. I think she should be prosecuted for impersonating a federal officer. I don't know what her job is, and federal judges are not happy in the Eastern District of Virginia that are questioning, including judges assigned to cases like Comey's case, like Why is she still signing on pleadings as the U.S. attorney?

Starting point is 00:29:41 Even in recent filings that she made related to James Comey's case, she signed it. There was two other lawyers with her, but she still signs things as the U.S. attorney, but she got fired. There is a vacancy that needs to be filled. I'm not quite sure why the Eastern District of Virginia judges haven't gotten together to fill it and create this constitutional crisis,

Starting point is 00:30:01 but they haven't. And in the meantime, you know, probably her number two, two guy named Robert McBride, who's slightly older than me, semi-retired. They pulled him out of whatever. He had been a U.S. attorney, assistant U.S. attorney in the past from Kentucky, of all places. They shoved him into the Eastern District of Virginia to babysit her. So he's been the one with his team and people not named Lindsay Halligan trying to get another indictment of Letitia James on mortgage fraud.

Starting point is 00:30:30 It was an avenue opened because there is no statute of limitations problem or the time. in which you must bring an indictment or it's found to you are found to have been precluded because of a lapse of time almost every criminal statute but not every criminal statute has a statute of limitations once it runs your SOL if you're the prosecutor sometimes you just to give a little inside baseball if you're negotiating like you and I used to do for on behalf of clients in cases involving crime with the Department of Justice or something similar to it and they were running up against a statute of limitations issue because they should always have their eye on that they would often ask

Starting point is 00:31:14 you for a tolling agreement giving them more time some people might think well why would you ever sign that to give them more time because if you don't they'll just rush in and indict you anyway and you're hopefully in some sort of discussion mode for a plea deal so you don't want to piss them off completely although i have been involved with cases where i've told them to go pound sand i'm not i'm not that's not in the tolling agreement, but that's how important that issue is in the everyday world of prosecutor defense attorney negotiations. The plenty of time left on mortgage fraud, and just to remind people, because I know people are joining this story late, there's no mortgage fraud here. Letitia James, among various other pieces of property that she's acquired,

Starting point is 00:31:55 bought a, I mean, talking about a modest home. When I give you the price, people are going to think I'm talking about some transaction in like 1980, a $118,000 house. She bought three or four years ago in Virginia. Why, Virginia? She has family there. She has, I think her father lives near there. And her plan was to have it as a second home.

Starting point is 00:32:18 And to let family members stay there that need to stay there. She's got a niece with kids. And she's let the person stay there. Has she been renting it out? I've been told by lawyers that represent her in the press that there is no rental agreement. but she's just been letting family stay in a house and she visits it as well. Where's the fraud?

Starting point is 00:32:36 You know, and to hear Lindsey Halligan when she was still in the case, there was $17,000 worth of rental income. No, Lindsay, there was $17,000. If you're right that she should have gotten a higher interest rate based on a document that she signed, that would have been her savings over 30 years. So you're telling me, you want the American people to believe, and grand jurors to believe that the Attorney General, for the state of New York, in order to save the equivalent

Starting point is 00:33:03 of five Starbucks coffees a month decided to commit mortgage fraud. I mean, and now grand jurors are not buying this. So there's always been this weird forum shopping, grand juror shopping that the Trump DOJ has been using in Virginia in the Eastern District. There's two main locations, two main districts. There's Norfolk, Virginia, and there's Alexandria.

Starting point is 00:33:28 And they've been running back and between the two of them. The major crimes unit head for the Department of Justice at the day that Lindsay Halligan arrived, Liz UC, gave a memo that said there should be no indictment here, and I'm not going to go for an indictment in Norfolk, Virginia. There was already a grand jury up and running. She got fired for having let it be known that she had recommended against any kind of indictment, which, of course, a jury is eventually going to know about. She gets fired. Then they moved to Alexandria, Virginia. Oh, we don't like that grand jury, even though that's where the house is located.

Starting point is 00:34:02 Let's go to Alexandria. And so they go to Alexandria. And Lindsay, oh, Lindsay Allegan gets an indictment. Okay. The indictment gets thrown out. Now they run back to Norfolk, Virginia, and they can't get a re-indictment. That was last week or almost two weeks ago because the grand jurors didn't re-indict. So they go again, but they move it to Alexandria, Virginia.

Starting point is 00:34:25 And they don't, a second time, they can't get an indictment. Because by this point, as our colleague, Karen Freeman, Ignifalo, put it on Wednesday. So eloquently, grand jurors can read. And they know what's going on. And they have sided with Letitia James in the defense against the prosecutors. And even though they're presumably career prosecutors like this guy McBride, who's in there, grand jury, I mean, just picture for a minute. You and I have never been inside of a grand jury room because we're not allowed in there.

Starting point is 00:34:57 We're allowed to, or jury deliberation rooms for that matter, although you and I have spoken to jurors after they're done, which we're allowed to do. But can you imagine in the grand jury deliberation room when they seat them and they tell them they're here on the case of U.S. versus Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, how much eye rolling and moans were there in that room before they got started? I am sure there was quite a few like that effing case. So what we're watching with this Department of Justice that has spent, I never thought it would only take 10 months to completely sully and undermine the prestige and reputation of the Department of Justice.

Starting point is 00:35:44 I thought it would have had to take longer. But in just 10 months' time, Trump and his Department of Justice have so sullied the name of the Department of Justice. that federal judges don't believe a word that they say. They don't believe a word that the witnesses who are off in Department of Justice lawyers. They don't believe a word that they say. They don't give them the presumption of regular any longer. Juries don't believe what's coming out of the mouth when you're presenting your case if you're saying that you're representing the United States of America.

Starting point is 00:36:14 Grand juries are not believing them. We saw it in Washington. You interviewed the woman who had been attacked by, attacked by ICE or some during a protest and they tried four times to get an indictment, they couldn't get it. So this is our way as Americans to vote against the corrupt, lawless regime, as you like to say, of the Trump administration. So I'm not telling you not to follow the facts as presented or the legal arguments, but if you're not buying what the Department of Justice is selling and you're a juror or a grand juror, you should.

Starting point is 00:36:51 should vote accordingly. And that's what we're starting to see. You and I speculated about this. I think Adam Schiffitt said something like in an interview with you a few months ago, which was the long-term deleterious impact on the Department of Justice's reputation as it plays out in the courtrooms, as jurors and judges and grand jurors no longer believe them, is yet to be seen. And now, 10 months in, 11 months in, this is what we're seeing. But to round a, it out before i turn it back it's exactly what you said we don't have a comparator for this you and i can't go back in history and say well it's just like the johnson administration or it's just like when andrew jackson took over the department we've never had this okay um and and federal judges fighting

Starting point is 00:37:42 with the united states supreme court in open warfare never saw that either so for people that are kind of joining law and politics kind of in progress through our show or otherwise, there is no historical exemplar that we can point to because this is unchartered territory. Popak, talk about what's going on with Comey, where you had a federal judge. The Comey case, just like Letitia James case, was dismissed several weeks back because you had an unlawful prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan, was the only. person in the room when the indictment on both those cases was secured. In many ways, Lindsey Halligan being disqualified may have been the best thing for Lindsay Halligan, because

Starting point is 00:38:28 in Comey's case, she was in a lot of ethical trouble, and judges were about to make rulings to the extent she wasn't disqualified about her behavior in the grand jury room, using a witness, the only one witness, an FBI agent who was exposed intentionally so to this attorney. attorney-client information between Comey and Dan Richmond, essentially the main witness that they were going to try to claim if this case went to a trial was the witness against Comey, was Dan Richmond, Comey's lawyer and friend. And they got the information in, inaccurate information, through an FBI agent based on hearsay who invaded the attorney-client privilege and shouldn't have had access to this information in the first place.

Starting point is 00:39:22 And then I believe misrepresented what it said. Halligan also gave incorrect legal instructions, fraudulent legal instructions to the jury. And then we also know presented an indictment signed to the magistrate judge that the grand jury never even saw. So there was all of that. So that case gets dismissed on the disqualification grounds, though, the same way New York Attorney General Letitia James case got disqualified, got removed on the disqualification grounds. But now that lawyer of Comey, who is a Columbia law professor, Dan Richmond, he initiated a legal

Starting point is 00:40:00 proceeding in Washington, D.C. federal court because his documents were essentially stolen from his computer by the DOJ and utilized in that proceeding. And he's like, there was no warrant for this. You just basically took documents from my email account that you never should have had access to. You never had a warrant for these documents. And tell us what happened, Popak, with this judge's order. Yeah, I learned a lot about things.

Starting point is 00:40:28 I didn't realize Blu-ray discs were still being used to collect evidence. But apparently, in 2017 and 2819 and 2020, Daniel Richmond, produced documents to the FBI in two different tranches. In 2017, he voluntarily turned over his computer and had it imaged, we call it imaged. Apparently, it was burned onto a Blu-ray disc, video disc, with all the gigabytes of information. And that was done because Richmond was a part

Starting point is 00:41:07 of the cast of character. and admitted has already been confessed by both Comey and Richmond, that when Richmond worked as a lawyer for Comey, as a special FBI employee and they have been friends since their U.S. Attorney Days in New York, that Comey needing to try to get a special counsel prosecutor appointed to go after Donald Trump for the corruption in the first Trump administration

Starting point is 00:41:36 that he experienced, used, Richmond to leak several memo, CYA memos to the New York Times for the sole purpose of trying to get the public up in arms about Trump tried to interfere with a criminal investigation of Michael Flynn and he used Richmond as the conduit. It's all been admitted. So there was an investigation about that. There was a separate investigations that code name Arctic Hayes about Hillary Clinton and her emails. So between 20, 2017 and 2020 and two separate tranches, Richmond turned over his files, but there were warrants and there were limits to that and they dealt with those investigations. Now, the government kept

Starting point is 00:42:20 the documents, kept the Blu-ray disc. I know that because Judge Kolar Katelli in her order from yesterday told this whole story. And what she ruled is that the government retaining for 2017 and 2018, 2020. All of this material, the Columbia University emails and all of the imaging of his computer and laptops and all of that, the retention was not the problem. That's not an unlawful search and seizure or seizure. The unlawful search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment and in callous disregard for his rights happened in September of 2025, led by everybody, starts with Lindsay ends with Halligan, Lindsay Halligan, who gave permission to the FBI to go back to the Blu-ray disc, whereas I like to joke the box on the shelf and go rummaging around through it again

Starting point is 00:43:18 to find communications between Daniel Richmond and his client, lawyer client, James Comey, and the FBI agent without regard in this warrantless search to any of the prior restrictions, and without a new warrant opens up the box 18 days before the indictment when they finally got it to get the indictment and starts rummaging around the Blu-ray desk to look for these communications and finds them. And then it therefore is tainted or polluted because he saw things he shouldn't have seen through a warrantless search. Now, the reason, as Judge Kolark-Katelli in D.C., which is where this issue came up, the reason she thinks they did it that way without a warrant is they're running out of time.

Starting point is 00:44:03 There was only 18 days to go before she had to get that indictment under the statute of limitations. So they were like, F it, we don't have time for the warrant, go through a process where Richmond would move to quash and there'd be a process. They couldn't get it done in 18 days. So they were like, just look in the box. So he looks in the box. And then he goes and testifies about stuff he shouldn't have seen like attorney-client privilege information. That is a cardinal violation of the Fourth Amendment. The issue for the judge, and this is where she came.

Starting point is 00:44:33 up with a nuanced ruling the issue for the judge is and she says it right in the first paragraph of her order when there has been a blatant violation of the fourth amendment and an illegal warrantless search of somebody's material what's the remedy the government department of justice spent almost the entirety of their opposition brief saying this is just a stalking horse motion this isn't even about richmond he doesn't care about getting his stuff back it's all about trying to help his buddy, James Comey, and it's really a suppression motion that can only be brought by James Comey after an indictment. And she said, a collateral issue that it may or may not help Mr. Comey is irrelevant to the Fourth Amendment violation of the professor that I'm dealing with

Starting point is 00:45:22 now. So what she granted the motion, and this is how she, this is how she thread the needle for our audience. And I thought it was done well, to be frank. of the Blu-ray disc and the data taken from Richmond has to be immediately returned to Richmond and certified on Monday by the Department of Justice, the Attorney General, that that has been done and all copies and versions and derivatives of it have to be destroyed, with one exception.

Starting point is 00:45:57 The government is allowed to make what I'll refer to as a deposit copy, one copy of the Richmond stuff to be deposited in a neutral location, the clerk of the Eastern District of Virginia court system, where it will sit until there is proper subpoenas, search warrants, litigation, oversight by a federal judge or magistrate about who's ever going to get the Richmond docs and how they can be used.

Starting point is 00:46:28 It's not going to be her problem. She sits in D.C. It's back to the Eastern District of Virginia. Eastern District of Virginia, particularly Judge Nachmanoff and Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick, who sit over the Comey issues. I still think they'll get the case if there's ever a re-indictment. So the deposit copy gets sent to the Eastern District. DOJ destroys everything in their possession and returns it all to Richmond. If you and I are right that the sole basis, the foundation of the indent,

Starting point is 00:47:02 against James Comey for having given a one-sentence answer to Ted Cruz in a Q&A in 2020 September at a House Oversight Committee, meaning, do you stand by your prior testimony? I do. Okay? If that, if the foundation of that is the Richmond testimony in order to get the indictment from the grand jury, the Richmond files, and they're now not going to be able to get the Richmond file. And they're now not going to be able to get the Richmond file. that easily without going through judges and suppression and a motion to quash hearings which she invites in her order you know richmond you still got an ability to move to quash this stuff and there'll be that fight if they don't get that and they have under your my calculation they're completely out of time and the statute of limitations on perjury has run they've thrown up an argument that there's a statute that deals with defects technical defects in indictments which is exactly what it sounds like based on the case law.

Starting point is 00:48:05 Like you left out an element of the crime, you forgot to sign it, you know, you missed paragraph numbered, then you've got six months to fix that. They're going to argue we get six more months because we had a defect, and her name was Lindsay Halligan. We had a defect in the appointment of the U.S. attorney. No, that's not the defect. The appointment of a U.S. attorney who turned out to be invalid

Starting point is 00:48:32 and unconstitutional, results in no indictment, which is what Judge Curry ruled, and therefore no clock stopping on the statute of limitations. So you see, that fight's going to happen. And all that's got to happen. If they need the Richmond stuff, which I think they do, because they've never suggested the Department of Justice, they have another avenue to go after Comey. If they can do without it, they'll have to do without it. If they need it, they're going to have to wait to go through a process and hope they don't come up against the other six-month outer boundary for the indictment. But it's short answer. Good news for James Comey. Good news for the Fourth Amendment and Professor Richmond's rights who have been vindicated. The Trump administration can go appeal

Starting point is 00:49:20 to the D.C. Court of Appeals if it wants to, if they really want to do it. But I think my my prediction, there's a 20 or 30 percent chance they're ever going to be able to get an indictment against James Kobe. And then if they do, then we're back to the world of vindictive prosecution dismissal, selective prosecution dismissal, maybe defects in that new indictment, the issue that we just talked about, which is the statute of limitations. But that's all going to be handled back in the Eastern District of Virginia with Judge Knackmanoff and Judge Fitzpatrick. And now that the composite file is with the Eastern District of Virginia, their judges and magistrate judges, all of these judges have the experience now with this Eastern District of Virginia prosecutor's office that is being unlawfully led by Halligan, who keeps still signing her name to these pleadings, even though she's been disqualified. And so you would have to have Halligan, who's been disqualified by them,

Starting point is 00:50:24 who's pretending to be the United States attorney still, even though she's basically been evicted. And her argument is, you disqualified me, you didn't evict me yet. You're going to have to get into, like, eviction notice. They're like, yeah, when we say go, that means go out of the building, not go Rams, like, go Yankees or go Dodgers. It means go out of the, like, what are you talking about? Well, you never specifically said where to go or you said, I'm disqualified, but from what?

Starting point is 00:50:52 Judge Curry said vacancy has been created by the illegal appointment of Lindsay Allegan. How much clearer does she need to be? How much can you be? And Halligan goes, well, that doesn't mean me. Yeah, it literally means you. So now you're going to have the, you're going to have to have that Eastern District of Virginia office with zero credibility, petition the federal judges based on the unlawful search and seizure that these attorney-client documents should now be utilized in a grand jury proceeding.

Starting point is 00:51:21 You know, what the Trump regime was hoping is, look, we bring this into a grand jury. There's no judge in it. There's no lawyers for the other side in it. We just lie to the people who don't know about the process and we just get these indictments. And then kind of who cares after, we got the indictments. We don't even need to think about the next step. And one of the things that I want to tell you all is that part of the law in being a professional or being a grown up is you have to think about the next step. You have to think about when you do something, what happens thereafter. And it's an important thing to, it's an important thing. Oh, by the way, Popak, while that's going on, you have the DOJ posting those Franklin, the turtle or Franklin

Starting point is 00:52:03 images, trying to recruit immigration judges by stealing the IP of this beloved Canadian cartoon. They're like, do you want to be an immigration judge? It's like, this is how you're advertising for being a judge was once a really big deal, okay? Not anymore, according to this DOJ. Franklin is helping write the next chapter of America. You can too. We're looking for patriotic legal professionals to serve as deportation judges. Your work will have generational consequences.

Starting point is 00:52:36 Applied today, join. Justace.gov, Franklin becomes a deportation judge. like how you you you have might as Canada and your guy there angus i'm sorry why a why a turtle in a powdered wig i don't what is it what's the connectivity here connectivity was that hegsith did this originally as a he thought it was funny to show a children just a children's like he could have used see spot run or good night movie he just chose the popular children's character book It makes them softer. It makes them more approachable.

Starting point is 00:53:12 He showed it as, this is Franklin's new adventure. He is blowing people up and committing war crimes. And that was, and that was Hegs. So since then, there was outrage to that because, you know, from Canada and from people here who don't like war crimes, saying like, why are you doing that? Like that's so like, and then so like the right wing MAGA is like, that's how we own MAGA and we're owning people. So they've continued to use Franklin now because it's pissed off. people as like a way to troll like ha ha ha ha this makes libs angry so it's like it's not to make

Starting point is 00:53:47 libs angry you just look stupid and we're trying to not look stupid like put on your encyclopedic knowledge here for a minute which you always have i thought there is another frog that is a qanon um yeah right anti-semitic frog so they're using a turtle a green character well they use like Mickey Mouse why don't they rip off Disney and it's new AI deal well they use Mickey Mouse as the as the intellectual theft of K because they're just such crappy the whole thing is just good there's Pepe the Frog but they specifically want to go after a beloved cartoon in Canada because we're because honestly it with the DOJ and Department of Defense right now is run by a

Starting point is 00:54:34 bunch of like you know I would say toddlers but the toddlers are more mature than Let's take our last quick break of the show, a reminder. Go check out Michael Popok's law firm. If you've been injured in a car accident, an auto accident, or know somebody who's been injured as the result of negligence, go to 877 or call 877 Popak AF or go to the Popak firm.com. The consultation is free. 877 Popak AF or go to the Popak firm.com.

Starting point is 00:55:01 They have lawyers all across the country. The consultation is free. Subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. As Popok said, it's on its way to 1 million subscribers. So subscribe there and check out the LegalAF substack as well. We appreciate everybody subscribing to all of those legal AF properties. I will be right back after our last break of the show. Let's be honest.

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Starting point is 00:58:29 sponsors that make this show possible. Go check out the sponsors. The discount codes are in the description below. It's a big week, Michael Popak, where under the Epstein Transparency Act, which is a law, although it frankly has no enforcement mechanisms or teeth in the law, which is a fatal defect in the law, which is probably why the DOJ just told Donald Trump, if you sign it, it literally does nothing different than what the status quo was anyway, which is you have the ability to turn it over. So just sign the thing and we'll make our own objections and we'll not turn over the things that we don't want to turn over. But anyway, it's due week, right? And we've had smart judges across the country in response to the Trump regime's

Starting point is 00:59:16 demand that the transcripts from the grand jury proceedings in Epstein and Guillain's case be made public. These judges made clear. First off, there's nothing in here that will matter to the victims and survivors in the public because anything that was in here is small, like literally 85 pages, like with a single agent who testified. But, you know, Geelaine had a trial, so all that stuff that was in the grand jury is in the public trial that's out there, or it's in the underlying indictments that people are aware of. These are not the Epstein files, and these survivors and victims have been misled and the public has been misled

Starting point is 01:00:00 that somehow the grand jury transcript is the file. So the judges made very clear we'll release the grand jury transcripts now in light of the Epstein Survivors Act but there's nothing in here that's going to be of import. But what you saw

Starting point is 01:00:16 Judge Engelmeyer do in the Southern District of New York, for example, he's one of the three judges that talked about releasing these grand jury transcripts. He said okay, I'll release mine if you tell me what you have in yours. So he made the Trump regime list all of the files that it could constitute the Epstein files. So there's a whole list of everything there. And we also know from the great FOIA work, Freedom of Information Act work of Bloomberg and others, but Bloomberg, the reporter Leopold does a great job. He showed that back in March

Starting point is 01:00:51 there were over a thousand FBI employees and DOJ employees assigned to the redaction squad or whatever they were calling it to go through the Epstein files. And there was like massive a million dollars in overtime alone that was paid during a one week period of like massive redactions taking place to these files. So these were all ready to go in March. and people were tasked with going through and finding Trump's name or people Trump knows and others and like redacting stuff. So that's been in the works for a very long time.

Starting point is 01:01:30 And so Popak, on the eve of this release, you had Democrats from the House Oversight Committee publishing a number of new photos that were fairly disturbing, not fairly, they were like disturbing photos. I mean, it's a combination of Trump with young. ladies or girls and then there's like all this like Epstein sexual stuff of like massage stuff and gags and something a pussy pump it was like literally that's what it said on it I'm not using that language myself that's what it said on it you had like extreme restraints like ropes job it's crazy stuff

Starting point is 01:02:13 I mean it's sickening stuff Popock Trump condoms, something to Trump, I'm huge, Trump condoms. So that was released. And, you know, look, I think the Democrats in the House Oversight Committee want to keep the pressure and attention on this as this week. But what do you think happens this week as the Epstein Transparency Act hits its 30-day mark? Ultimately, what do you think the DOJ is going to produce? I want to manage expectations the way that you do. Donald Trump has blown through and ignored deadlines,

Starting point is 01:02:51 congressional deadlines before see TikTok. I don't think he thinks it's a real deadline. I think he'll calculate whether he can take the political heat or not when they release some but not all of the documents that his FBI and Department of Justice has looked at and he's been briefed on. He's never needed congressional approval in the separation of powers, to release executive branch documents that were held by the Department of Justice and the FBI under his command. The Congress thing was always a ruse, was always a distractor to try to say,

Starting point is 01:03:29 to try to point to somebody else that was blocking his quote unquote willingness to be transparent, but we know all he wanted to do was to continue to cover up his close personal friendship and relationship with a convicted child sex trafficker and an indicted one who committed suicide rather than, or took his own life, rather than go through a court process. And the more that Donald Trump boxed himself in and painted himself into a corner, I didn't really know these people, I wasn't really that close to them, that required and that forced the media and House Democrats to continue to do reporting and unearth and report on as we have videos and, and photos and pictures to show the close personal relationship between Donald Trump and Galane Maxwell

Starting point is 01:04:18 and Jeffrey Epstein. And it's up to the American people to question why somebody who alleges that he did not know about the depravity and the immorality and the criminal conduct of some of his best friends, why he spent so much political capital and so much resources to hide and cover up for these people. If he wasn't really somehow involved, as you and I both said independently, we have something called an adverse inference in courtrooms that if you don't produce something

Starting point is 01:04:56 that you should have produced or you don't, right? Or you spoliate it, you destroy it or whatever the version of that is, the jury can make an adverse inference that the documents that you're not producing are the ones that would be adverse to you, the ones that would harm you. So the cover up and the cover up

Starting point is 01:05:12 the cover-up of the cover-up that we've been watching ad nauseum since the beginning of this administration when Donald Trump you know for political purposes of the campaign trial said i'd release the files and then it was like holy crap what's in those files and once he learned what was in those files after being debriefed by pam bondi it was like we're not releasing those files let's say the congress has to release them which again has no role in Congress interfering with the criminal investigation. Then you had, let's, we'll pin the blame on on federal judges. Let's do that. Now, the only thing that came out good for the congressional statute is that it did lead to federal judges like Judge Berman, Judge Engelmeyer, and Judge Smith

Starting point is 01:05:58 in Florida to release everything that they had and get out from under their federal rule of criminal procedure 6E problem on grand jury secrecy and to release other documents like the Maxwell exhibits, which you and I reported on in real-time when it was happening. So at least that came out of it. But if anybody thinks Donald Trump, there's just going to be a data dump and a link. Everybody can go searching through the hundreds of thousands of pages that were reviewed by the FBI. That's not happening. And I don't expect it to happen.

Starting point is 01:06:30 And what you're watching with the Oversight Committee of the Democrats, like Garcia and others, is you're basically playing chicken with the and warning the Trump administration that we have access to the mother load of Epstein estate documents. I mean, you and I reported on 19 and then 70 photos. There are apparently 95,000 images that the that the department, that the house over Committee the Democrats have in their possession that they obtained from that hard drive of the and the email boxes of Epstein and Max and Epstein so they're using that as a compelling Donald Trump who doesn't know you know it's asymmetrical informational warfare here he doesn't

Starting point is 01:07:27 know what's in the box that the that the Democrats have and he they're letting him know it's like proof of life. They're sending fingers and ears and toes. They're telling him, you keep effing around, you think these are bad? We got 95,000 more images that could have your name or picture on it. So that's how, and it's smart. It, you know, the Jamie Raskins and all this, very, very smart, because they happen to have a confirmation load of documents, at least from the Epstein estate where they can say, what about this? You better produce all your docs. Because if you don't, you're not going to like what we produce. We'll get it all anyway. But I think that's why it's just like these drips and drips. Let's do the photos for the Epstein Island and show the massage tables

Starting point is 01:08:19 and the dentist chair and the whatever. Let's do the sex toys. And let's put Donald Trump's face and photos that he can't deny, can't say their AI of him with young, girls and, you know, with this, that, and the other thing. And so that's a very smart move by the House Democrats to do what they're doing. We're all about protecting the survivors and giving them back their dignity. I'm just afraid that they're not going to be happy with what happens in the next 10 days or so when the deadline comes. Yeah, you know, and, you know, Trump in the White House and the magazine,

Starting point is 01:09:01 on the in the House, Senate, Democrats, you're cherry picking and, you know, and, you know, the people who are there, you know, they're not, you know, you're misrepresenting who's in the photos and this and that. Well, then just release the whole files. Like, just release everything at the end of the day. That's, you know, Trump does know what's in the files because they have the files. The custody and control is in the DOJ. And for most, all of the reporting and everything we know, Trump was told his name is in there repeatedly over and over again. Frankly, you know, these images were bad, but to me, the real, I mean, the real smoking gun type of stuff I thought was those emails, that initial batch of emails

Starting point is 01:09:46 from the Epstein estate. I mean, you know, where Donald Trump is mentioned before Epstein ever even felt that he was in personal criminal jeopardy again after the sweetheart deal. You know, we're talking 2012 emails, you know, 2014 emails, where Trump is mentioned in reference to girls and Epstein activities and Trump's behavior at a time where you, Trump was not running for office and, you know, and in real kind of sickening ways. So if you were to tell me that those emails are what's in the file and you, you know, you know what Epstein was doing, and you know the circle that Epstein ran in with other pettos, and you said, well, actually, you know, you know who their best friend was in this

Starting point is 01:10:39 crew? Trump, but he's saying he didn't do any of this stuff. But then we have him on tape saying that he grabs women by their genitals because he's rich and you get away with it. He's been found liable for sexual assault. We'll move on to the next topic. But Popak, every time also Trump's behavior is mentioned on TV, there was like, but there's no allegations of that Trump was about Trump's been found liable of sexual assault talking about. Like, like, like, that's not a normal thing to be found liable in a federal jury of sexual assault in civil cases. A jury heard this and said, yeah, that guy did it. That guy did it. And Trump's excuse as well, it was a finger and not the genitals. So there? Like, I just want to, as sickening as that is, I just want to remind people,

Starting point is 01:11:32 this is a guy who's been actually found civilly liable in a federal court case before a federal judge and a federal jury. Popak, last thing I want to talk about is contempt, contempt, contempt, you have Judge Bozberg moving forward with, or on his own, ready to move forward with contempt proceedings against Christy Gnome and others who defied his order. He asked them to submit declarations about their involvement, and their response was to assert privilege and not turn anything over. So remember how the Trump DOJ invaded attorney-client privilege in the prior segment that we gave, and a judge said, well, that's unlawful.

Starting point is 01:12:23 search and seizure, you stole somebody's privilege? Well, now they want to use privilege improperly as a shield to say, oh, you know, the DOJ, we're our own client and Christy Nome is actually the client and all these people in it. So all of our communications are private as the DOJ, even though Christy Nome makes all of these videos in public and, you know, goes on Fox all the time and holds all these bogus press conferences, she ain't going to testify under oath. She'll say all that stuff on Fox, but she ain't going to go under oath. Why would she do that for? We don't do that no more.

Starting point is 01:13:00 So you have that. And Judge Boasberg's like, yes, you are, you just submitted a declaration that said you're not going to say anything. So show up and we'll take the objections one by one. Now, in any normal time, Michael Popock, a hearing is held and then later you can appeal it or you object one by one, objection, objection, during the hearing itself, but you don't just stop a district court's hearing

Starting point is 01:13:26 from taking place, but that's precisely up until this point, the latest thing that happened was the DC circuit with these two Trump judges who do anything that Trump wants, they did an administrative stay. Remember back what I said earlier, using procedure as a way to allow Trump's fascism to take place.

Starting point is 01:13:45 And these Trump judges said, administrative stay, we're gonna stop a district court's hearing. So I'll toss it to you, but there's a broader point before we go to of these district courts, Trump judges, Obama judges, Biden judges, Reagan judges. These district judges are pretty much doing the right thing. The problem, to a lesser extent, is the circuit court judges and to a massive extent at the Supreme Court.

Starting point is 01:14:10 So, Popak, what's going on here with Bozberg? Yeah, Bozberg's doing the right thing. I mean, he restarted his criminal contempt probable cause hearing fact finding after. an en banc panel of the, meaning all of the judges of the D.C. Circuit Court told, appellate court, told them to do it. And this all has to do with whether an order he gave orally at the end of a hearing on March 15th, memorialized in a written temporary restraining order, grounding planes from flying continuously to El Salvador with Venezuela and men on them without due process, without federal oversight, whether that was violated.

Starting point is 01:14:52 or not now subsequently that order just to add some confusion to the mix was overturned and vacated by this united states supreme court that was later the question was the power of a federal judge or any federal judge to ensure that their orders are complied with you can't violate an order even if you think it's it's unconstitutional or illegal or it's an abuse of power or it's a a left-wing radical Marxist judge, and you may get it overturned one day by your buddies on the Supreme Court, that doesn't give you the right today to violate the order, because we'd have utter chaos and anarchy if you could just go, I think I'm going to win on appeal. So, F you, Judge, I'm not listening to your order.

Starting point is 01:15:37 So this is a strange but not academic case about the power of a federal judge to enforce their own order. He has already believes, based on the evidence that he's obtained already, that there is probable cause to believe that there's been a criminal contempt violation by Christine Nome and Department of Justice attorneys who did not tell him the truth. That's the second judge. We're not going to talk too much about Abrago Garcia here today. But earlier this week, a day or so ago, we already had a judge, Judge Zinnis in Maryland, find that six different Department of Justice witnesses and the Department of Justice attorneys themselves. did not tell her the truth about Abrago Garcia at various times, including about what countries would or would not take him in a removal process.

Starting point is 01:16:27 Again, back to our theme of the Department of Justice's reputation lies in rags at their feet. No one believes a word that they say, and that's why you're getting people saying things like contempt, contempt, contempt. Zinnis is going to do it in Abrago Garcia as well. She dropped in a footnote that she's going to take that up, that lying part. up at another time as she released to Brego Garcia from jail or from detention. On Bozberg, he had a three-judge panel that fractured his order, and it was Katsis Trump, Rayo Trump, and Pallard, I think at the time, not Trump, two to one.

Starting point is 01:17:07 And they said no, and then the Supreme Court under the Supreme Court said that the order itself was unconstitutional not because he'd done anything wrong because they felt like it was the wrong court the wrong procedure the supreme court said that should be done by judges closer to the detention like in texas at the time and a writ of habeas corpus mechanism that was the only reason that they overturned him so the once the judges allowed him to go back and issue a new order and new fact finding about the violation of his or order that before it was overturned then the he's been moving towards that conclusion he set a hearing on December the 15th for contempt he ordered after reading these bullshit affidavits that

Starting point is 01:17:58 don't say anything i make it worse for them from christie gnome and a couple of lawyers the doj and emil bovie on the third circuit court of appeals he's got held an evidentiary hearing he's to start asking questions he wants true ensign i've told people from the last six months true ensigns in a lot of trouble because i believe he lied to a federal judge so does eras ruveni the whistleblower who's also ready willing and able to testify about what he was told the day before the march 15th hearing by abel bovi to go tell federal judges to go f off and don't don't stop planes from flying uh in uh to else to al salvador so he wants So Judge Bosberg wants to hear from him.

Starting point is 01:18:41 The Trump administration filed a motion for reconsideration and said, judge, you're making a mistake. The best you can do is refer this to the Justice Department, and we'll take it from there, meaning we're not going to prosecute ourselves. But you can't do anything else. You can't inquire anymore. You can't get beneath attorney-client privilege. And the ACLU representing the men wrote and said,

Starting point is 01:19:06 you've waived attorney-client privilege. You waived it because you put the issue at issue and you also, there's a crime fraud exception and you're participating in a crime or fraud on the court and therefore you don't get to not tell us what the advice was to Christy Nome. Before Judge Bosberg could rule on the reconsideration, the DOJ, as they are want to do, filed a writ of mandamus, not quite an appeal. It's to get an order from the appellate court to compel a federal officer, in this case a judge to do something or not do something, to stop the hearing. When you don't like a hearing, you don't like a procedure, you don't like a process, you don't, it's not an appeal, it's a mandamus. So they file a mandamus. And would you effing believe that in the allegedly

Starting point is 01:20:01 random wheel that spun. They got two Trumpers again, including Katsis again, who is totally against Bosberg on all of these issues, this time joined by Walker, who was a very young judge. So Walker and Katsis issue the administrative estate. Michelle Childs from South Carolina, who was shortlisted for the Supreme Court by Joe Biden. She said she would not have stayed it. I mean, you know where she's at. And now they're going to get full briefing on this issue. But look, the writing's on the wall. Katsis has it out for Bozberg. He had it out for him in April.

Starting point is 01:20:38 He's going to have the same sentiment again. He'll probably get Walker to join him. It'll be two to one. And then the ACLU is going to have to ask for en banc and see if the rest of the justices of the D.C. Court of Appeals are going to eventually side with Bozberg. In the meantime, the case kind of stays and gets stuck in the mud. But I just don't see how appellate judges, Ben, can stand for the proposition that a federal judge's orders can be completely flouted and ignored and abused, and there's no repercussion for it.

Starting point is 01:21:15 It's just a dangerous place for us to be in. And you know, you and I are going to have to, you know, figure out the jurisprudential gymnastics that they're going to take with their eventual order a month from now. but that's where we are with Postmark. Yeah, and there's this tension that's never really been seen before between the district court judges, the circuit court judges, and the Supreme Court. And the way, again, I would describe it is the district court judges seem to be getting it right. 85% of the time, actually. You know, not all the, it makes some bad rulings.

Starting point is 01:21:52 But in this area of Trump, democracy, Trump cases, they're about 80. to my view, they're about 85% on target and right with about 15% decisions that are like really wacky, but about 85% right. Then to me, the circuit court, it brings it down to about 60%, 55%, and then the Supreme Court, you bring it down to about 10%, 15% doing the right thing. I just think that's, you know, and so the federal judges, and we're talking about judges who are Trump appointed judges too and Reagan appointed judges and George W. Bush judges. These federal judges, they spend a long time drafting these orders that are hundreds of pages long. They hold mini trials that are, you know, or actual trials that are weeks long, with dozens, sometimes

Starting point is 01:22:46 hundreds of witnesses. They make findings as the referee, basically in it, like, you know, trying to call balls and strikes. They've seen all of the evidence. And they've seen all of the evidence. and then you have an appeals court that just made up of Trumpers like, oh, we're just going to stay at administrative stay, or the Supreme Court does it. And the Supreme Court doesn't even give a reasoning. They're just like, yeah, you know, we just find right now that Trump would face irreparable harm if the status quo is in preserve and the status quo is what Trump did,

Starting point is 01:23:18 not the status quo before Trump did the unlawful thing. So we're not saying that Trump is right. That's how the Supreme Court tries to die. We're not saying he's right. What we're saying is preserve the status quo, which is what Trump did, then just bring it back up through the court proceedings and we'll see in five to six years, which has the effect of letting Trump do whatever he wants to do, because when the status quo, then Trump just goes and does his unlawful agenda.

Starting point is 01:23:47 So that's the status of things right now. What's important is that knowledge is power and that you're educated and all this stuff. so you know what's really going on. And you could be an informed voter and informed citizen and we can get through these issues together. Michael Popock, it's always a pleasure spending the weekends with you and the LegalAFers out there. Reminder to everybody, hit subscribe on this YouTube channel,

Starting point is 01:24:11 but even more importantly, hit subscribe on LegalAF's YouTube channels. Search LegalAF on YouTube. Help Michael Popak get one million subscribers on LegalAF, then check out the LegalAF substack while you're at it also. If you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, an auto accident, a victim of sexual assault or harassment, an employment discrimination case, you name it, wrongful death case involving someone you know. Reach out to the Popok firm, 877 Popak AF is the phone number,

Starting point is 01:24:39 or go to the Popak firm.com. Michael Popak is representing a lot of the legal AF viewers and listeners. Don't be shy. Give a call. He's got lawyers across the country. Consultation is free. go give that a phone call and thank you to all of our sponsors the discount codes are in the description below thank you everybody for watching we'll see you next time on legal a f i'm ben

Starting point is 01:25:03 my cell is joined with michael popock have a wonderful day everybody

Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 12/13/2025

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