Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode 3/5/2025

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back on the top-rated Legal AF podcast and debating: last night’s Joint address and it's impact on federal cases about the role of DOGE and Musk as Trump confesses that Musk runs DOGE, and does a fist bump with a very uncomfortable looking Chief Justice Roberts; The Supreme Court's two bombshell rulings, one forcing the Trump Administration to pay $2 billion in humanitarian aid asap; and the other, allowing raw sewage to end up in your water supply (yuck); 2 new summary judgment orders forcing Trump to immediately rehire fired government watchdogs who are responsible for illegal firing of workers; a new filing by Trump's new lawyers of an appeal brief about Trump's continued efforts to transfer his felony criminal conviction from state to federal appeals court; and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Support Our Sponsors: One Skin: Get started today at https://OneSkin.co and receive 15% Off using code: LEGALAF Zbiotics: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF to get 15% off your first order when you use LEGALAF at checkout. Armra: Head to https://tryarmra.com/legalaf or enter promo code: LEGALAF to receive 15% off your first order! VIIA: Try VIIA Hemp! https://viia.co/legalaf and use code LEGALAF! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast 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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from TD Direct Investing, you can own less than one full share, so expensive stocks are within reach. Learn more at td.com slash partial shares. TD ready for you. It's the midweek edition of Legal AF, your favorite law and politics podcast. Wednesdays with Karen Freeman, Nick Niflo and Michael Popak. Oh, where do we start? I guess we'll start with whatever they called that 140 minute long fake State of the Union address last night. But more particularly, we'll focus on the intersection of law and politics. Like when Donald Trump blew the doors off of most of the cases involving Doge. There's about a dozen of them because he finally said what everybody knows,

that Elon Musk runs Doge, duh. But the Department of Justice has been taking counter positions on that until now. And then we got that weird moment when Donald Trump entered the arena, entered the chambers, and did like a fist bump little belly pat of Chief Justice Roberts, who looked very uncomfortable, talk about things that were said there. And Amy Coney Barrett, who's getting like flamed, roasted by MAGA, because they don't like the fact that she like turned away and didn't look at him

and didn't want to participate in this charade. And right into, from off of that, we'll go right into the United States Supreme Court, because we've got two rulings back to back one today in a five to four decision the Majority of the Supreme Court with Robertson Amy Coney Barrett in the majority Basically said that the two billion dollars in humanitarian aid needs to be sent out

Upholding a order of Judge Ali in the District of Columbia, a shocking blow to the Trump administration with a scathing dissent by who else? Sam Alito writing on behalf of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas, which he said he was stunned, stunned, by the majority's decision. I was stunned by the dissent. We'll cover it with my colleague Karen Friedman-Iknifilow. And then, you know, they give with one hand,

they take away with another. We got a new ruling the day before yesterday by the United States Supreme Court that basically said, it's okay to have raw sewage pouring into your water supply and gutting many, many aspects that we have come to hold dear and keep us healthy and safe with our Clean Water Act. We'll talk about why, as one satirical

ex-account referred to it, why do we have to drink poop water? And why is the Supreme Court okay with that? I bet you they're all their water's filtered, by the way. So we got that kind of back-to-back bookends of the United States Supreme Court, okay, with that, I bet you they're all their water's filtered, by the way. So we got that kind of back-to-back bookends of the United States Supreme Court. As Donald Trump starts to try sort of to walk back some of his most extreme positions about firing certain workers, while at the same time we got two back-to-back rulings, one by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the other by Judge Rudy Contreras in the District of Columbia, on two sides of the same coin

about our civil service program, one side being the Office of Special Counsel headed by Hampton Dellinger, a Biden appointee, the other, Kathy Harris, I think her name is Kathy Harris, the head of the Merit Protection Service Board who is also a Biden appointee, both got canned. When you fire the very watchdogs that are responsible for stopping illegal firings of federal workers and retaliation for partisan reasons, and you fire them, you might end

up in court. You might get a permanent injunction issued against you. And we're going to talk about how those cases were played out. What was the basis of those cases? One of Karen's favorite precedents, Humphrey's executor. We're going to talk about how those cases were played out, what was the basis of those cases, one of Karen's favorite precedents, Humphrey's executor. We're gonna talk about it. I know you love that case, I saw you talk about it. And on its way to the United States Supreme Court.

And I think that's gonna be our show. Well, good night everybody. Hi Karen, how you doing? Hello, I'm good, how are you? I'm doing fantastic. Tell me about what's going on in your life with all your lovely children and your lovely husband and all that fun stuff we never really get to dive into.

Oh yeah, well, my husband, you know, he's been on trial and out of town. So I barely see him these days, but hopefully I'll see him again soon and everyone's good. Thank you for asking. How about you? How are things? I see you in a short sleeve shirt.

It's cold in here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My wife and I moved South with our baby daughter. Everybody's thriving and appreciate you asking. And this is, yes, the new podcast studio for Popoc Media Enterprises or whatever we're calling it. Is that a dart board behind you?

Yes, because that's funny. I shifted my computer and it wasn't on camera before. I have to just make a confession. I was a dart hustler in college. Really? Yes, I played on the Metropolitan Dart League at NYU, which was not made up of college students. It was made up of

semi-alcoholic guys in Irish pubs all around Manhattan. By the way, this is like breaking news. This is like, this is like, you know, I bet you'd ever discussed this in one of your, in one of your Patreons or anything else. This is a big deal. Like people are loving it.

You are a huge fan of DART, what? It was the Metro, it still exists. It's the Metropolitan DART League You were at the Metropolitan Dart League. What? It was the Metro. It still exists. It's the Metropolitan Dart League, like a bowling league in Manhattan. We went from Irish Pub to Irish Pub on Tuesday nights. And I even had a fake name. A fake.

There's a group of people in New York. Thank you. There's a few people in New York that know me, not by Michael, Mike or Popak. They know me by Vic, V-I-C. That was my Dart name. Why do you have a Dart name? Because there were so many Mikes and Michaels that when we used to sign up on the list of be next,

they would yell out Mike in an Irish pub. Do you know how many people turned their head? So you were Vic. No, I came up with Vic, which was an inside joke with some friends of mine from college, and I was Vic. So to this day, I will run into somebody from that era, and I'll put my hand out and go Michael or Mike,

and they'll go, no, that's not your name. I'll go, Vic? I'll go, yeah, Vic, you're Vic. And so what is it called, the dart shark? No, I don't know, no, he's saying I was a dart shark. Oh God, hilarious. No, it's saying I was a dart shark. Oh, God, hilarious. No, while we played for some money, it was like a dollar. You know, we were in college.

I barely could afford the falafel stand around the corner from the college. I was poor. That's a really, that's an amazing little story. I always, yeah, exactly. I always knew you were a hustler. So when I'm blowing off steam before between videos, I have this is regulation.

And I have the exact same spot I'm supposed to stand. And I just throw darts, you know, to kind of see if you ever hear me on a phone conversation here. That's what's going on. Yeah, you're going to have to show off your your skills one time. Oh, not so much. Darts, darts.

All right. Well, we've bored our audience long enough. Let's turn to our first topic. And everybody that wanted to see the joint address to Congress that Donald Trump did has seen it, or they've seen the Midas Touch versions of it, or the, but let's try to turn it right to the things that matter in the courts of law. Like, what did you make of,

Donald Trump couldn't help himself, and I'm sure his Department of Justice was slapping their collective foreheads when he had Elon Musk stand up, stand up, to cut and say, there he is, the head of Doge, given the conflicting positions that have been taken in the 12 different cases, and the judge is getting really pissed off and on the verge of various contempts

about what is Doge, who is Doge, who runs Doge, who's the administrator of Doge. You had the press secretary, you know, just a week ago saying, you hounds, why don't you keep asking me? We've told you it's this 53 year old woman in Tennessee that's in Mexico right now on vacation. She's the head of DOJ, not Elon. Don't look at Elon Musk.

And now we know it's, well, we've always known he's running the Office of Personnel Management, he's running everything, he's stopping payments, he's firing people. What did you make of it? And what did you make of what's happening next in the courtrooms based on that revelation, that confession? Yeah, I mean, look, last night's,

whatever you wanna call it, speech rally, whatever it is was just stunning to watch, frankly. I actually watched it in reverse. I watched the response by Senator Slotkin first. And just because timing-wise, I wasn't available at the time that the speech was given. And boy, is she impressive. What an incredible background she has too, that she was

in the CIA, that she's a public servant, that she's from Michigan. And she's from a, and she, that, she's from a place where both she has a Democrat one and Trump one as a Republican. Her perspective was great, her delivery was great, and frankly she just looks like the future of the Democratic Party.

But in addition to her as being impressive, I really liked what she had to say. It was, it was common sense, it made sense. And I couldn't wait to then see what Trump said just to kind of juxtapose it. And, you know, that's like a clown show. And it would be funny, except it's sad, because it's obviously messing with our entire country.

And it's just really unbelievable how much the rule of law no longer matters, the truth no longer matters. And it was, you know, and how he used so many props, i.e. people, children with brain cancer, et cetera, to try and make his points. It was really just a really unpleasant, difficult thing to watch. But as you said, one of the hardest things

to watch is just the blatant disregard for how in court filings they say one thing. But last night, he says to the American people, to everybody, that Elon Musk is the head of Doge. There it is right there. He says he's the head of Doge, and there he's standing up. Everyone's applauding, telling him he's doing a great job. I mean, that's exactly what was happening. And the reason that's stunning is let me just frame this

issue a little bit for people so they understand. So the Supreme Court makes it very clear from cases, right? Case law that's interpreted that people who serve in a, quote, continuing position in government and exercise significant authority on behalf of the United States must be appointed with, consistent with the Constitution's Appointments Clause, okay? Because there's an Appointments Clause in the Constitution, and it basically, it's part of Article 2. And it essentially sets forth two ways you can appoint officers of the United States.

There's principal officers. Okay, those are people who report directly to the president. They must be nominated by the president, and they're subject to the advice and consent of the Senate. That's in the Constitution. For inferior officers, the Constitution allows Congress to give that power to the president alone.

So that meaning they don't have to have Senate confirmation. Okay? That person can just basically be hired by the head of the department or by the president or the courts of law. And so is Musk an inferior officer or is he a principal officer? And that's obviously very important as to whether or not he has to be Senate confirmed

about whether he has the authority to do the things that he's doing, whether he has to have hearings and financial disclosures and all the things that any principal officer has to have. And what they said in court was basically that, and this was in front of Judge Chutkin, what they said in court on the, you know, sworn statement on the record, you're an officer of the court, oh, no, no, nothing to see here.

He doesn't work for Doge. He's not head of Doge, you know, nothing like that. But then to have him say in public to everyone, to the American people that he is the head of Doge. It's just inconsistent. And Judge Shetkin has reminded the Trump lawyers that there has to be candor to the court, essentially saying don't lie. But he's lying.

And it's just the ultimate gaslighting, right? He says, oh, I didn't say that. I didn't mean that. Oh, but I'm, you know, but then he says something else. This is blatant. And I think I think the plaintiffs are going to have a field day with this. I mean, they're going to run into court. I think one already has run into court. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. They basically say, look, this is this is what it is. And I just want to point out one little irony, which is Eileen Cannon said Jack Smith was illegally appointed because he was a principal officer, right? And he didn't have the advice and consent of the Senate, and therefore dismissed, you know, basically said he was, he was, had too much authority, too much power reported directly

to the president, all that, was a principal officer, and therefore he had to be appointed and confirmed by the Senate. If that applied to Jack Smith, MAGA is just being absolutely disingenuine applying a different standard to Jack Smith than to Elon Musk. It's just outright blatant. For MAGA to hold on the one hand that Jack Smith was

improperly appointed because of this principal officer appointments, but not Elon Musk. They just, they're not honest. They're just dishonest brokers and interpret the law and facts as it suits them in their, and we know that, right? That's how it's been. But to me, that was the starkest example of that.

Yeah, in fact, that night, that's a very, very good synthesis of inconsistencies in position taking that should end up undermining the Trump DOJ in court. Judges already, as I've said, getting fed up, they want depositions, they want sworn statements, they're granting limited discovery on these particular issues.

And because they'll be able to, you know, federal judges are, and the adversarial litigation process is very good at a number of things. And one of them is get the bottom of facts and get evidence provided to courts. And they can do it through compelled discovery and depositions and ordered things. That's what judges get paid to do.

So if there's a fact to be ferreted out, it's gonna get ferreted out. So this whole shell game that the Trump administration has been playing and intentionally keeping their Department of Justice attorneys beleaguered as they may be, complaining about being overworked and underpaid and having had a day off since January 20th, because there's 95 cases, not my fault, not my problem.

They purposely keep the DOJ in the dark so they have increasingly implausible deniability about what is the relationship between Doge, the Doge Service, Elon Musk, the Doge Administrator, the Office of Personnel Management, who's got their fingers in the pie in terms of hitting the stop button on funding, who's killing the checks, who's firing the people. I mean, we are 45 plus days into this administration, or as I like to call it, the American hostage crisis.

And we can't, and judges can't get a straight answer out of anybody. One judge referred to it as so opaque, he can't even figure it out. And then Donald Trump, much to the chagrin, I'm sure of a forehead slapping Carolyn LeVette, the press secretary, who said, why you hounds in the media?

Why do you ask me questions? Why do you require me to answer? I don't know, you're the press secretary who said, why you hounds in the media? Why do you ask me questions? Why do you require me to answer? I don't know, you're the press secretary, that's what your job is, that's what the taxpayers pay you to do. Know the answers to things that keep her in the dark or in the stupid as I like to refer to it. And then she says, all right, I'll tell you who it is.

It's not Elon Musk or I won't tell you from this podium. That was my favorite. I'm not gonna tell, I know. I thought I was in the fifth. That was my favorite. I'm not gonna tell, I know. I thought I was in the fifth grade. I know, but I'm not gonna tell you. Okay. That's not how that works in court, Caroline. But Carolyn LeVette has already screwed up

the Trump administration already once over funding issues when she did that improvident social media posting where she said, no, no, no, we didn't reverse course on the president's executive order. We did it on the memo about funding. And every judge jumped on it and said, see? They didn't reverse course. Exactly, injunction granted.

And so that night, Karen, last night, at about 9.50 at night or so, within minutes, one of the cases filed a judge additional new evidence with the exact from the YouTube and the quote and the pointing and the whole thing in a case involving certain types of federal contractors and workers. So we got that. He mentioned one of us applied to the federal contractors and workers. So we got that. He imagined one of us,

like a federal judge like that. We'd get rule 11 sanctioned in two seconds. I get found in contempt within sanctions. We'd be disbarred. Seriously, lying to the court, this is not a political campaign where you basically politicians are somehow expected to lie and exaggerate and well it's just politics. In court even though it's an adversarial process,

you have a duty obviously to be completely honest. I mean you know it's just unbelievable to me but the thing is they say the quiet the MAGA says the quiet part's out loud. What do you think's gonna happen? Let's just play this out one more before we kind of tease our next topics and go to our break. What do you think's gonna happen when invariably, inevitably, a federal judge allows or orders Elon Musk for deposition?

Now, here's where the rubber meets the road, right? The Trump administration is saying he's a special purpose government employee working for the executive branch. He's a executive branch advisor, just like Anita Hill, Anita Hill, Anita Dunn was for Joe Biden, that's all, nothing to see here.

And they're gonna try to put up executive privilege, right? And stop that deposition. And then we're gonna be in front of the Supreme Court. What do you think happens there? I think two things are gonna happen. I think exactly what you just played out, right? That they're gonna cite executive privilege, that he can't be called or to testify.

That's number one. I think the other thing that's going to happen is the lower courts are all going to rule that it's clear that he's a principal officer and that he should be appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate, and then let's see what the Supreme Court does, right? I mean, that's the big question is there's,

because there's no question in my mind about what's happening, about the facts here, and about what needs to happen. But it's just will the Supreme Court, you know, the Supreme Court has been doing his bidding for so long at a certain point, when are they going to rein him in? There will be a point where they will rein him in. They have to rein him in, I think. I can't imagine that they're going to allow Donald Trump

to run roughshod over the laws of this country only because, not because they care, but because they would be worried about making new law that could then allow a Democrat to do the exact same thing. I mean, really... Yeah, that's the thing that I don't even understand. I understand what you just said is perfectly right. The fact that Donald Trump is a short-timer

and a short-tracker and is a short-time horizon, I get it. And they want wanna do maximum destruction between the relationship between, pardon me, the government and the American people as they can and reshaping the government in the two years they probably have until midterms and we get the House and the Senate back. But I don't get why they wanna empower

the future Democratic president. And there will be one. Of course. I don't know if it's, I'm hoping it'll be in the next go around. Maybe it's two go arounds from now, but there will be a Democratic president. And why do they want to give him all these superpowers out of the United States Supreme Court? That part I never understood.

That's always what has kept the Senate in check. The Senate in line is because they're worried, well, you know, it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. And if we, you know, we don't want the goose, it's good for the gander. And if we, you know, we don't want that for the next guy, but that doesn't seem to be a consideration. Why do you think that is? Well, because I don't think anyone ever thought

Donald Trump or anyone would go as far and as extreme and as lawless as he has. I think everyone thought there are certain unspoken rules that we just don't do and that we don't say. You know, people call them norms norms and he's broken every norm. And I think they're going to see that. And I think eventually they will rein him in because it's just outrageous what he's doing and what he has done.

And, you know, frankly, a lot of what he does is very performative, right? All these executive orders and, you know, with his dramatic kind of, I'm going to, here's this, here's that, I'm renaming this, I'm renaming that. I mean, it's very performative. And that's kind of the way he does things and not as substantive. But these substantive things that he's doing, he's going to be, I think, eventually reigned in.

I can't imagine that he's going to get away with everything he's trying. Well, we'll have the opportunity to see if the court is starting to do that when we come back from our first commercial break, because we've got, we're going to talk about the United States Supreme Court in a bombshell new ruling today, what it means and what it doesn't mean, what just happened at the Supreme Court related to a funding cutoff by Donald Trump, a major one for humanitarian aid around the country and for US aid.

But we're going to take our first commercial break. It is the way, there are many ways to support Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network, the number one YouTube channel in the world. Hard to believe, I love saying that. The Midas Touch podcast, the Brothers podcast, number one. I think we're still in the number, in the top 10 as Legal AF. That's a reflection of the unique audience that we have,

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Go to tryarmra.com slash LegalAF or enter LegalAF to get 15% off your first order. That's t-r-y-a-r-m-r-a.com slash legal a-f. Welcome back. Well, we were, right before the commercial break, Karen, you were talking about reining in Donald Trump and his administration. Well, we've got a new ruling

from the United States Supreme Court. And after you and I are kind of kicking around a little bit, I'll read from it. In Department of State versus AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, we reported, I certainly did a couple of hot takes on it, that there was a case before Judge Ali, not to be confused with Judge Ali Khan, another DC federal judge. Judge Ali, a Canadian, a Canadian lawyer, a US citizen and a federal judge appointed by Biden, a Canadian lawyer, a US citizen, and a federal judge appointed by Biden, one of the younger judges, but very good and very smart,

had a case before him in which he had to determine whether any aspect of the 30 or 40 billion dollars worth of US aid that was cut off overnight, immediately, without any concern or consideration for the ramifications around the world, whether that would stand or not. He particularly looked at a subcategory of funding that represents $2 billion worth of services

and goods already provided. So these are contractors that were just looking to get paid for stuff they already did. Now we know what Donald Trump's relationship is with contractors who looking to get paid for stuff they already did. Now we know what Donald Trump's relationship is with contractors who need to get paid because there's a trail of broken tiers and unpaid bills when Donald Trump was in private real estate development. And so I'm not surprised that that was the group

that tried to get screwed. They ran in and said, hey, we got to get paid. These are, we're shoestring organizations. We're not rolling in the cashier. And after a temporary restraining order hearing and briefing, the judge gave the Trump administration a couple of weeks to turn on the spigot and get the $2 billion out the door.

Finding it was arbitrary and capricious, it was illegal, it was unconstitutional under separation of powers, and it needed to be done forthwith. Donald Trump didn't do a darn thing about it and a couple weeks went by and the plaintiff's lawyers let the judge know the money hasn't been turned on, hasn't been paid while there was other reporting

about Elon Musk's doge bros going in behind the scenes to countermand instructions to make payment and just unchecking boxes so that people weren't getting paid even though Marco Rubio the Secretary of State said they had to be paid So all of that came back to judge Ali judge Ali got annoyed judge Ali gave them Three days to turn on the payments or he'd find them in contempt and that was last Tuesday at midnight It didn't happen because the Trump administration ran

ultimately to the United States Supreme Court. Justice Roberts entered an administrative stay just for a short amount of time to allow fuller briefing, not full briefing, but full briefing. Friday, there was a brief that was filed by the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. Can you think of an organization that needs our humanitarian money

more than the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition? And after seeing the brief, they got together as a nine judge panel and they took a vote. And five votes came out in a surprising way. Karen, take it from there. What was the five, how did the five rule? What's the new ruling and what did Alito do?

And if you need me to do it, I'll do some reading from it. Yeah, I mean, look, they ruled against Trump and the Trump administration, which was surprising. Justice Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett sided with the three liberal, more leaning liberal judges. By the way, speaking of Justice Roberts, what was up with Donald Trump thanking him last night and saying he'll never forget, right,

in front of the American people? Thanking him for what? I mean, we can only imagine. But they sided with, against the Trump administration, which was a pretty stunning loss, right? Basically saying, no, you can't do that. You can't do that. You can't just in this disorganized,

disordered, really irresponsible way, just not pay people for work that they've already done, work that's been appropriated by Congress, right? And it's just ridiculous. I mean, like there's lots of other money that this doesn't involve. This just involves $2 billion. But it essentially said, no, you just it sent it back to just Judge Ali,

the district court judge to say, OK, Judge Ali, you originally gave a deadline of 1159 p.m. a week ago that this money had to be paid. Obviously, that has passed because we gave it administrative stay while we considered this in lightning speed over the course of the weekend and said, so please do a schedule that clarify and basically come up with a reasonable schedule

that the government can meet. Don't make something that they can't do, but also get these people paid. This money has been appropriated by Congress and it's been spent already. You have to pay your bills. It's outrageous. So that was a good thing.

It seems slightly ridiculous that our United States Supreme Court has to deal with these emergency applications. It's almost like they're the advisory board to the president of the United States. I mean, normally the Supreme Court, which gets, you know these numbers better than me, but gets many, many, many, many rits of certiorari, people who want to go to the court, and they see what? They see maybe 80 cases, they hear it, maybe 80 cases a year, something like that.

It's only up to 60 under this last 10 years. There you go, 60 cases a year. And, but I think we're gonna see that this year, it's probably going to be very highly weighted and having the Trump administration being on one side of that V. And they're gonna take many of those cases. And it takes away from, frankly, other issues and other plaintiffs and defendants who want to have their cases heard by the Supreme

Court because they only have a limited bandwidth. So it's just shocking to me that whether or not you pay your contractors has to go to the Supreme Court of the United States. I mean, it's kind of a waste and ridiculous because what they're doing is clearly lawless. So it was sent back down to Judge Ellie, who's going to have to determine when this gets paid and these people will get paid, but this isn't going away. There's still billions of dollars in USAID funds

that have been appropriated by Congress and impounded by Donald Trump and Elon Musk saying not to pay it. And so this is going to keep trickling and trickling up. Yeah. So we also have sort of how the lineup is going to work going forward. We've got the pro-president Article 2, imperial, unified, president, unitary president model people, which is Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas. And then, you know, I posited just the other day on a hot take I did on Legal AF YouTube channel about where is Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Roberts gonna be in all this?

Because where's that flag gonna be in the tug of war? If Amy Coney Barrett, which she just demonstrated, is going to be the true swing vote, she's gonna be, even though she's right right of center, at least she's towards the center, she could side with the right wing and she could side with the left wing. in the tug of war. If Amy Coney Barrett, which she just demonstrated, is going to be the true swing vote, she's gonna be, even though she's right right of center, at least she's towards the center,

she could side and be the fifth vote for many, many of these things, as long as Roberts comes along. You can't count on Calvin of course, you certainly can't count on Alito and Thomas. So Alito writes a scathing attack on the majority. I'll just read you two paragraphs from it. Now again, he spent a considerable amount of time

taking Judge Ali out to the woodshed. Unfortunately, when you're a Supreme Court justice, you need five people to take somebody out to the woodshed, and he only had four. So it sort of fell on deaf ears, like his self-engrandizing, his rogue. I'm like, what are you even talking about? He properly analyzed separation of powers,

the Administrative Procedures Act. But for Alito and for that wing of the, the alt-right wing of the Supreme Court, it's all about, what about the Supremacy Clause? The President is all-knowing and all-powerful and infallible. I'm like, are we talking about the Pope or the President? What's going on here? And anything about funding, that $2 billion we'll never get it back, right? Because

it was properly paid out pursuant to an analysis by a federal judge who issued a temporary restraining order. And just to be clear on what the ruling was before I get to this two paragraphs in Alito's dissent, which was joined by the others, the other three, which is important for the future, that's why I wanna talk about it, is what Ali has been sort of instructed to do. He'll keep his five votes, but they told him how with like a wink. They said, you know what,

you got your preliminary injunction hearing going on next. You want the deadline that you already set passed, so you can set another deadline, but you need to give the administration kind of enough time to implement whatever your rules are and do it off your preliminary injunction ruling. And then if you do it that way, you'll have five votes to support you.

If you don't, you see the crazies next to us. That's sort of how I read the majority. Now here's what Alito wrote. I'll just read you the one that everybody's quoting and then the other paragraph that I think is actually more relevant to what's going on here. It's the way he framed the issue, this straw man framing,

which led inexorably to his attack. Does a single district judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out and probably lose forever $2 billion of taxpayer, or $2 billion of taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question is emphatic, no. But a majority of this court apparently thinks otherwise. I'm stunned.

That's Alito. Now in the lab, okay, what? Right, now first of all, he doesn't lack jurisdiction because of the Supremacy Clause, you know, and that's, and what about the impoundment, the illegal impoundment of funds that were already allocated by another branch of Congress? Now here's what he says in the last page,

or second to last page, on page eight. Today, this is Alito again, the court makes a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers. I'm sorry, American taxpayers are probably in favor of paying their legitimate debts. The district court has made plain its frustration with the government and respondents raise serious concerns about nonpayment. But the relief ordered is quite simply too extreme a response. A federal court has many tools to address the party.

Suppose that non-bezence self-angrandizement of its jurisdiction is not one of them. I would chart a different path than the court does today. I must respectfully say now what that means is in the future, when anything has to do with Supreme Court power, we're gonna watch this exact same struggle where two sides go to their respective corners. You know, Katanji Brown Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayor to the left.

Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch to the far right, leaving the middle for, and the center, whatever is left of it, to Roberts, who's unreliable, and Amy Coney Barrett. Now Amy Coney Barrett's not even enough, because if she joins with the other three, we lose six to four on these issues. Got to get Roberts. You can't count on Kavanaugh, you can't count on the rest. So you got to really aim for Amy Coney Barrett. It's going to be the Amy Coney Barrett court. And that's what worries MAGA. That's why I wasn't shocked to see them

starting to cannibalize and eat their own about Donald Trump needs to make sure this time around federal judges are picked stream vetting no DEI no missteps. You can't we can't pick Amy Coney Barrett. Did anybody know she has adopted children from Haiti? I'm like, there's no better way to ensure that Amy Coney Barrett is gonna side against Donald Trump than to attack her Haitian adopted children.

Keep going. And they were like, see how she treated the president during the rally, I mean, the joint session of Congress. You know, it's, and I don't think the fist bump pat on the shoulder thing where the very uncomfortable looking Roberts helped him, because as soon as that was over, they issued this morning,

that this, and you know it was already done, the decision against Donald Trump on a major funding issue So that you know, that's not I know that birth that false bravado. I think you've got you got my back. I got yours bullshit bullshit Yeah, and look Justice thomas is a dishonest person in my opinion

Amy coney barrett is in my opinion. Amy Coney Barrett is, I think she's a Republican, she believes she's a conservative, she is very right wing, but she doesn't appear to be dishonest. She, I think, honestly believes in certain positions, but she also believes in the rule of law. And whereas I think the others, some of the others,

and I think Robert's to an extent as well, but I think his is more motivated by the court, wanting the court to seem legitimate. You know, it's his court. He's the chief justice and he wants, doesn't want to lose credibility of the Supreme Court. And so that's why I think the two of them tend to be the swings.

The other four are just, you know, I think, I think, I think Thomas is, is, I don't, I don't want to say anything more, but I think he's, he's probably the worst. And Alito is a close second. I mean, they're just, they're, they will vote for MAGA anytime. It doesn't matter what the law is. Yeah. Court accountability action, our, our colleagues and contributors over on the legal AF YouTube channel do a great job talking about corruption at the federal court level and up to the United States Supreme Court level and have done a number of exposés about Sam Alito. You should see what he does abroad when he hangs out with the monarchist European Euro trash rich people who he parties with all summer and what his beliefs are

and this is not anti-religion especially on Ash Wednesday but they come from a papist Catholic monarchist background in Europe and he's a fan boy of that whole thought process. So for him to have a pope king as president is sort of a natural extension of his belief system. What I agree with, I totally agree with you on Amy Coney Barrett, she's not ideological that way. She's just your classic kind of Republican.

She's sort of, you know, if Sandra Day O'Connor was around today, she'd probably be a lot like Amy Coney Barrett, because she'd be more right of herself than she was. And we're just going to have to live with that. And I think if you're an advocate at the Supreme Court, you got to aim for Amy Coney Barrett, if you have any hope as the swing, if you have any hope of prevailing. So we got that going for us. Sometimes I get a little despondent during our own reporting. But I think it means that it's going to be a case by case basis that we're going to see how the Supreme Court, sometimes we're going to be, yay,

Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett did the right thing. And sometimes we're going to be like, what do you mean they sided with the other three? And it's just gonna be, and it's gonna be very hard to see a path or a rhyme or a reason or a pattern. There's gonna be like, well, wait a minute, like today we talk about this,

tomorrow there'll be almost exactly identical case, but they'll find some factual issue to give one to make a makeup for Donald Trump. And you know, IRLF scrambling, we try to make sense of it all. Let's turn to the other Supreme Court decision. Speaking of crap, let's talk about poop in our water supply. So we knew, right, we knew when the Supreme Court got their, all their votes together and Donald Trump was in, that there was going to be an assault on the Environmental Protection Agency.

We knew it when they got rid of the Chevron decision, which credited experts in the field in the various agencies with their initial interpretations of regulations. Now you've got Donald Trump, who's announced to the world in executive orders that only he, and he alone, along with Pam Bondi, can make any interpretation of any regulation in any agency. You have to run it by the president. How's that gonna work exactly? He can barely do his day job. How is he gonna start looking at federal interpretations of guidelines?

So, and then the judges have to do it because they're not gonna be able to rely at all on agency. So we said, okay, that's gonna hollow out the Environmental Protection Agency and Clean Water and Clean Air are gonna be under attack. I never knew the Clean Water and Clean Air, Karen, were partisan, that it was a Democrat or Republican thing. I just thought it was a not dying thing, being a healthy thing.

But no, they always find a way to make it partisan. So the Supreme Court had a case brought by San Francisco of all places, which barely doesn't care about what is in their drinking water. And they were arguing about certain types of permits that the EPA coming in and doing kind of blanket, prove to us that you don't have poop in your water. Prove to us that what you're doing doesn't have the end effect of having raw sewage dump into the water supply

for clean water purposes. People didn't like that. They wanted, I don't know, case specific things. What did, talk about the Supreme Court decision and what did you make of the ruling and this court's approach to the environment? I mean, this is the biggest head-scratcher I can imagine. But, you know, frankly, every environmental or scientific ruling shocks me that that's political. Science should not be political, period.

End of story. And you could say all you want that you're pro small government, there's too much government, I don't want government, but there's a couple things you want government for. And one of them is clean water. You don't want raw sewage in your water. That is something all Democrats and most Republicans should agree on, right? There's certain things that you think government should be able to regulate. It's a no brainer waste and poop in your water. I mean, talk about the decline of civilization. That would be the end of our civilization, right? If people got sick because they couldn't drink clean water.

That's just so fundamental to what a government function is. And so this decision was just a complete head scratcher for me, I just couldn't believe that this is how they came down and this is what they said. And essentially what they said in a five to four decision is that when you're looking at a permit, you can't consider the effects of the permit. I mean, that's essentially what they said

that you're looking at the effects as opposed to the actual permit. But again, what's the point of a permit if it's not to consider the effects? All permits are like that, right? You get a permit to put up a building in New York City. They're looking at safety. It's all about the building not falling down or catching fire or whatever. That's the whole point of a permit. There's no other reason for it. So I found this decision to just be crazy, outrageous, and so flawed in so many ways. And look, they gave some, you know, well, the government has plenty of ways that they can check and ensure clean water. And so there's no reason they need to go to the permitting process. But that just seems to be, I think, inefficient

and just in the realm of this is insanity. That's what I thought. Our friends at Simplified SCOTUS on X, this is the way they summarize city and county of San Francisco versus EPA and the decision. EPA's position, can you guys please meet the standards for water quality? We need you to test it and be below the limit of pollutants or we will find you $10 billion, you can't dump sewage.

And then city and county, you literally cannot make me test the water. Like I'm following all of the rules you have, just sometimes the poop kind of slips in the water and when we dump it like we have a lot of water to deal with, you know, so poop just gets in it. And the Supreme Court says literally poop water happens. It's not in section blah blah blah of the Clean Water Act that you can test the poop amount. You have to trust the poop purification process. So eat or should I say drink shit, EPA, Alito.

I love them. I'm gonna invite them on Legal AF to have their own weekly hot take, a simplified SCOTUS. I like that a lot. We're gonna simplify a lot of different things when we come back, particularly, huh? I love the eat shit. I love eat shit, eat, eat, drink shit, EPA.

Eat shit, EPA. We're gonna talk, speak speaking about eating shit, we're going to talk about Manhattan DA still having to fight off Donald Trump about a 34-count felony conviction and where the appeal of that is going to take place. We're not even, we're not even talking about the merits of an appeal. We're talking about which courthouse the appeal is going to be heard in because if Donald, because of course Donald Trump wants to have his appeal ultimately heard by his fist bumping buddy, John Roberts. And we're going to see what the Second Circuit has to say about that with a new final brief

that was filed by Donald Trump's new lawyers. Attention, attention, Donald Trump has gotten new lawyers. Big law is no longer finding Donald Trump to be radioactive and they've decided they're going to make a lot of money get back into business of representing Donald Trump. How convenient. So Sullivan and Cromwell affirm that Karen and I know well from our days in New York has decided to represent

the President of the United States in their brief. I don't think it makes the brief any better or their legal arguments any better. We're going to cover all of that, but first another word from our pro-democracy sponsors. Look, let me tell you, if there's a surefire way to wake up feeling fresh after a night of drinking, it's with pre-alcohol. Zbiotics pre-alcohol, probiotic drink, is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. And here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in

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and you just you use it, it's easy. And it's just like a cream or lotion that you put on your face. That's where I use it. And, and there's a cream or lotion that you put on your face. That's where I use it. And there's a big difference. People notice, people tell me all the time that I look younger than my age. I'm 58 years old. I'm a grandmother. And I think one of the reasons that people think I look younger is because of my skin.

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Welcome back. Hit the blue, I don't think it's blue. I don't know why I keep saying that. Hit the subscribe button on Midas Dutch, helping get five million. Come on over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel where we sit at the intersection of law and politics on a daily basis, six, eight videos a day.

Karen Freeman-Iknipelow, often there. Dina Dahl, Sean Wu, Court Accountability Action and their contributors, every day, every way at Legal AF and help us turn the odometer to 500,000 people. All right, I'll turn it over to you. Why don't you catch everybody up in case they, you know, like rip Van Winkle, they forgot what happened with the 34-count felony conviction from your old office.

And then what is this new fight? And what do you think the Second Circuit's going to do about it? And then the U.S. Supreme Court when they finally get it. So just to remind everyone, since the beginning of the Manhattan D.A. case, Trump and his lawyers have tried to, quote, remove the case to federal court. That's a term of our removal. And there's a statute, a federal statute that says that you can remove a federal officer to federal court.

It's 28 United States code 1442A1. And it essentially says the federal officer can remove any prosecution relating to, it's like relating to any act under the color of federal office. And so they've been trying to get the Manhattan DA case to the Supreme Court through this removal process several times and they were shot down several times.

I think it was twice at least. And they basically said, no, there's nothing about this. You weren't at the time that you paid that the false business entries were made in the ledger about paying off your porn star through your lawyer and lying about what you were doing in order to hide the information from the American people during the presidential campaign. That was entirely personal.

And so that was not presidential and that had nothing to do with being president. And so that's why they did not allow removal previously. So then what happened was, went to trial, was convicted all 34 counts. And then during that time after he was convicted, United States versus Trump was a decision that came down by the United States Supreme Court. That is the famous now presidential immunity ruling.

There was a lot of litigation post verdict saying, talking about the case and the trial and saying, in light of that ruling, the conviction should be reversed. Saying that certain evidence came in that was, should not have come in because of that ruling. And so there was a lot of litigation about that that delayed the sentence, and it delayed the sentence until after the election, and after Donald Trump was elected president.

And he was sentenced to an unconditional discharge, which means there's zero conditions. It's just over, a judgment is entered. There's no jail, there's no fine, there's no probation, there's no community service, there's literally nothing, no restrictions, it's called an unconditional discharge. It just means your sentence is final and the judgment is entered

and you are officially a convicted felon. and the judgment is entered, and you are officially a convicted felon. And so what happened was they still now want to remove the case to federal court and go through this appellate process. Just side note for a second, parenthetically, Popak, I thought one of the arguments they were making before is you can't prosecute a sitting president because he's too distracted.

He can't possibly defend himself. It would be too distracting. And that's one of the reasons that the Office of Legal Counsel at the White House has always held that the Department of Justice cannot prosecute a sitting president or can't, because it's just, it's not appropriate. Okay, if that's the case, why does he have the right to appeal during this time?

It seems like it should be, if you can't do anything, I mean, that's why Judge Chetkin's case was put on pause, if you recall, when that case was still around, because it was one of these, you know, this one of the things that Trump has argued over and over and over again is that you pause these things. But I just want to parenthetically point out that it suits him.

When it suits him, he certainly isn't too busy or too distracted to focus on an appellate process. So getting back to the appeal, what they're doing is they're basically going to the Second Circuit, which is the federal appellate court. They're not going through the state court appellate process, which is what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to appeal to the intermediate court in New York, the state court, the appellate division, first department, and then after that it goes to the New York's highest court, which is called the Court of Appeals.

And that's how normal cases get appealed in, when you're convicted of a state crime in New York. What they did, however, is they went to the Second Circuit, which is the appellate term of the federal courts. And what they're saying is the case should have been removed. Again, it should have been in federal court. It should have never been in state court to begin with. They're regurgitating the same argument, but what they're adding is we couldn't have made this argument before because United States versus Trump didn't exist,

setting this precedent of presidential immunity at the time that we made our previous removal arguments. And therefore, now that there's new case law and new precedent, we want this to be removed to federal court. And if they get to remove it to federal court, they will have to find that a federal defense was implicated and that he was a federal officer. So that's what it would require to remove it to federal court. And once they do that, I think that opens the door for the Supreme Court to reverse the case under US v. Trump. It just, it invites it.

So I don't think the Second Circuit is going to allow that or hold that finding. What will the Supreme Court do if they don't make that finding? That's up to anybody. You know, we'll see what they do. I think they uphold this conviction. I think this was entirely personal conduct. I don't think the evidence that came in, the very limited evidence that came in

that might have been, that might not be permitted under USV Trump, certain of Hope Hicks' testimony, some of Michael Cohen's testimony perhaps. I think that any court will find that was harmless error in the face of all the overwhelming evidence of Donald Trump's guilt. So I think, but again, I still believe in the rule of law and the truth, I think. So maybe I'm optimistic, but I think the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold this.

But again, who the heck knows at this point? No, I agree with you. I think it gets upheld. I think originally, God, it's been so long now. It's almost two years in May that Judge Hellerstein, I was on holiday, you were on holiday. Remember we did that reporting? Judge Hellerstein made the right on holiday, you were on holiday, remember we did that reporting?

Judge Hellerstein made the right decision in finding that federal officer removal was not present in a no pun intended in a coverup of a private affair. And there was no arguable, colorable federal presidential conduct that was being implicated just because Michael Cohen testified about stuff on the My His Dutch podcast or on Legal AF, and in court about, oh, he might have gotten

some consultation from Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, about whether there was an election law violation. I mean, this is so minor. Yes, there is an aspect of the immunity decision that goes to immunity based on evidence or evidential immunity. But that's not the way you should apply it here when the, almost the entirety of the conspiracy

that was the subject of the conviction was done while he was candidate Trump and not President Trump. The reason he did the conspiracy or what your old office referred to in court as the Trump Tower conspiracy was to become president. It was the first example of election interference and so all of that, the fact that after it the payback, the payoff happened before he was president. The payback of the money, a couple of checks got cut while he was president,

but that doesn't mean anything, and that shouldn't implicate federal officer remover, nor does it give him a federal defense. So again, this whole fight is not over the substance of what happened. It's not the appeal that it will eventually see. Oh, the judge was biased. Oh, the judge's daughter works for democratic causes.

Oh, the judge donated $50 to the Democrats. Oh, the judge was biased. Oh, the judge's daughter works for Democratic causes. Oh, the judge donated $50 to Democrats. Oh, the judge let in evidence that they shouldn't have let in. Oh, there was reversible error. Okay, you know what? I'll take on that fight. It's not about that. It's about which appellate court is going to decide this. The Second Circuit ultimately, which is the same court their,

the appeal is up in front of, which is the Manhattan or New York appellate court, on the which is the same court they're applied, the appeal is up in front of, which is the Manhattan or New York Appellate Court on the way to the Feds at the Supreme Court level. Or is it gonna be the First Department Appellate Division in Manhattan? Which is, just to keep it straight, is the State Appellate Court, and then the Court of Appeals in New York,

the highest court in New York, that the Appellate Division First Department, are you a member of the Appellate Division First Department? Is that where you were sworn in? Yep, exactly. Me too, in the ceremonial courtroom. Very lovely moment with my parents, which I remember well.

A lovely courthouse, I've been there a lot. It's right down the street from my old office. But it's either them who's sitting, remember, I remind everybody, so they don't forget, there's a $450 million civil fraud case against Donald Trump, and we're still waiting, it's been like eight months, we're still waiting for the ruling

by the Appellate Division, that particular court, about how much of that judgment that was found by Judge Angoran is going to survive against Donald Trump. That's for another day, but that's the court. And then up to the Court of Appeals. The reason Donald Trump is fighting so hard to get the federal court for his appeal,

even though he didn't get sentenced to anything by Judge Marshawn, is he wants to get a fast track to the United States Supreme Court so that he and his fist bumping buddy, John Roberts, can figure out the fuller extent of the immunity decision from last July. And I think if he's got legitimate arguments about reversible error in a garden variety criminal trial in New York where a 9-0 jury convicted him, he's got his appellate

remedies for that. He's got his due process for that. And it's called the Appellate Division First Department and then the Court of Appeals. And he doesn't have to go to federal court and make a big federal case out of this just because he happened to get elected again, in this last election. And that's what the fight is all over. We'll continue to follow. That was the last brief. I expect that the Second Circuit

is gonna hold oral argument. It'll probably be on audio. We'll be able to report on it again here on Midas Touch and on Legal AF. Karen, anything else on that? No, I'm that covers it. That covers it well. Okay. All right. Well, let's go to the last part, the last segment on the show, which is going to be this fight that's going on with Donald Trump firing workers through Elon Musk, through Doge, through the Office

of Personnel Management. It's all come to the head, all come to a head when Donald Trump has decided as part of getting all the executive agencies, regardless of whether they're bipartisan, regardless of whether they're independent as created by Congress, getting them under his greasy thumb and saying, I need to control all my executive, all my executive branches, all my executive agencies. And two in particular are particularly disturbing because they head the entire civil service program

that was reformed by Congress, bipartisan, under Jimmy Carter in 1976. And that Civil Service Reform Act created the Merit Service Protection Board, which is a three-person board, which can't have more than two people in the same party, which has seven-year terms and overlapping terms to keep it bipartisan and keep it independent

and keep it free from partisan attack. And they're responsible for making sure the federal workers aren't attacked because of their bipartisan presidents and fired. And the person responsible for making sure that didn't happen got fired by Donald Trump, the watchdog. Same thing with Hampton Dellinger, who was also appointed by Joe Biden to a five-year term

as the Office of Special Counsel, which is not what it sounds like. It's a little-known agency that's sort of very inward-looking, very internal, that protects federal workers from getting blasted by an incoming president. And he getting blasted by an incoming president. And he got blasted by the incoming president. So two different judges took a look at it.

Amy Berman Jackson on behalf of Hampton Dellinger, and for the Mayor Protection Service Board, Rudy Contreras. And we have two summary judgments, meaning the trial is over, and two losses for the Trump administration on their way to the United States Supreme Court. You want to synthesize those things together and then move it forward to the Supremes?

I mean, look, it's essentially, what they're essentially doing is, as you put it, I think in a hot take, it's just fascinating to me that they're doing the very thing, it's fascinating to me that they're doing the very thing. It's just so ironic. They're doing the very thing these agencies were created to prevent, right? This just firing for no reason, for partisan political reasons. I mean, that's the whole point was of creating some of these positions was so that they are not political, so that they are not these political appointments subject

to the whim of whether whoever is in office. And it's just shocking to me. You know, they're just so blatant about it. As I said, they do all the quiet stuff out loud. And essentially here what happened was the judges put the people back into their jobs, into their positions. Hampton Dillinger is back being the head of the Office of Special Counsel.

And, you know, he's the one, as well as the 5,000 probationary employees that were fired without cause, without reason. And, you know, it's a big win. It's a big win for law and order, frankly. It's a big win. It's a big win for law and order, frankly. It's a big win for the government and for people who depend on their jobs that they have and for those of us who depend on the people who do those jobs,

like making sure there's no poop in our water. I mean, that's who does that kind of stuff, right, is civil servants. They're the ones who go out and keep us safe in so many different ways that we don't necessarily even know about, and we take for granted. I mean, just think about the luxury of being able to turn on a faucet and drink water and not even think about it, and knowing that it's safe,

and knowing that you're not going to get sick from it. That's all because of the government. That's all because of civil servants. That is not because of the goodness of the heart of capitalism and companies that want to make money. And so, what's happening is these jobs have been saved for now, and I think ultimately the Supreme Court is going to hear these cases, and we know

because of what we've been talking about, there's four people who are going to be for Trump. And let's see what Roberts will do, let's see what Amy Coney Barrett will do. And let's, you know, we'll see. We'll see what they end up doing. But for the rule of law so far, the lower courts, they're not being partisan. They're upholding what the law is.

And so, you know, I think that's a good thing. Yeah, I agree. And I think the analysis that were used, they were spookily similar. I mean, Rudy Contreras had the benefit of reading Amy Berman Jackson's the day before, but their two orders were very, very, very similar, almost in page length. And analysis comes down to two cases, the two cases you and I talked about. Home Freeze Executure, a case from 1935 involving, I believe, Hoover, you know, who's, Donald Trump is rapidly emulating as a president, as a failed president before our very eyes, in which it was ruled that a board like the Federal Trade Commission, you can't just fire

the head of the Federal Trade Commission, which was't just fire the head of the Federal Trade Commission, which was set up by Congress to be an independent bipartisan board. If Congress set it up with a for-cause firing. See, Donald Trump's argument is, you can't ever put for-cause firing. I get to independently fire whoever I want that's in the executive branch.

Otherwise you've impinged and infringed on my executive power and it violates the separation of powers. So that's what he's arguing. He's arguing that it's unconstitutional to make him work with people that he doesn't want to work with in the executive branch, regardless of how great they are at their job. And everybody, for instance, the Merit Protection Service Board person, everybody admits that she is fantastic at her job

for the American people. She took like a several thousand case backlog and she got rid of 99% of it in just the two years that she was there. Like she's really good at her job. That's the sad part. That's the dirty secret of what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing.

They're firing people who are really, really good at their job. That we've spent a lot of taxpayer dollars over a number of years to train, to learn how to be a very good civil servant, a very good technical expert in the department or agency that they're in. And we just fired them like they were yesterday's trash because of Donald Trump. Never to be replaced.

These people will never come back in the government. And we just lost their expertise. I know that Alina Haba likes to say, we're probably not qualified for their job. If anybody knows about not being qualified for a job, it would be Alina Haba. I agree. Yeah, she's an expert in that.

I agree. Yeah, seriously. So you've got the, can Congress create independent, bipartisan boards and require that the people get fired from them only for cause, for doing bad things, yes or no? And the Humphreys executor case is on point, and even though it's from 1935, it's still the dispositive case.

And then there was a later case called the Sellis Law case that came out in 2020 that based itself on that and said almost the same thing on the flip side describing which federal agencies have the administrators or the heads or the board members exert so much executive power that the president should be able to fire them. That's different. That's different than we have here. We're in the FTC Hoover period, not in the Salyo law firm period, which is this other case. And so this is gonna be a decision now,

as you teed it up for the United States Supreme Court, about whether they're gonna reign in and out of control, President, having created an imbalanced, having destroyed the careful balance of power and co-equal branches of government and checks and balance system, are they gonna take any measure to try to reinstall it?

I don't know, are you a, I can't find it quick enough, are you a New York Magazine fan, Karen? I think they, you know, am I a New York Magazine fan? Do you subscribe? I don't. I think they, you know, my New York Magazine fan. Do you subscribe? I don't. Okay, so they do a lot of amazing covers. And one of the covers that they just did

was the framers and the founders of the Constitution being shown the door by Elon Musk holding that little box that you get when you have to, when you get fired from a job. So it's like, no, it's like the people that wrote the constitution being shown the door. And I'm like, that's exactly what's going on right now. And the quickest way for people to take

what we're talking about, what we're teaching about, is to take it into the streets, well, after we're speaking truth to each other, and get ready for the midterm elections. That's the binary choice. That's where we get to throw the bastards out and run them out on a rail. Give me back the Congress and the Senate

and I assure you Donald Trump will be impeached, convicted and removed. So if you don't like what's going on, we need to band together. Because if the Democrats had the House, even if we had the Senate, we would be drafting articles of impeachment or getting them created, Donald Trump would have been impeached already based on many of the things that he's done as an abuse of power. That's what the framers and the founders wanted to happen. What they didn't envision is that a president would get swept into office on

a phony populist message supported by a do nothing and completely spineless Congress and bootlickers for that same president. And if they did envision that that would happen and what that would do to the checks and balances, then they thought the Supreme Court would be the final savior. And having failing all of that, then the American people get to take back their government at the midterm. And that's sort of where we're left.

We're left to this twilight between the Supreme Court doing its job, and we see how difficult that's been, and the American people who own our government sending the rest of these nutty, crazy, unpatriotic people packing. and the American people who own our government, sending the rest of these nutty, crazy, unpatriotic people packing. And that's what we'll continue to call for right here

as we watch this failing presidency. Karen, we've reached the end of the show. Many ways to support us before we get there. Let's do, we haven't done final word in a long time. Final word, final messaging, what do you got? Wow, final word. I didn't even think about that today. Look, last night was hard to watch, so I'm still recovering from it.

It was hard to watch, it's hard to see where our country, how far we've come, but I'm also just heartened by the growth of the fact that the Midas Touch, that the Brothers podcast is number one. I think people, there's still a lot of really good people out there who want to hear the truth, who believe in our beliefs and our fundamental core beliefs. And the fact that we are growing,

we're over 4.2 million subscribers on the Midas Touch network, that Legal AF has the following that it has, frankly, and the support that it has, is, and the support that it has, is people who really still, it just makes me feel like hope is not lost, that there are still many, many, many, many people, hopefully the majority of people,

who care about the same shared values that we talk about here, namely truth, the rule of law, and our democratic ways. So I'm feeling good today because of that and I appreciate being able to spend every Wednesday with all the people who watch this show religiously. My dad in particular, hi dad, I know he always looks forward to this every Wednesday and it's just great to see you, Pofok. You too, certainly one of my favorite humans. Besides my dartboard, I do have something that keeps me honest and striving every day for our Midas Mighty

and our legal AFers. I found it in the package, in our move. Sydney, one of our editors, was like, where's your little Ruth Bader Ginsburg? And her with that finger pointed at me. See that? That reminds me of why we do this. And if I ever flag with my enthusiasm during a hot take or something, I look over at it and it scares the crap out of me to do the right thing for justice.

And I think that's what we're doing here. Support the Midas Touch Network. Boom. Hit the subscribe button. And don't forget about Legal AF, the YouTube channel. We could use a little love today as well, as we push our way over 500,000 on our way to a million. I like to get there in the nine month, 10 month period.

It's not ego, it's an algorithm. The bigger we are, the more your voice is heard, and the more content providers we can bring on there at the intersection of law and politics. I can't think of a hotter intersection, hotter quarter right now than those things, a more important one. Continue to follow everything here on Legal AF,

the Midas Touch Network. Saturday, we've got our Saturday show with my co-founder Ben Mycelis, and then we've got hot takes about every hour at the intersection, if not on the Midas Touch Network, then over on Legal AF. So until next Wednesday with Karen and me, this Saturday with Ben Mycelis and me,

Legal AF signing off. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.