Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 5/21/2025

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

On the midweek edition of the Legal AF podcast, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Dina Doll break down a new ruling by a federal judge finding the Trump administration in violation of a court order, Trump�...�s official acceptance of a Qatari jet, Alina Habba’s use of legal retribution to target political opponents in New Jersey, and a new probe into Andrew Cuomo launched by the Trump DOJ. This and more on the midweek edition of Legal AF! Support Our Sponsors: Vessi: Take the first step toward adventure with Vessi. Visit https://vessi.com/LEGALAF to keep your travels comfortable and dry. Explore confidently and enjoy 15% off your first pair at checkout! Uplift: Elevate your workspace and energize your year with Uplift Desk. Go to https://upliftdesk.com/legalaf for a special offer exclusive to our audience. Delete Me: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join https://deleteme.com/LEGALAF and use promo code LEGALAF at checkout. Laundry Sauce: For 20% off your order head to https://LaundrySauce.com/LEGALAF20 and use code LEGALAF20 Moink: Keep American farming going by signing up at https://MoinkBox.com/LEGALAF RIGHT NOW and listeners of this show get FREE WINGS for LIFE! Subscribe to the NEW Legal AF Substack: https://substack.com/@legalaf Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:02:27 dealing with his family and spending time. We send him our love, our condolences. What a wonderful son he is. His little daughter is not even a year old, got to meet her grandmother, which was such a wonderful blessing. We just are going to send all sorts of love to Michael Popok. He deserves it. And he deserves this break.
Starting point is 00:02:51 And, Dina, we're so incredibly happy that you are available to step in, which you've done many times whenever one of us can't make it, and to be on the midweek edition of Legal AF. How are you doing, Dina? I'm okay. Definitely condolences to Popak, his wife, Natasha, his daughter, Francesca,
Starting point is 00:03:11 the entire family. I know it's not easy for them, and I think he mentioned that his mom had been at a camp with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So maybe you can share that a little bit more at that point, but I'm sure, like, he saw her as such a source of strength and inspiration and she was a huge fan of his. So I'm glad to be able to help out
Starting point is 00:03:31 and allow them more time to grieve and looking forward to talking to you about yet again, I mean, it's a nonstop, nonstop lawlessness and stuff coming out of Trump. There's tons of stuff for us to talk about today. Yeah, there really is. I mean, the overall theme that we're gonna talk about today and it kind of hits every topic we're gonna talk about
Starting point is 00:03:50 has to do with the politicization of justice. How prior to Donald Trump, I always imagined justice to be muted out evenly, fairly, without fear or favor. It's not about politics, it's not about griev favor. It's not about politics. It's not about grievances. And he's politicizing everything, absolutely everything, whether it's his new interim United States attorney for the state of New Jersey, Alina Habba,
Starting point is 00:04:16 and her new task force on election integrity. It's funny, they name things the opposite. It's like the opposite, right? They're doing the very thing. They name it something to call it. It's like the opposite, right? They name it something to call it something. So like the bill they're trying to pass, they call it the big beautiful bill. That is very big, that's for sure, because it's not doing any of the things that they said it was going to do.
Starting point is 00:04:37 It's like a Trojan horse. It's like, you know, rather than cutting spending, it increases spending. Rather than cutting the deficit, it increases the deficit. And then they have all this fake math that goes into it, but it's just crazy. So back to what our topics are and what we're gonna be talking about, but this is what they do.
Starting point is 00:04:54 This is how they do it. They name things a certain way and it's the opposite of exactly what it is. So Alina Jaba has this new task force on election integrity and it's the absolute opposite. And we know that how from her words. Her words are saying things like, we're going to turn New Jersey red.
Starting point is 00:05:14 It's all about politics. It's not about integrity. It's not about justice, which is what prosecution is supposed to be. We're also, just along this theme, we're gonna talk about how they are shipping deportees now to third party countries, right? South Sudan, et cetera, without taking away due process rights. And you've got them absolutely not caring
Starting point is 00:05:40 about court orders, about injunctions, about due process. They talk about suspending habeas corpus. Again, the politicization of justice. We're going to talk about that today, Dina. And finally, we're going to talk about how he's setting his sights on it. First, he, Donald Trump, and his administration dismissed a case against Mayor Eric Adams, right?
Starting point is 00:06:03 The New York City mayor, so that he can enforce and help enforce the immigration policies here in New York City, because we're a sanctuary city, but Trump doesn't like that. And having a criminal bribery and corruption case hanging over his head really stood in the way of him being able to do that. And so they dismissed that case. And around the same time, just lo and behold, coincidentally opened up an investigation into the front runner running against Eric Adams for mayor of New York City, who Andrew Cuomo,
Starting point is 00:06:36 a familiar name that we know and who was somebody who was in the, definitely at odds with Donald Trump during his first term during COVID especially. So that's what they're doing. They're opening up an investigation into him. Is it a coincidence? Or is it to help Eric Adams stay in office? Who knows, but we're gonna talk about that.
Starting point is 00:06:59 And also just new reporting that's coming out in the New York Times talking about how Trump is politicizing the Department of Justice and going after his enemies just in general. So I think it's a good theme for us to talk about today overall, because it kind of, the corruption and the politicization really is a common thread throughout a lot of what his policies are.
Starting point is 00:07:22 For example, today they announced that they are accepting this, it was a $400 million jet from the Qataris, but I saw today, no, it's actually a $200 million jet. I don't know, somehow they think that must make a difference. It's a gift. At first it was supposed to be a gift to Donald Trump that he was gonna take with him
Starting point is 00:07:41 after having it retrofitted to the tune of a billion dollars of taxpayer dollars to make it something that can be Air Force One worthy, right? It has to withstand nuclear radiation and bombing and, you know, it has to, there's so much that has to be done to it to make it Air Force One. And so that's going to cost a billion dollars and he was going to keep it in the end. It was going to be a gift to him. I saw today it was announced that it's a gift to the government. It's a gift to the Air Force.
Starting point is 00:08:08 I don't know. I want to see the fine print of that deal because I don't really trust it. And, you know, it's funny when you look at this, first of all, this is this this gift that he's getting that he's receiving is really it's so strange to me because first of all, it's an old plane. It's like 15 years old. It's not that, 14 or 15 years old. It's not like some brand new thing. They took this old plane. They made it shiny in the inside, you know, with gold and all the things he likes, you know,
Starting point is 00:08:38 for the royal family. So it looks good, right? But it's this old clunker of a plane that's been on the market for years. They couldn't sell it. And so now what are they going to do? They're going to offload it to us and make it seem like they're giving us some great gift. But it's really it's going to cause more to retrofit it. And guess what? What happened to Made in America? Like, why don't you buy an American plane and retrofit it and spend the money in America. But instead, here we are, we're accepting a gift that who knows what the what it how do you how do you accept a gift from somebody and then say no to them? I mean, that's one of the things that's really hard and why gifts are so disfavored in public office, right? It's very difficult. And so that's why there's all sorts of ethics around if you're a government employee or a politician accepting gifts, because you have to be able to look them in the eye
Starting point is 00:09:26 and say no to them. And other things as well. So that's what's in the news today. I don't know, Dina, what do you think about this airplane, about this lame airplane? I really was like thinking, oh my God, this must be really great if this is gonna be in the next Air Force One, you know, this incredible thing. But I'm like, this is like a used car, but it's like
Starting point is 00:09:48 a used plane. Yeah. I mean, it is Boeing. Boeing manufactured it. So it was made here initially. But yeah, he liked the interior. The interior is decked out with like cashmere and all that kind of stuff. And that's all it took. But there's new reporting that shows that Qatar didn't want to actually even gift it. As you said, they've been trying to sell this for years. They were trying to sell it to the United States, but Trump wanted it to be a gift.
Starting point is 00:10:16 And to your point about conflicts, because you have on the one hand, right, if we get a gift, are we indebted to them? And then on the other hand, how do you say no, if you are a country like Qatar or other many countries around the world that are so dependent on military defense from our country, how do you say no to gifts, right?
Starting point is 00:10:36 I mean, it's just the difficulty with our alliances, this is why it's just not allowed. It's bad for both parties, frankly. But so, of course, it came out that they weren't originally going to gift it because this is Trump. He lies about everything. But one thing I haven't heard discussed, which is something I'm almost even most concerned about, is after we deck this out, right, if this becomes a decked out Air Force one, like you said, able to withstand like literally every missile in the world.
Starting point is 00:11:05 If he does end up bringing it back to his library, which who knows, maybe that's what would happen. Are we going to take away all of that protection? Cause otherwise we are literally giving a man who doesn't believe in our democracy, right? Something that makes him more fortified than anybody else in the world other than our our president. Seems like a very bad idea. I would think even more important than us decking it out is us taking away all that equipment
Starting point is 00:11:32 so his plane can be back to a normal plane. The last thing we want is an authoritarian person being able to fly around and something like that. Well, talk about waste, fraud and abuse, right? And overspending. I mean, yeah, maybe originally this was made in America. It was Boeing. I didn't know that. So thank you for clarifying that. But what it's gonna take in order to, first of all,
Starting point is 00:11:54 but by not buying an Air Force One plane, which I know there's one in the works, but by taking this and accepting it and retrofitting it, you're not giving the business to an American company again, right? You're not buying a new plane. But what you are doing to retrofitting it, you're not giving the business to an American company again, right? You're not buying a new plane. But what you are doing to retrofit this plane, and the thing that really frustrates me
Starting point is 00:12:10 is as a former law enforcement person, the devices that you can put to bug, you know, you can bug, the devices to bug something, right? To listen in, to eavesdrop, whatever, are almost microscopic at this point. And they are so, they can be hidden, they can be placed in god only knows where,
Starting point is 00:12:32 they are hard to find. This is a giant plane. I just can't imagine the work that's gonna go into it to have to figure out and make sure that it's completely secure. I mean, that's my issue. This is a gift from a foreign nation. This is not something made by a company in America that has security clearances and government contracts
Starting point is 00:12:54 and hopefully has America's interest in mind, right? And they don't want to sabotage this country. I don't know. The whole thing just smells fishy to me. It just seems weird. And I just don't know. The whole thing just smells fishy to me. It just seems weird. And I just don't understand that why it is that we had to accept a used airplane from 15 years ago, like a used car where we couldn't get a new one. A, give the business to one of our own companies, but B, get something brand new and nice and and not have to pay taxpayer dollars to
Starting point is 00:13:25 To to you know make just because it's got like cashmere and gold That's all it is right. I mean, let's just be frank, you know, it's it goes to his taste It's the opulent kind of gaudy taste and that's all it takes that and he thought it was gonna be quicker because those Are first ones that he commissioned in his first term aren't ready yet They may not be ready for a while. And that's all he thinks about. He wants to fly around in a nice new shiny plane, period. That's about as far as he gets in the thought process. So what is he talking about?
Starting point is 00:13:53 Yeah, but doesn't this mean he's not gonna be ready by the end of his term? Well, no. I mean, his insiders thought it could be ready within the year. So who knows? I mean, this is all very like, nobody's ever done this before. So who knows? I mean, this is all very like nobody's ever done
Starting point is 00:14:05 this before. To your point about spy things, it probably has to get taken apart and put back together, which is going to be so long. So nobody's really thought this through. Knowing Trump, he's probably like, who cares about the spy things? Because he thinks he's above it all. Who even knows? We're going down a lane here that's never been done before. But at the end of the day, it is all about the cashmere. Point Blake, that's all he cares about. Let's be crank. I don't know. I think it's going to end up costing more money than it would
Starting point is 00:14:32 if he just bought a new plane, frankly, and started from the beginning, right? They've already started. Yeah. And they've already started the other planes. We've already bought those planes. The government has already entered into a contract for two new Air Force ones. That's in the other planes. We've already bought those planes. The government has already entered into a contract for two new Air Force 1s. That's in the works already.
Starting point is 00:14:47 It's just taking slower than they thought. But we're already paying for that because the idea is if he takes it, they're going to use that eventually. The whole thing is a mess. I mean, the thing is we don't need it. So why buy, why do this? You know, it just makes no sense. Anyway, that's enough on the, that's enough on the used car slash airplane
Starting point is 00:15:05 that we're getting to be our Air Force One from Qatari. Let's talk about what's going on in the United States and our Justice Department and the weaponization and politicization of kind of justice, right? And I just want to frame it with the overall, the reason I, this, just the overall theme here and the reason this topic was important to me that we cover is because of the fact that I've spent my entire career in law enforcement and in prosecution and I did it for three decades. And every politician that I've ever worked for or worked with,
Starting point is 00:15:46 whether you're elected or appointed, they've all tried to do the right thing and they care about doing the right thing. And this phrase that people have heard me say now for years on Legal AF, follow the facts wherever they lead without fear or favor. It's like a mantra. And without fear or favor is It's like a mantra. And without fear or favor is means without politics, without you're not influenced by money, you're not influenced by by position, you're not influenced by party, you follow the facts wherever they
Starting point is 00:16:17 lead and you bring justice if it's warranted. And that's it. And it's just amazing to me how Donald Trump, who was prosecuted four times, right, two states and two federal cases, accused the biggest accusation. And the reason people, I think, were so frustrated is he convinced people that those were political prosecutions. He convinced people that, no, it's okay to have top secret, it's okay to have top secret documents sitting in my house and in the bathroom and in a room where all these people
Starting point is 00:16:57 are coming in and out of, I can just have them spilling out onto the floor, unsecure, I took them with me. That's not a crime. Yes, I did say lock her up about Hillary because she had emails on a server that went through her house in a private server. And I said, lock her up for that. But no, my documents that I'm waving around,
Starting point is 00:17:16 my top secret documents, not a crime. Calling up Brad Raffensperger in Georgia and saying, find me whatever, 5,000, whatever that number was, I used to know it. But the number of votes needed to win the state of Georgia, you know, no, that's not a crime. Just let that go. False slates of electors, January 6, right, allowing,
Starting point is 00:17:41 trying to stop the certification of the election and the falsification of business records here in New York, whatever it is, those are actual crimes. Those are things that were done that were criminal, that if anyone else had done would be considered crimes. He, of course, has presidential immunity for a lot of that, and although he was convicted in New York of what he did, obviously, it didn't really have any effect, but I never saw it as political. Obviously some people did and that's their right.
Starting point is 00:18:14 And he ran on cleaning up government and among other issues and basically saying he's not going to politicize things, that it's going to have election integrity and bring back integrity into elections. Yet everything they're doing is politicizing all of their policies. I mean, that's what's going on here. So what does he do? He appoints Alina Habba, the interim United States attorney
Starting point is 00:18:43 for the state of New Jersey. Who's Alina Habba? She's his longtime lawyer who represented him in three different cases, civil cases, including the one in New York, the Arthur and Goran, where he was held in contempt several times and she was fined and et cetera. She's his longtime attorney and he is rewarding her by making her the interim United States attorney
Starting point is 00:19:09 for the state of New Jersey, despite the fact that she's never been a prosecutor and that nobody in either party thinks she will ever not only get Senate confirmation, but she also will not pass the, she'll never pass Senate confirmation or that even the district judges in New Jersey will will have her come in. The senators aren't going to appoint her or put her name in. So she so as a result, she has 120 days before she's out.
Starting point is 00:19:38 And nobody thinks she's going to make it past those 120 days. And what does she do during this 120 day process? She creates this election integrity in New Jersey process, you know, and says, I'm going to try and turn New Jersey red. That is all about politics and infecting politics into prosecution. And that is what you're not supposed to do. And she's using her position as this political bludgeon, and she is, wants to turn New Jersey red.
Starting point is 00:20:14 And so as a result, she's announcing investigations into the Democratic governor and the attorney general, Matt Plotkin, who I know was interviewed here on the Midas Touch Network. And I think Governor Murphy might've been as well. And they are investigating them for not cooperating with federal immigration authorities, right? Because New Jersey is a sanctuary city. And in fact, there's a law. There's a law that's been upheld
Starting point is 00:20:43 by the Third Circuit in New Jersey. So a federal court has upheld the state law saying it's not preempted, meaning the state was allowed to pass this law, essentially saying that that law enforcement, local law enforcement doesn't have to assist immigration authorities, right? New Jersey as a sanctuary city wants to have immigrants be able to report crimes if they're victims, want to be able to come forward, wanna be able to, if you're gonna be in a traffic stop, you don't have to worry about,
Starting point is 00:21:14 if you don't put your blinker on, getting pulled over and then deported and sent to your country that you're a citizen of or some third party country that you have no connection to because that's what they're also doing. And so they are politicizing this and she's gonna go after them for not, for enforcing what is a valid law in New Jersey.
Starting point is 00:21:38 Did you see, I mean, I'm sure, what do you think of all that, Dina? Yeah, I mean, I think you're right on about, I think he also created in the Department of Justice, Ed Martin, the weaponization working group, which ironically they're saying is supposed to be weeding out weaponization. But as you've said, all they've been doing
Starting point is 00:21:55 is creating weaponization. To your point here with the investigations regarding the sanctuary cities, I mean, his borders are promised that they were going to do this. Anybody that still believes that they're not going to do what they say does it to their own peril because they said they were going to go after sanctuary cities. It looks like this is happening. And then also with Alina Haba charging, right, the Congresswoman, LaMonica McGuives, regarding that protest that happened
Starting point is 00:22:23 after ICE when they went in to do oversight, charging her with felony assault, despite when we all saw the videos, the chaotic nature like the mob-like chaos that the ICE agents created there when they tried to arrest the mayor of Newark. So this is them just, I mean, would we have thought we were gonna talk about this is them just, I mean, I would, we have thought we were going to talk
Starting point is 00:22:46 about this a year ago, right? DOJ investigations to governor, indictment of a sitting congresswoman with felony assaults. I mean, we're definitely getting into weaponization. I mean, totally, totally. For people who didn't follow it that closely, why don't you tell them about that, about the, about the mayor of Newark and the congresswoman and what they did? Yeah. So, I mean, this, you know, the for the so that so what happened was three different congresspeople who are representing that area in New Jersey wanted to check out the Delaney Detention Center. They wanted to go inside.
Starting point is 00:23:20 They wanted to make sure the conditions were humane. Right. I mean, we're getting no insight to what's happening. People are shipped off here and there, shipped to different states. So they were allowed in, and then evidently the mayor of Newark came later to go inside and they didn't allow him in. ICE agents didn't allow him in.
Starting point is 00:23:39 And they ended up arresting the mayor. And while they were trying to arrest the mayor, I mean, you could imagine the mayor of a mayor, major city being arrested, this created like chaos. And there's a ton of people pushing and shoving and it's really chaotic. The indictment says, I mean, speaking about a prosecutor, I definitely want to hear your thoughts on this
Starting point is 00:24:03 because it's one thing to indict, it's another to get a jury to convict because they put up screenshots of Congresswoman McIvers and what she evidently did that was felony assault. And basically they're saying it was like her forearm was on the ICE agent. This was, they kept referring to the forearm. But you look at the body cam, you look on the video,
Starting point is 00:24:26 it's just chaos. I could not imagine actually convincing a jury that this was like any sort of intentional assault and not everybody kind of pushing and shoving each other. But they don't care, right, Karen? This isn't about proving in court the item. In fact, Ed Martin, who's the head of his weaponization working group,
Starting point is 00:24:46 which is just getting started, folks, so this is going to get a lot worse, specifically said that where they can charge, they will charge and where they cannot charge, they will name and shame, which basically means if you can't charge somebody, you're not even talking about convicting somebody. You're talking about putting charges like they just said with this Congresswoman, which can be very tenuous, right? But they're saying they can't even get to the point
Starting point is 00:25:12 of charging somebody. It means that there's zero evidence, zero incident, zero, an event that occurred, zero law that you can tie somebody's actions to and still name and shame. This is how far they're gonna go with this weaponization here. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Starting point is 00:25:34 That indictment of the, so that started with a arrested the mayor of Newark, correct me if I'm wrong. Yes, exactly. For like trespassing or something. And they quickly realized that that's a bogus misdemeanor Trumped up charge and I know and and so they dropped that really quick
Starting point is 00:25:51 But they had to get it happen arrest so they they charged this representative Lamonica MacGyver with felony assault on law enforcement and this was when you look at the video I watched it over and over again to try to find where is this assault? And I don't think they're gonna be able to prove it I think it's a it's a big scuffle and those are hard to prove in in the I prosecuted many of them when You have to be able to show that it's not enough to be part of a big group and well He must have done something right you have to show that this person
Starting point is 00:26:22 Did exactly what they are being charged with someone else did what they're being charged with, and so on and so on. And I didn't see it. I don't see it. And I think that's just that's such a bridge too far, right? If you can't prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, not only are you going to prosecute, you're not going to bring that case. You shouldn't bring that case, but you shouldn't bring it against somebody who is an elected official, that's for sure. It's very disruptive.
Starting point is 00:26:51 And frankly, you have to ask yourself the question, if this representative were a Republican, would they have charged them? And the answer I'm sure is no. And that's the opposite of without fear or favor. That is what you're not supposed to do, right? We went, again, not to talk about when I was a prosecutor, but this is just where I draw my experience from. You have to be willing to, if you're going to prosecute a case of protesters, for example, for chaining themselves together,
Starting point is 00:27:22 blocking traffic, refusing to allow people to, you know, go down across the Brooklyn Bridge, whatever it is, you know, those types of things, you know, you give them a chance to leave you, you, all that kind of stuff, but ultimately, there's some people that you have to prosecute if they absolutely refuse to move, et cetera. You have to be willing to do that and be content neutral. You can't only
Starting point is 00:27:47 prosecute the KKK doing that, right? You have to also be willing to prosecute the grandmothers who are anti their grandsons getting sent off to fight a war or whatever, whatever you agree with, right? You have to be willing to prosecute the same conduct that's content neutral. And that is the opposite of what this administration's doing. They're looking for people who are, they consider to be their political foes, frankly,
Starting point is 00:28:19 and going after them. And as you said, weaponizing the Department of Justice. It's just not the way it's ever been done. And it's not the way I think a civil society should be. It's really such a shame. And the fact of the matter is they're doing the very thing that they accused the Biden administration of doing and just completely politicizing the office.
Starting point is 00:28:40 And Alina Haba is doing it with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Department of Justice. And it'll just be interesting to see how far the how far they get with the Department of Justice because the line prosecutors who have to have to actually implement these policies. It'll be interesting to see if they go along with it or if they say put their foot down. I mean, they'll get fired like we've seen others get fired or they'll have to resign. But at the end of the day, there's no evidence. Either a judge is gonna throw it out or a jury is gonna throw it out, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:29:14 I mean, in fact, to the matter, as you said, Alina Haba has 120 days. She has 120 days to create a name for herself and audition for whatever next job she wants to do. So buckle up. She's gonna be willing to, I think, continue to do this kind of stuff for that time period she has left.
Starting point is 00:29:32 Yeah, I heard she's interviewing to take over for Janine Pirro on Fox News. Okay, well, that's better for you. Janine Pirro, who is going to be nominated to be the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, because Ed Martin, who you talked about, had to have his name pulled because he would have not gotten confirmed.
Starting point is 00:29:56 But instead, they put him in another position, as you said, this election integrity or whatever. Weaponization working group. Whatever it is, yes. Weaponization working group. Whatever, whatever it is, yes. Weaponization working group. The opposite, the names. It's actually not the opposite. It's exactly what it is.
Starting point is 00:30:12 They're weaponizing the government. So, I mean, it's labeled what it is. It is the weaponization working group, not the anti-weaponization working group. There you go, there you go. They did not do the irony in that one. They actually named it. All right, so we're going to take our very first break.
Starting point is 00:30:30 We have an ad break right now, and we love our sponsors, so please stick around. They choose us. They know what our point of view is, and they choose to be a part of this show so that we can remain neutral, so we can remain a network that can bring you the truth. And we don't have to worry about corporate sponsors and other people who, they don't edit us,
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Starting point is 00:34:23 but for a limited time. Spelled M-O-I-N-K box.com slash legal AF. That's moinkbox.com slash legal AF. We're back and thank you again to our wonderful sponsors who help us keep the lights on and help us remain independent so we can have wonderful producers like Salty and others. So thank you so much for being our sponsors and for sticking with us. So let's continue on this theme of the Department of Justice
Starting point is 00:34:53 and the weaponization of the Department of Justice that the Trump administration is engaging in. And let's talk a little bit about what is happening now here in New York. So we've talked a lot about how the mayor of New York, the current mayor, the sitting mayor of New York City, Eric Adams was indicted on various corruption charges for taking bribes from other governments
Starting point is 00:35:23 and others, et cetera. And it was a serious case, serious enough that at the time, he's a Democrat. So at the time, the Democratic, well, he was a Democrat now. He's independent. Eric Adams ran as a Democrat, was a Democrat. And Biden, who obviously was a Democrat, his Justice Department brought this case against Eric Adams.
Starting point is 00:35:45 And they brought it in a very public way. They arrested him publicly during a very important week here in New York. It's the United Nations General Assembly. There's foreign dignitaries all over from all over the world who are here, and Mayor Adams has to protect them because he's the head of the police department as the mayor and he's the host as the host of New York City where the United Nations is located.
Starting point is 00:36:10 And the Biden's Justice Department felt that the case was serious enough that they both wanted to send a message to Eric Adams and to all the foreign countries that were here visiting that were not for sale and arrested him in a very dramatic fashion during that time period. It was a serious case. It was a big case. It's a big deal.
Starting point is 00:36:33 He was gonna fight the case. And you could just see he started currying favor with Trump. He started using similar languages as Trump. He started saying things like they're prosecuting you, not me, you know, all the things that Trump was saying, well, he was being prosecuted, accusing this of being politicized, even though it's the same party. And after a series of clearly successful meetings between Adams and Trump, or Adams' people and Trump's people,
Starting point is 00:37:11 the Justice Department agreed to dismiss the case against Mayor Adams in order to... so that he can enforce, help enforce the immigration agenda. I mean, New York is the biggest sanctuary city and we have a lot of immigrants and we welcome them here. And immigration is obviously a controversial issue and a controversial topic, but this is how New York City has always been.
Starting point is 00:37:39 And they dismissed the case. It was a lot of drama and back and forth in the dismissal. Should it be with prejudice, without prejudice? There are people who resigned. In fact, the interim US attorney here in New York who was appointed by Trump was very, very respected. Her name's Danielle Sassoon. She very loudly resigned.
Starting point is 00:37:57 She got into it with Emile Beauvais kind of publicly. It was a big deal here in New York, this whole dismissal of the Adams case. But we have learned, somebody leaked this, and I'm not really sure who, that the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation now into Eric Adams' political opponent. So what's happening now is Eric Adams is running
Starting point is 00:38:22 for reelection again, but he's running as an independent. He's no longer a Democrat. And so the Democratic primary is coming up June 24th, and the person who's leading the Democratic primary is none other than Andrew Cuomo. So everybody thinks he's going to be the Democratic, or has a good chance of being the Democratic nominee. And so he's, and really that's who typically wins
Starting point is 00:38:49 in New York City is whoever the Democrat is. So it's likely going to be Eric Adams versus Andrew Cuomo in the next election. And lo and behold, here the Justice Department is announced that they are investigating Andrew Cuomo. And look, Andrew Cuomo was the governor of New York and he left in kind of a scandal of his own. There was a couple of issues he had.
Starting point is 00:39:16 He had a sexual harassment issue, a pretty big one. And so he left in kind of disgrace, frankly. And there was also always this question about COVID and his handling of COVID. Some people loved him. He was in some ways the country's mayor. He talked, my mother in Southern California listened to the news and there's something
Starting point is 00:39:41 about Andrew Cuomo that comforted her, talking her through the COVID, you know, the pandemic. And, you know, so there's a lot of people who have a lot of positive feelings about him as well. But he was a governor who was punishing. He was a difficult governor. He was, didn't have a lot of people who loved him from a, like he's not easy to work with, put it this way. And in fact, I've been on the other end of his,
Starting point is 00:40:08 one of his rants, it's not fun. He's viewed as someone though, because he's kind of a strong personality, as someone who could potentially take on Donald Trump and be strong enough to take on Donald Trump, despite his flaws. And, uh, and the sexual, you know, the sexual harassment stuff, which frankly I don't love.
Starting point is 00:40:33 But there are people who think, but he's, but yet he might be able to be strong enough to take on Trump. And in some ways, I think that's gonna be the fuel that propels him into office. I think there are people who are afraid that Eric Adams is going to kowtow to Trump, and Andrew Cuomo will stand up to him, because he's mean enough to do it.
Starting point is 00:40:55 And that's kind of his reputation. And so, what does Trump do, coincidentally? He opens an investigation into Andrew Cuomo. And here, the investigation is about how during COVID, Cuomo moved elder patients from the hospitals into nursing homes. And the death rate in those nursing homes went up by 50%. This was a death sentence that he lied about the numbers is what the accusation is, and that's what they're looking into, whether or not this is, you know, they're talking about
Starting point is 00:41:32 things like Ed Martin, who he talked about, is talking about things like manslaughter and negligent homicide, and that's what they're looking at him for. And this was a long time ago, and that's what they're looking at him for. And this was a long time ago, but they're looking at the false statements that they say he made to a subcommittee that was investigating the New York COVID response. And they're saying Cuomo lied during this testimony. So that's what's going on here.
Starting point is 00:42:02 But it's just more politicization and more weaponization, Dina. I mean, this is what they're doing. Yeah, I mean, the fact that they didn't bring this investigation or announced the investigation until the election is right around the corner is obviously so concerning because to your point, this has to do with his testimony in 2020
Starting point is 00:42:20 regarding the assisted living facilities and whether or not he was involved in the making of those reports. He told the House that he wasn't and now there's maybe evidence that he was. The House did refer him for criminal prosecution for him potentially lying to them. The Biden DOJ didn't take it up.
Starting point is 00:42:40 The Trump DOJ could have taken this up way back in January, right? This isn't a new development. It's not a new fact. They thought they were going to have Eric Adams at their mercy because as you know, they didn't just want to dismiss it. They wanted to dismiss it without prejudice, which meant they could refile. And to our kind of earlier conversation, when we talked to, you talked about career
Starting point is 00:43:03 DOJ people and are they going to follow with these kind of lawless orders or resign, the attorneys that resigned made a difference because the judge then looked, you know, appointed an independent person to advise him on what, how to handle this because it had become obviously a very disputed issue within the Department of Justice. And he ended up getting that Eric Adams had it dismissed without prejudice, which meant it wasn't like Trump couldn't hold it over his head, which I think was a win,
Starting point is 00:43:34 even though you could still argue that it wasn't really a win because it got dismissed, but at least it got dismissed in a way that it was less of a quid pro quo, like I'm going to hold this over you and you're going to be the mayor of New York and I can always refile. And that was a direct result of all those prosecutors quitting. So quitting does make a difference. In terms of Cuomo, I mean, you just can't think of like the timing of this is huge. Because look, we just talked about Alina Jaba
Starting point is 00:44:07 investigating the sanctuary cities, right? They have said they plan on going after officials in sanctuary cities. Karen Bass in LA, it's just a matter of time before they start looking into her. Having somebody like Andrew Kowal, people across the country thought he does a very good job at standing up to Trump.
Starting point is 00:44:27 Trump knows what a foe, how difficult going head to head with Andrew Cuomo would be in this fight that they plan on bringing to sanctuary cities. They know he's going to be a formidable force. So the timing of this, along with all the other acts of weaponization they do, yeah, certainly seems like they, but you know what, it could be the kind of thing, like, you know, Trump said it, the prosecution of him emboldened his base.
Starting point is 00:44:56 I don't know, I mean, you're in New York, Karen, but I could see emboldening actually Democrats, the fact that he's going after him so close to the election, they may wanna vote for Cuomo even more because they want somebody to stand up to Trump. So this might actually help him rather than... Oh, I think so. I think so completely. I think this is the reason people would vote for him.
Starting point is 00:45:16 And I think Trump and the Department of Justice knows that, which is why I think they are going after him in order to try to neutralize that. At least they're going to try. And Cuomo, I guess, is the person to stand up to him. I don't know. Like I said, I struggle with this because he is a flawed individual. And the fact that he was investigated and is fighting. First of all, do you realize that the taxpayers in New York are footing
Starting point is 00:45:44 his legal bills to the tune of, I think it's like $60 million in legal fees to fight these sexual harassment suits? It's, there's a lot of women, there's a lot of people, and, but if he's the only one who could stand up to Trump, then so be it. So, but it's hard for me as a New Yorker to, you know, things like integrity used to matter, right?
Starting point is 00:46:07 Things like not being a sexual harasser or a rapist used to matter, but now I guess that is something that makes you strong and tough and can be president of the United States or can be mayor of New York City. I don't know. I miss the days when things like ethics and integrity mattered and we cared about those things. And now it just seems like all we care about is showing
Starting point is 00:46:32 how tough you are and how you can just flaunt the laws and the rules and the norms and the ethics and just whoever's, you know, you're a sucker. If you lose and I win, but you followed the rules and I didn't, you're a sucker, you're weak. And that's how they look at it. And they laugh about it. And that's just not my kind of person, I don't like that. I really do care about things like character and integrity. And I mean, it's just, you know, they're going,
Starting point is 00:47:03 Trump, just to add to the list, by the way, they're not just going after Andrew Cuomo, they're going after Jim Comey, right? For the former FBI director, right? They're going after him and opening an investigation because he assembled or took a picture of some seashells that were on the beach that said eight, the number is 8647. And they're saying, you know, it was a code to call for the assassination
Starting point is 00:47:30 of Trump, right? The eight to 86 him or, you know, they're also, they, I, did you hear this? They're, they're going to, they're looking into investigating Bruce Springsteen and Beyonce because they performed at Kamala Harris's and Oprah because they spoke at or performed at her election, you know, at her campaign rallies. He's going to investigate them. I mean, that's crazy. That's just, that's insane. I mean, he's really just democracy doesn't matter anymore. I mean, he had performers at his rallies and his things. I mean, I just don't understand this.
Starting point is 00:48:08 You know what the irony is, is he says that these are in kind campaign contributions, which, you know, that's basically what he was convicted of because he paid off Stormy Daniels and then didn't report it. So it's hilarious to me that he's all of a sudden, the arbiter on campaign rules and violations of them. So yeah, no, I mean, this is just,
Starting point is 00:48:30 he wants to go after anybody who doesn't kiss the ring. And unfortunately, there are so many people that kiss the ring that, you know, he thinks he's entitled to do it. I mean, this is a little bit of a side note, but I don't know if you saw it went viral. There was a daughter of a slain police officer who went to the White House and accepted a medal.
Starting point is 00:48:50 And she was not a Republican. She's not a fan of Trump. And so she did not do any of the usual, you know, bowing down to him or whatever. And Trump and these kinds of viral photos was like shocked the fact that she's not doing that. He's just surrounded by people who are yes men and we love you and you're the best and you're the greatest.
Starting point is 00:49:11 And so he thinks he's entitled to go after any celebrity or any known person who doesn't bow down to him. And, but the irony of him trying to say that there's some sort of campaign violation was the funny part for me. Yeah, I agree, I agree. You know, just speaking of things that are going viral and the media, et cetera,
Starting point is 00:49:32 what I can't get past is I cannot get past the fact that the Democrats and the legacy media are self-flagellating and going after Biden for this, you know, ridiculous, whoa, all these people covering up for him. And this is what we're talking about, as if the, you know, and then now accusing the cancer diagnosis of being dropped to deflect away from the fact that there's this big expose that he was, that he was, you know, not mentally there, et cetera. I mean, and the Democrats, it's like,
Starting point is 00:50:10 the reason I think the Democrats are, have lost this particular election cycle partly is because the Democrats self-flagellate. I mean, we, Democrats eat their young. And meanwhile, the Republicans circle the wagons around one another and I don't care Who you are Matt gates? We love you, you know, like it doesn't matter who it is, right? Who is that congressman? I bought wise names escaping me the one who lied about literally everything. Oh, yeah, George Soros Santos Santos Santos. Yes, George Santos. Yes. Sorry
Starting point is 00:50:41 George Soros? Santos, Santos, Santos, yes, George Santos, yes, sorry. George Santos, another one, like, right? Like he was like a walking crime spree, George Santos, right? But that they circle the wagons around their people. And we like, okay, yeah, clearly there was a decline at some point of Biden and we all saw it. And then he stepped out and that was it. But somehow this is like now that's all we talk about is this,
Starting point is 00:51:06 this cover up, this crazy whatever. But it's like almost like what about the fact that we're accepting a bribe from Qatar. We're accepting this giant airplane. We are going after people who didn't commit crimes. You know, we are deporting people to third countries and violating what the Supreme Court has told us we can do, not us, told Trump what they can do. Like, it's like comparing jaywalking to homicide. Yes, both
Starting point is 00:51:36 of them are technically crimes, but they are not equivalent, right? They aren't. And so, yes, poor Joe Biden clearly declined in the end and then stepped aside and whatever. But that, that, that took to make that somehow equivalent to what is going on and not to be spending our time calling out what, what is actually happening here. This is, there is no rule of law when it comes to Trump and his people. They literally are doing whatever they want. It doesn't matter what judges say, what courts say, what the law says.
Starting point is 00:52:10 They say things say what they want it to say versus what it actually say, and they're just doing what they want and getting away with it. That's what we should be focusing on. I mean, I don't think that this is Democrats saying it, though. The everyday Democrat does not care and is not saying it. This is the consulting class who is trying to keep their jobs. They made a mistake when they pushed Biden out because,
Starting point is 00:52:33 you know, I haven't read the book, but all the reporting of the book, there is no like smoking gun. It's all the aging stuff. We all saw that in real time. Every speech, every shuffle, the fall on the stage, he was aging, he didn't do well. We all saw that in real time. Every speech, every shuffle, the fall on the stage, he was aging, he didn't do well, we all knew it. They are trying to cover, this is a CYA move
Starting point is 00:52:53 because otherwise the narrative would be you pushed out somebody too close to an election, but instead they're flipping it and they're making it his fault he should have turned out before. The fact of the matter is we all knew he was getting old. So this to me is not a Democrat. This is not the voters. This is not the constituents.
Starting point is 00:53:13 This is not people who care. This is about a bunch of people trying to save their jobs and to flip the narrative from you did the wrong thing by pushing somebody out too close to an election to, oh, no, he was wrong for not getting out. There is to me, I have not seen any evidence of anything that we didn't all see in real time. Yeah, I look, I agree.
Starting point is 00:53:36 He whatever I think I personally think he should have. You know, he ran on saying I'm a one term president. Right. That's what he said. And a lot of people voted for him for that reason so that Trump wouldn't come back. And I think a lot of people felt that he should have pulled out earlier, that he should have stepped aside, I should say,
Starting point is 00:53:54 and not put himself forward. And that I think is, you can criticize him for it, but he was a great president and he's a great man. And now his family's struggling with this cancer diagnosis. And I just really... And meanwhile, the country's burning and on fire. And so many things are happening, but we're focused on that. I just don't understand it.
Starting point is 00:54:14 And, uh, anyway, so that's... Thank you for letting me go down that little non-secret. Yeah. So we're gonna go to one more ad quickly, and then we're gonna come back and talk about how we are deporting people to countries that they have no connection to in violation of court orders, which again,
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Starting point is 01:00:12 He is revoking certain visas, he's revoking statuses, he's paying people to self-deport. He is speeding up the process, the immigration process, to streamline it so that you're not mired in court process for years and years and years. And frankly, I'm sure there's a lot of people who think that the court, the immigration system was broken. Congress was unable to pass any law that made sense of immigration, made sense of the issue.
Starting point is 01:00:52 The immigration courts have huge backlogs. There is a problem, and I think it's, we have to be honest about that and call that out. And as a result, lots and lots and lots of people came over to the United States. And there are some people who felt frustrated by that because they felt that our cities, some cities can't take it, right? Some cities love and want to have migrants. And it's actually a huge boom to their economy. and great workers, great neighbors, great people.
Starting point is 01:01:26 But there are some places that I think that it was it was very difficult for them. And there was a lot of frustration there. And so the system has been a problem for a long time. Different people have different ideas on how to fix the problem and have different ideas of what immigration in this country should look like. Regardless of what point of view you have, I happen to absolutely, I live in a sanctuary city, I'm pro-immigration. Every person here practically in this country that is not a Native American is the product
Starting point is 01:02:06 of an immigrant, and it's partly why I love this country, right? What makes this country beautiful and amazing is just the different cultures and different people, and, you know, we have the Statute of Liberty here in New York. It's all about immigration. We have Ellis Island. I mean, it's just this is the history of this country.
Starting point is 01:02:23 But so regardless of what your point of view is, Ellis Island. I mean, it's just this is the history of this country. But so regardless of what your point of view is, we are also allegedly a country of laws. We were up until recently a country of laws. And so what does that mean? It means that you follow laws, whether you agree with them or not, because we're a democracy, right? That's part of being in a democracy is you try to persuade people. You vote people into office.
Starting point is 01:02:44 They they put laws in place of, you know, that people kind of that your representatives vote for and you follow them because that's the law and some laws I like and sometimes I don't and but the laws you like and I don't, I'm going to follow and that's a civil society, right, and that's where we live. This administration doesn't seem to want to do that because there's a whole set of laws in place that protect immigrants and protect people who are in detention. And you have things like due process rights.
Starting point is 01:03:16 In fact, the Constitution even talks about due process rights. What does that mean? It means you have a right to process. You have a right to some kind of court process before certain things are taken away from you. And Donald Trump doesn't seem to really want to follow that. They don't want to respect that. And so they talk about things like suspending habeas corpus.
Starting point is 01:03:41 That's something they want to talk about. And what is suspending habeas corpus? Habeas corpus, a writ of habeas corpus essentially means to bring a body to court. It means produce the body to court. Something Kristi Noem did not know, by the way. She got it wrong, what that is. It's a little scary.
Starting point is 01:03:58 But that's a right in this country, right? That is a right that no matter who you are, if you're detained, you have a right to have your body be brought to court through a habeas corpus to be told to challenge, to challenge your detention. Now, the judge might say, sorry, you're staying in, but you have a right to have process. And that is one of the indelible rights that's in the Constitution. And it's only been suspended a couple of times, I think less
Starting point is 01:04:28 than a handful of times in our nation's history. And certainly not any time in the recent history. I think the very last time had to do with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. And that was, but before that, it was even much longer ago in the 17s and 1800s. I mean, that's how rare this is. And that was, but before that it was even much longer ago in the 17s and 1800s. I mean, that's how rare this is.
Starting point is 01:04:48 But Stephen Miller is think, is talk very openly about wanting to do that so they can deport people and deport migrants and not have to have them be brought to court. They can just take them in the middle of the night and take them away and bring them to a place where either their home country or somewhere they will be accepted. And if they are not on this soil, then there's nothing
Starting point is 01:05:11 we can do to if you suspend habeas corpus, even if you don't suspend habeas corpus, if they're taken away, how are we going to get them back? So that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to be able to meet this promise to deport a million migrants before the end of the year, because that's what the promise is. They want to be able to just ship first, ask questions later, kind of like they did with Abrego Garcia. Oops, we made a mistake. Doesn't really matter, right? Mistake doesn't really matter. Just get as many people out as possible, whether it's the Aliens Enemy Act that they're invoking to try to streamline things, whether it's to just go and scurry people away in the dark of night, whatever it is.
Starting point is 01:05:54 It's even a bridge too far for the Supreme Court of the United States, who last week in the middle of the night said, you know what? You can't do that. You have to give some process. Telling them the night before after business hours and then putting them on a plane the next morning without a meaningful opportunity to consult with a lawyer is not due process. And even the Supreme Court, that was a bridge too far. And what's happening, what's happened today is a Boston federal judge, Brian Murphy is his name.
Starting point is 01:06:25 He issued an injunction in March saying that people can't be sent to a third country, meaning a country that you have no connection to. You're not a citizen of that country. It's just a country willing to accept you. Cause some people aren't by the way, some people aren't welcomed by their country, right? You come here from another country and you commit murder,
Starting point is 01:06:43 or you commit rape, you're convicted and you're detained. Your home country might not want you back. And so what are you gonna do with that person? So these individuals, right, what does Trump do? He picks the worst of the worst. He picks people, eight people from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Mexico, and South Sudan, who were eight immigrants who all have been convicted of
Starting point is 01:07:05 the worst offenses you can imagine, murder, rape, robbery, etc. And the night before, literally the night before, despite Judge Murphy issuing an injunction in March saying that people can't be sent to a third party without giving them an opportunity to raise concern like fear of persecution, fear of torture, right? He said, you can't do that without giving them an opportunity to challenge it. Doesn't mean you get to stay here forever. It means you get process.
Starting point is 01:07:36 It means you get have a right to go to court and have Trump gets to, and his administration gets to say the reasons you shouldn't be here and you should be able to go to this other country. And you get to say the reasons why you don't want to or you can't or shouldn't. And that should be, and then the court rules. And then if you lose, then you get sent wherever you get sent. I mean, there's a way of doing what he wants to do and do it the right way.
Starting point is 01:08:01 He just doesn't want to. And that's what bothers me is do it the right way. He just doesn't want to. And that's what bothers me, is do it the right way. Because due process matters. Process matters. Laws matter. And so these eight individuals, these immigrants who I accept that they aren't great citizens and people that we necessarily want here, they were told less than 24 hours before the night, the night before, literally to the and the next day they were put on a plane. And Judge Murphy said that is an insufficient amount of time. And he's thinking of bringing a criminal contempt finding,
Starting point is 01:08:40 and he wants to hold hearings. He wants names to know who's doing this. Now there's flight trackers for this plane that took them and they're not sure where the flight is going and because it didn't stop in South Sudan, who knows? I mean, there's all this question now about confusion because that's also the chaos, that's also what they kind of do, right?
Starting point is 01:08:58 It's they don't answer questions, they don't tell you anything and they sow kind of this chaos and it's like, oops, well, they're gone, can't do anything about it, I don't have control over them anyway. And Judge Murphy basically said, no, that's not okay, you can't do it. And, you know, Trump's, their spokespeople are smart, they're like, well, these are bad people, nobody wants them, and nobody wants to accept them. But this is, I think, at least the fourth time
Starting point is 01:09:25 the Trump administration has been accused by attorneys of violating this order by Judge Murphy. And the problem is there's not a lot of repercussion for this because they're gone. And what is a judge going to do to the Trump administration? What are their actual powers? Well, it's interesting because I think they're... Evidently, like you said, this is kind of just, you know,
Starting point is 01:09:52 developing. The story is developing. And evidently, these men are the plane landed, it went to take off from Texas, went through Ireland, as you said, there's flight trackers on it, and landed in an East African nation, Jibedine, I believe I'm pronouncing that right. And that's evidently where it is. The notice that was given was that it was heading to South Sudan. Now the Trump administration is backing off from that saying that's not the ultimate destination, they're not giving the ultimate destination.
Starting point is 01:10:19 But the Judge Murphy said that they cannot leave the airplane until he figures this out. He might hold hearings, he said. The lawyers for the deportees wanted him to order the plane to come back. He did not do that, but he might have some sort of hearings while they're still in custody. This is very much a developing story. The fact that we have been here more than once before, where there's a clear order, this is how you handle sending somebody to the third party. In this situation, they had valid deportation papers.
Starting point is 01:10:52 It was more about where you were sending them. And Judge Murphy had made clear when you're sending them to a third party country, you have to make sure you're giving them notice not in English, you have to give them enough time to be able consult the lawyers. We just have the Supreme Court, right, with the Aliens Enemies Act saying 24 hours is not sufficient. Here, this is perhaps the amount of time the government gave. There's a little bit in dispute, but it's definitely not more than 24 hours. The notice wasn't English. So like very clearly violating his order, Judge Murphy, in the hearing today, very upset about the fact
Starting point is 01:11:25 that they're violating it. And as you said, he might look into criminal proceedings. And this is not even the only case. There is a Guatemalan man again with Judge Murphy that they sent to Mexico. And they Trump put in the declaratory statement saying that the man, we only know him by his initials, OCG had evidently been
Starting point is 01:11:46 okay and fine and felt safe going to Mexico. And then when it came time to have a hearing, the ICE agents admitting nobody had actually asked him, nobody had spoken to him. So in the hearing today, Judge Murphy really eviscerating about that too, like you basically lied to the court here. So the amount that Trump is doing in terms of violating court orders, lying to the court, all in this name of really, and you know the fact that we're talking about the DHS
Starting point is 01:12:15 maybe doing like a reality show regarding immigrants, this is the reality show, right? Let's be frank, he's doing this on purpose. He's scaring people. I mean, can you imagine you're coming, we shouldn't even be talking about deportation or immigration policy. This is about taking somebody off the streets,
Starting point is 01:12:29 giving them a life sentence in a country they're not from for the sole crime of crossing into this thing. A lot of them haven't come legally into this country, but even if not, I mean, you are scaring people. That's his purpose, right? That's his purpose. This is why he doesn't care about the laws. His whole point is to make this as scary,
Starting point is 01:12:48 as depraved as possible. As being a daughter of an immigrant, I can't even imagine purposely wanting people to not come to this country, especially when we're talking about low birth rates, we need immigrants more than ever. But this is what this is about. It's about scaring people
Starting point is 01:13:04 and they're willing to break the law to do it. But it is heartening to see now we saw Judge Boasberg talk about criminal contempt. Now we see this judge saying he's gonna take it up at another hearing. And again, it's these low-level career officials that are going to be subjected to this criminal contempt.
Starting point is 01:13:25 It's not Trump. It's the low level ones, which is the only saving grace possibly in this. Because I know that's the thing a lot of people are saying, who cares about the judge's orders against them? Like, who cares? Who cares? It's just violating. Does it matter? Does it matter? The fact of the matter is we're giving these officials due process, right? They're slowly looking into was, you know, what did these Trump officials know? Did they violate it? We have to be patient and let this play out. But the person who's just trying to do a job and feed their family and is not really like the MAGA person, may not want to break a judge's violation when they see their co-worker get brought into court and his name publicly named and deposed. But then they'll get fired. The problem is they'll get want to break a judge's violation when they see their co-worker get brought into court
Starting point is 01:14:05 and his name publicly named and deposed. But then they'll get fired. The problem is they'll get fired. That's what they do. If they don't, well, if they don't listen. Yeah. Yeah, but it's better to get fired than criminally prosecuted. And it's the same thing with the US.
Starting point is 01:14:18 Yeah, if I was somebody like that, I'd be like, fire me. I don't want to go in front and get a lawyer and all that kind of stuff. And here's the thing, it may not make a huge difference, but AOC talks about this, and I think she talks about this so well. She says, we have to slow them down. You may not be the one person that, yes, you decide to not do it. You decide to quit overdoing it, like we saw with the US attorneys with Eric Adams, but you're slowing it down.
Starting point is 01:14:44 You're taking a chink into what they have to do. And that helps. Every little action helps. So just like we saw with all these federal employees, everyday people getting fired, we are seeing the everyday US attorney or the everyday DHS employee kind of being the resiliency between us and Trump.
Starting point is 01:15:06 And we're going to have to see case by case. But it's helpful that it's not just like the upper echelons. Like we're never going to be able to count on Stephen Miller to do the right thing. But we may be able to count on that person who's just really trying to do their job and go home to their family at the end of the day. What's really frustrating to me about all this is deporting immigrants who have committed violent crimes has always been a thing. Every administration, even New York City sanctuary cities,
Starting point is 01:15:35 they all get deported, all of them. And in fact, the numbers are such that more people were deported under Biden last year than Trump is on track to deport this year. That's what the numbers are showing, which so to make it seem like deportation is not something that was already happening. It was and always has been.
Starting point is 01:15:54 Violent criminals have always been deported, period, full stop. But they get some process and then they go and they leave this country. What's happening now, what's different is Donald Trump is packaging it differently. He's doing it in a way to, first of all, he's taking credit for it
Starting point is 01:16:13 as if he's the first person to have thought of this and it wasn't happening already. And he's doing it in a way to violate court orders. He's not, doesn't wanna go through the process. He wants to do it so that we all get upset and everybody's, you know, hemming and heying and everybody's, you know, everybody's out of breath about this because he's violating all these court orders and doing it
Starting point is 01:16:34 so that he can then say, oh, but this is a murderer. This is a rapist. This is a robber. The Democrats want you to, you know, want you to love these people and care about them. But really these are the people who are the scourge of our country. Guess what?
Starting point is 01:16:50 Those people would have been deported anyway under a Biden policy, under every policy that we've had. I mean, this is how it's always been. This is what happens. This is who gets deported. And so he's using this as like a marketing campaign for himself and so that he can then actually blow a giant hole into all of this and deport hundreds of thousands of people
Starting point is 01:17:16 who aren't violent criminals, who are hardworking people. The reason they say these are all criminals is because they view it as a crime to come here and to be an undocumented immigrant. They view people who come across the border as criminals just by virtue of that. It's not that you come here and commit a crime. To them, it's all criminal because you came here when you weren't supposed to. And what's interesting is when you look at the people who their policies are impacting, it's Haitians, it's Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans,
Starting point is 01:17:48 Salvadorans, Afghans, Cameroonians. All of these are people who, that is who they're going after. They're moving to terminate their temporary protective status. They are moving to kind of get them to be deported. They're going after students, right, as well, moving to kind of get them to be deported. They're going after students, right, as well, and student visas, and people who are here temporarily.
Starting point is 01:18:13 Those aren't people who are here unlawfully or criminally, but you know who they haven't done anything to? They haven't touched the $250,000, or not dollar, 250,000 Ukrainians who are here, right? They are welcoming the white South Africans who are here. Why is that? Because they each have a certain skin color. Those are people they want here.
Starting point is 01:18:37 Those are people they want having babies here and having higher birth rates. It's the people of color that they are deporting en masse and they are using as poster children these eight or ten or whatever it is really bad people who would have been deported anyway as because we're fighting about process for everyone including the people who aren't criminals. We're fighting for process for everyone. They make it seem like no we're fighting to keep the murderers and the rapists here in this country. No we, no, we're fighting to keep the murderers
Starting point is 01:19:05 and the rapists here in this country. No, we're not. We're just saying follow the law. Follow the process, due process, so that the grandmother who's done nothing wrong and who's lived here for 40 years and who has a large family here gets to stay and doesn't have to get deported in the middle, you know, doesn't have to have her house broken into in the middle of the night and whisked away
Starting point is 01:19:26 to some third-party country the next day, right? I mean, that's what we're saying, is if the process doesn't work for the people you don't like, for the rapists, the murderers, the robbers, make them as bad as you want. I don't care. It doesn't matter, because that's how much I believe in due process and the rule of law. The process should work for everybody, including them.
Starting point is 01:19:46 And they will get deported the right way eventually because that is what the law is. But if they don't have process, neither does anybody else. And that's where it becomes dangerous. And that's where this situation I think is untenable. And the criminals are the easiest to deport. Let's be frank about that because they're in jail, right? They've been convicted of a crime.
Starting point is 01:20:11 They have their sentence and they usually get deported when they're done with their sentence. I mean, they are in the justice system by nature of them being convicted criminals. They are the easiest people to deport. You don't have to do raids to go get the criminals. You don't have to tear the mother from the child in the street to go get the criminals. You don't have to stake out the schools
Starting point is 01:20:32 to go get the criminals. We know where the criminals are because they were in the justice system. That's how we know they're a criminal. So, you know, this is definitely, I think you touched on it, Karen. This is all about race. He's deporting people of color,
Starting point is 01:20:45 the temporary protected status, people are here legally. So this whole farce around illegal, deporting people illegally, that is well beyond that. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people here legally, but they are people of color. And like you said, they want more babies. JD Vance talks about that. Elon Musk talks about that. The birth rate is declining in the United States,
Starting point is 01:21:08 which can be bad, right? We've seen in Japan and other countries, economies slow down when birth rate falls. The United States of America, we've never had that problem because people are clamoring to come contribute and become working members of our country. But when you start shipping them off, even when they're here legally,
Starting point is 01:21:28 and you also start talking about declining birth rates, and you take away a woman's right to choose under row, you are trying to make more white babies. And it becomes a scary situation that we need to keep our eyes and ears out for. Yeah, without a doubt. It's happening. I mean, this is what I think a lot of people want,
Starting point is 01:21:47 but we have to, the due process matters, habeas corpus matters, the rule of law matters, living in a democracy matters, separation of powers matters, the constitution matters. We cannot let this person who's trying to become, well, I don't know what he's trying to be. We can call him a fascist dictator, you can call him an oligarch, you can call him whatever it is. he's trying to be. You can call him a fascist dictator. You can call him an oligarch.
Starting point is 01:22:05 You can call him whatever it is. It's not theocracy. It's all of the above. He's trying to create a situation that is not what this country's founded on. And it's an existential crisis we're in and we have to fight for it. And we have to fight every single battle
Starting point is 01:22:24 and try to get our country back because it's so obvious what he's doing. crisis we're in and we have to fight for it and we have to fight every single battle and try to get our country back because this is, it's so obvious what he's doing. We all see it, but we just have to call him out for it. And that's why I love Legal AF. That's why I love the Midas Touch Network because that is what we try to do. We try to come here day after day, week after week, and give you our interpretation of what's really going on. And we don't have to, we don't have editors that we have to run our points of view past, we'll tell you when we're talking opinion versus what's a fact. And
Starting point is 01:22:59 we also aren't afraid to admit if we're wrong, right? I mean, that's exactly what we do here on Midas Touch. And that's why I am so grateful to have been a part of it now for I think almost five years and so proud of Midas Touch and how great they are and how great they got. The Midas Touch podcast got the Webby Award for being the number one podcast. And they're getting every big interview of anyone who's anybody is being done by people in Midas Touch and we just got Katie Fang is coming in to be a part of
Starting point is 01:23:34 Midas Touch and I mean more and more people are gravitating towards the Midas Touch network and it's because of what we're doing and the fact that we're here to tell the truth. And I still believe in without fear or favor. So I call it like I see it. And so do you, Dina. And so does Popak and Ben and everybody else here on the Midas Touch Network. And so I'm just so grateful to have met you and to be able to do this with you regularly. So is there anything else we should talk about? Anything else you wanna mention before we sign off? No, I feel the same way.
Starting point is 01:24:12 I'm grateful that we have a voice because it is, and other people get to, we kind of get to have a collective voice and collective community because this is really difficult stuff for going through. But this is just the beginning. I really believe in the justice system and all the really strong state attorneys,
Starting point is 01:24:28 generals, and officials out there really fighting the good fight. So, you know, we've got a long road to go, but we're definitely here to, we're bringing it here. We're not going to be walking away, right? Oh, God, no, absolutely not. If anything, we have a big job ahead of us for the next, you know, whatever it is, three and a half years. There's a lot going on. And every day,
Starting point is 01:24:50 it's, it's, you just when you thought it couldn't get any worse or any more, just unbelievable. He accepts a plane from the Qatari government. So, so we've reached the end of another midweek episode of Legal AF. Dina, thank you so much for being here and send our love and condolences to the entire Popok family and hopefully we'll see Popok back again soon. Great to see you, Dina. Good to see you, Dina. Good to see you too.

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