Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 6/25/2025

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Michael Popok is back with Karen Friedman Agnifilo with the Legal AF podcast, the #1 law and politics podcast on this week's YouTube rankings, and they take on: 1) a judge finding that the Trump Administration's "evidence" did not support holding Kilmar Abrego in jail nor prove that he was in the MS13 gang; 2) Trump suing all the federal district judges in Maryland in a blatant example of forum shopping; 3) the ultimate DOJ insider blowing the whistle on the DOJ and its assault on federal judges and its impact on the confirmation hearings of Trump's top lawyer Emil Bove for a lifetime appeals court judge position; 4) the Trump Administration running back to the Supreme Court because a Federal Judge ruled that he still has jurisdiction to stop removals without due process to third world countries; 5) E Jean Carroll winning again for the second time in 2 weeks at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm her almost $100 million in judgments against Trump, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. One Skin: Get started today at https://OneSkin.co and receive 15% Off using code: LEGALAF 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. Mud/Wtr: Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% OFF your @MUDWTR by going to https://mudwtr.com/LEGALAF #mudwtrpod Honey Love: Get 20% Off your entire order with our exclusive link: https://honeylove.com/LEGALAF 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 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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people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online Go Pass ahead of the show at gotransit.com slash tickets. This episode is brought to you by Dzone. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup.

The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane, and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on Dazon, starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at dazon.com slash FIFA. That's D-A-Z-N dot com slash FIFA. No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFriels.ca. It's the mid-week edition of Legal AF. Karen Freeman-Ignifilow's back. Michael Popok is right next to her. We're gonna cover some of the most interesting

and fascinating issues at the intersection of law and politics that's out there. Karen, let's just go down the rundown for today. We start with, well, a couple things we're gonna start with. The Trump administration and the Department of Justice being grilled in the Senate in various ways, including Pam Bondi and, new pronunciation alert, Amel Bovi. I've been calling him Amel Bovi for the longest time, but apparently he corrected the record. He is Amel Bovi. More importantly, you've got a witness,

an insider, the most insider of insiders. We talked about it before, Erez Rouveni, who used to be the top of the immigration litigation for the Department of Justice. He had just been given a promotion on March 14th. The same day, he now swears Amal Bovi, now the number three of the Department of Justice, and sitting through a confirmation process to become a lifetime federal judge,

told the assembled group, including Mr. Ravini, that they were to not comply with federal judges' orders. They were to tell them to go F themselves, if necessary, and not tell them the truth about Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act, and where any particular migrant was in a process. We always suspected that. Judges like Judge Zinnis and Judge Boasberg have gotten pretty close

to concluding that, but now you've got an insider witness. We're going to talk about Erez Rouveni and the chances of Mr. Boves to become the Third Circuit Court of Appeals judge that he apparently wants. We've got a judge in Tennessee, magistrate judge, Judge Holmes, who made a determination that the grounds to detain Abrego Garcia, here's another name alert, he wants to be called Kilmer Abrego. So Kilmer Abrego, that she doesn't have the grounds

under the factors that you use under federal law to detain him in the criminal human smuggling indictment case in Tennessee. Doesn't mean he's going to be a free man or he's going to be released. It just means as it relates to the criminal side, it's got an immigration side and a criminal side. On the criminal side, she made a determination.

And she also made some determinations, Karen, I want to talk to you about, about the quality of the evidence that the Trump administration had been using about his MS-13 membership and other aspects to try to keep him in jail. And she had some choice words for the Trump administration, not the first time we've heard them.

Then we're gonna turn to what's broken out just today or so. If you listen to the Trump side, you have a defiant judge in Massachusetts who's refusing to obey the Supreme Court's order on Friday about, to stop his injunction and allow people to be, continue to be deported to third world countries like South Sudan and Libya without due process.

That was sort of the initial headline from the DVD case coming out of the Supreme Court. And now you've got the Trump administration running back to the Supreme Court with a motion for clarification because they don't like what Judge Murphy's doing. Judge Murphy held a hearing and was like, I've read the order. And there's other orders of mine that have not been enjoined

that need to be obeyed. And we'll talk about what's going on in the battle between the Trump administration and this federal judge. And we have another battle that's related. Judge, the Trump administration has sued each and every judge in Maryland federal court from the chief judge down to Judge Zinnis and the clerk. Why? Because they don't like an administrative order

that grants a two-day stay, basically an administrative stay, on habeas corpus petitions being filed to give a judge, a real judge time to get their minds around and the jurisdiction around. And the stay is to stop people from being deported outside the continental US by the Trump administration, which constantly deports people outside the US in order to avoid federal jurisdiction and oversight.

So they've sued in Maryland. We'll talk about that case, including who's gonna hear that case if all the judges in the federal circuit have been sued. E. Jean Carroll back in the news for all the right reasons. She's the sexual abuse victim and defamation victim of Donald Trump.

That's been proven by two different civil federal courts, federal juries in New York. And now for the third time in twice in the last two weeks, it looks like Donald Trump's gonna be on the losing end of a decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, moving E. Jean Carroll one step closer to collecting her total of about $100 million against Donald Trump.

All that and so much more, Karen, at the intersection, that's usually when we bring her back, at the intersection of law and politics. Got some new producers working with us today. Somebody I'm now calling the Admiral, working with Salty. But Karen, I'm so pleased to see you back in the saddle, back here on Legal AF. It's great to be back, Popok.

I really, really missed being here last week, but our number one fan, my dad, was in town. And so I'm just so happy. I had the best week ever with him and my sister. So here I am back. He left this morning. I'm a little sad, but he's going to be home in time to watch tonight's episode.

So that was what he chose his plane flight so that he could watch it live. If one thing anybody's figured out is that the Midas Touch Network and its contributors, especially you, me, and Ben, love, adore, and will go through brick walls and barbed wire for our families, parents, right down to children. And I think people appreciate that.

I certainly appreciate that in you. I feel very lucky. I'm very, very, very lucky. I do have an amazing family. So let's talk about other people. Mostly, mostly, mostly. Yeah, I know. I mean, the husband, you can take her leave.

Not true, not true. I love your husband. Same, same. In a platonic way. On the. I hope so. Let's kick it off with, let's kick it off with Abrego Garcia and what happened there

with Judge Holmes, a magistrate judge in Tennessee. Criminal court case, the Trump administration conjured up, manufactured an indictment about human smuggling off a traffic stop from three years ago in order to give them some fig leaf or political cover to bring him back from El Salvador after they were ordered to do so by Judge Zinnis in Maryland, hold on to the Maryland thought, and the United States Supreme Court, nine-zero.

But as most people now know from watching Legal AF, much of the hard work and laboring or in a federal criminal case is conducted and administered by the magistrate judges in most jurisdictions. There is a federal judge here who is assigned, Judge Crenshaw, but you don't really get to see Judge Crenshaw in the beginning. It's a lot of work that's done by the magistrate judge, and I know you know that world well. So why don't you walk the audience through the, we waited 10 days, which is quite unusual, for her to make a decision about whether

Mr. Kilmer Abrego, that's what he wants to be called, is gonna be detained in an detention center pre-trial on the two-count indictment for human smuggling or not. And then we can talk about, does that really answer the question if he's gonna see the light of day? Yeah, well, I mean, look, Mr. Abrego was...

I remember the filing that Quinn Emanuel did when they said he's one of one. He's a guy who was mistakenly deported. He shouldn't have been deported. He was not here illegally. He has a family here. And the Trump administration said, oops, deported him, sent him away. They tried to get him back.

And that's when Trump started being cute, too cute by half playing games, you know, and just really say, oh, I can't bring him back, or I have no authority, this and that. And then, of course, when the Supreme Court essentially ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return back, he found himself in a bit of a tricky situation, because he knew all well that he could bring him back, obviously.

There isn't a lot that the United States can't do and can't accomplish, but he didn't want to just bring him back and obviously. There isn't a lot that the United States can't do and can't accomplish, but he didn't want to just bring him back and then release him because then he would be, it would be sort of embarrassing and humiliating. So furiously, I'd love to know how much work they put into looking for something to charge him with or hold him with. And they found and they dug up an old traffic stop case

that from years ago that nobody ever brought charges against. And they compared the traffic stop to some phone records, decided that he was driving around a lot of different places. There were other people in the car and decided to charge him with human smuggling. And I think it was very pretextual to do this. It was a pretext in order to have some reason to bring him back human smuggling. And I think it was very pretextual to do this. It was a pretext in order to have some reason to bring him back and hold him. And so they put together this criminal case.

They go before Judge Holmes and Judge Holmes had to essentially apply the law of the bail reform act to this case because in this country, there's a presumption, you know, we're a free country. So there's a presumption that you get to be released. You know, it's not automatic that you have bail held or money bail or that you're held in jail pre-trial because you are innocent until proven guilty in a criminal case. So Mr. Obrego is innocent until proven guilty, just like any other case. And the judge had to apply the Bail Reform Act factors, the three factors to this case. Is

the victim, is there a minor victim who's involved in the case, meaning a victim who is a minor that is involved in the case? Is there a serious risk that Mr. Abrego or any other defendant will flee? Or is there a serious risk that he. Abrego or any other defendant will flee, or is there a serious risk that he will obstruct justice or interfere with the integrity of the proceedings? This is the same factors that apply in any criminal federal case in this country. In every single case, the judge will apply these factors according to the Bail Reform Act. So this is what's been going on in this case. The judge issued an order and basically it was very interesting because it was quite long and for not actually setting any conditions,

but it was quite long in the judge's analysis as to because what they what the judge actually said in the beginning was, look, I'm going to make a ruling. It's largely academic, and everybody agrees that it's academic because whether or not I, if I don't, if I release him and don't hold him in, the immigration authorities will hold him. Like one way or another, the government's going to find a way to hold him and deport him. And so essentially they apply, he applies the three factors.

He goes into a long, long recitation of the law. What does it mean to be a minor victim, if a minor victim is involved? Is it enough that that Mr. Mr. Abrego had his kids in the car? That's not an involvement of a minor. It can't be right. The law can't possibly mean that just because your kids were in the car when when you were when you were smuggling people if you were smuggling people that that counts. And so he basically said that I'm not going to find

that there was a minor victim. I'm not going to there's no serious risk that you'll flee the country because the whole point is you want to stay in the country. Right. So like it's obvious you want to be here. You're not going to flee. In fact, they're trying to kick you out. And there's no serious risk that you'll obstruct justice or interfere with the integrity of the proceedings. And so he basically said, the judge found

there are conditions of release that can be imposed to reasonably assure the safety of others and the community and that he will return and that there's no minor involved and that they're going to tell us what those conditions are another time. But what was really interesting to me is the government then comes forward and says, you can't possibly do this because essentially, if you release him and he gets out, we will deport him and therefore he will flee the country and he can't face criminal charges. But it's so ridiculous because obviously you don't have to deport him and so you can't

hold him in because and saying that, you will flee the country. He's not going to flee. He's going to be forced out of the country and not face the criminal charges. So pick one government. It's sort of this weirdly absurd argument that the government's making, but that's where we are. And so in this, for now, he's going to be released

with conditions, and I'm sure he's going to be held in immigration custody, and we'll see what the government does from there. I mean, it's like a chess game, and everyone's trying to one-up each other and find some way to play this game. So, for now, the Abrego Garcia, Mr. Abrego's, his little situation that is quite a quagmire continues.

And I don't know where this is going ultimately, but we'll see. We'll see if he'll stay in this country and face these charges to see if they're actually real, to see if there is something there, or if he'll be sent back to El Salvador, or who knows, who knows where this is going. He's not gonna be sent to El Salvador.

I think everybody agrees that he'll be removed at the rate that they're going on the immigration side, which Judge Holmes noted. And she said, look, I, in her order, she said, people might think this is an academic exercise. It's not. I take seriously, this is my paraphrase of her order, I take seriously when we're talking

about pretrial detention and the presumption of innocence. And she also made a point of talking about the difference between human smuggling and human trafficking, because those words have been used interchangeably, but in her mind, they're not. And in the penal code, they're not. Human smuggling is sort of collaborative. The person wants to be smuggled, you want to smuggle them, it's transactional.

Nobody's being exploited. Trafficking, you're exploiting somebody, usually related to a sex crime. And there's a big difference in how the penal system treats it. She said, I've looked at the punishments that have been given to human smuggling charges in this district in Tennessee.

And it's like 12 months. It's not nothing. But it's not such a crime that it would encourage somebody, for instance, to flee. She also did a fair amount of time doubting and criticizing the evidence put on, what she called double hearsay, sometimes triple hearsay. She totally shot down, which was good

because we've never had a federal judge look at it. We've seen Pam Bondi violate the Department of Justice manual, crap all over Mr. Abrego, call him effectively a child molester, child pornography, bad marriage, a smuggler of children, I mean everything that's not in the indictment and try to get away with it. And they're constantly talking, including Trump whenever he's cornered on the issue

about MS-13 membership in this terrorist gang and all of that. And she completely refuted having heard the evidence, having at least had the transcripts of the testimony of confidential informant number one, two, and three presented to her through an agent, she said, we have problems here. Confidential informant one is staring down the barrel of a 30-month sentence on his fifth, on his second felony and his fifth deportation.

And now he's being given the golden ticket of not being deported if he rolls over on Mr. Abrego. I got a problem with that. It's two. The other two are related to the first guy and obviously are also incentivized and biased to roll over on Abrego in order to cut their own deals. He says, so, and it's secondhand. I don't have these people in front of me.

So it's double hearsay. And she said, in particular, on MS-13 membership, they're not even consistent with their own testimony. They're inconsistent among the three of them about whether he is or is not in MS-13. So I totally throw away basically all of the testimony about it. The agent doesn't know anything firsthand. He'd only investigated the case for three weeks

before they brought the indictment. Three weeks, three, two years after it happened. So she's like, no, not going with that. And when they started to try to, you know, they wanted to keep them in federal detention pre-trial on the crime as compared to detention on the immigration side, on the removal that they're trying to do for the second time, this time from the United States. She said, what's the evidence on the 15-year-old being involved and therefore being involved, you know, minor, it's a minor crime, so to speak? Oh, well, the cop during the stop did a roster of what was happening in the car

and asked everybody to write down their birth dates. She said, okay, do I have that doc? Do I have the boy? No, what do you have? I've got the handwritten, we're already in here, save world. I've got the handwritten photocopy of it. She says, and the handwriting is terrible.

If that's a seven instead of a one, he's above 15. He's over 18. This can't be your only evidence on this issue. And also that's not how the statute works when it comes to minors being involved. This is not an exploitative thing. He was in that car, he's trying to cross the border. And those would be the charges.

So it's really the first federal judge to take a look at the evidence that the Trump administration and Pam Bondi have been free riding on because they're not swore, they're not under oath, and they just say things out loud, say crap out loud. But she's also very pragmatic. She said, we all agree, he's not getting out. He's just going to be transferred from one federal van

to the next and be held in immigration purgatory, in immigration detention while they work on a removal to a country not named El Salvador, which they're probably, I'm just gonna manage expectations there. They're gonna be successful, but this time he's in the United States with due process, with lawyers and a process that has to be abided by with an immigration

judge sitting over it. So I don't know if it's six months or a year. And I don't know what the defenses are. I'm not the defense lawyer for these guys. Maybe they have very good defenses here on removal. But at least he has his day in court. As we segue into Maryland, where Donald Trump has sued all the judges, including Judge Zinnis, who is not only still presiding

over the removal to El Salvador issue of Mr. Abrego, but is seriously considering contempt, and now she's been sued by Donald Trump. Let's pick up with that. When we come back from our break, we'll talk about the new suit, who's going to preside over that suit, now that all the judges have been sued there and they all have apparently now have a conflict.

What is the impact on Judge Zinnis with the Abrego Garcia case? What is the impact of the insider whistleblower who got fired by the Department of Justice for telling the truth to Judge Zinnis and what he had to say about people who are still in the Department of Justice, including one who's being put up for and is in a confirmation process to be a lifetime federal appellate court judge for the Third Circuit.

We'll talk about the United States Supreme Court's order, but now maybe a little Easter egg inside of the dissent by Judge Sotomayor picked up by Judge Murphy in Massachusetts and what the Department of Justice and Donald Trump is doing, or Solicitor General is doing about it with a new motion to the United States Supreme Court. And we'll end it all on E. Jean Carroll, one of our favorite plaintiffs who deserves every penny, if not more, for how she was sexually abused and defamed and continues to be defamed by Donald Trump. She was a guest with Ben, with Robbie Kaplan

on The Midas Touch. We had Roberta Kaplan, God, it was three years ago, if you can believe it, when the Dobbs decision came, which is fantastic. And already on their way has been like to say, I'm gonna go to the show, I'm gonna go to the show, I'm gonna go to the show, I'm gonna go to the show, I'm gonna go to the show,

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We got a dozen contributors there. We're doing 10, 12 videos a day at the intersection of law and politics, but we need your help to get. We got to cross the 700,000 threshold, and then the million threshold before the summer's over, but only with your help. Hit the Subscribe button on Legal AF, the YouTube channel.

We have a Legal AF substack. So every time we talk about one of these cases, the filing, the motion for clarification with the United States Supreme Court, the lawsuit that was filed by Trump against the 20 or so lawyers, judges in Maryland, you know, this filing, the order by Judge Holmes. What do we do with it? We digest it, we use it, we use it on our optics,

but then we post it so you can see it yourself with commentary and other writing and other reporting on the legal AF Substack, and we need help to continue to grow that. So Legal AF Substack is another way to support things there as well. Of course, the YouTube and the podcast itself always could use a little love.

We got the audio world, which is, some people are like, wow, you're on audio too? Yeah, and some of the audio people are like, you guys do this on YouTube. So we need the two of those groups in our community to meet and download more audio downloads leave five star reviews, that really helps us watch video, send off clips, you know, get people to grow with us

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Well, they don't know exactly what we're gonna say. They know what our point of view is. They know who we are. They have five years of a body of work with Legal AF. And yet, and not in spite of, because of, they know our audience and they know what we bring to the table in this very important time to our democracy. They've sponsored us and they've advertised with us.

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using code LEGALAF at oneskin.co. It's not.com, it's.co. So that's 15% off Oneeskin.co with Legal AF code after you purchase and tell them we sent you, please support our show and thank you Oneskin. Welcome back to Legal AF at the Midweek, Karen Freeman at Knitflow, Michael Popak. Those were our amazing sponsors.

We thank each and every one of them. Take a moment and hit the subscribe button for Legal AF, the YouTube channel and the sub stack as well. Karen, I wake up this morning, I start a lot of my hot takes that way, and I get this blast on my text chain and I look at it in my different feeds that I use to prepare, and it says,

Trump administration sues every judge in Maryland federal district court. What? I know they're not happy with Maryland's federal district court. It's a bluish location. It is moderate. It's a little bit liberal and they don't like the rulings they're getting out of there. They've been fighting and telling judges like Judge Zinnis in the Mr. Abrego case, the pound sand, to go effectively, we'll talk about this in a minute, go eff themselves. They don't like other rulings that have been coming out of Maryland and maybe they think they've come up with a way, knowing that Judge

Zinnis is about to find them in contempt. The second judge to do it after probable cause finding by Judge Boesberg in DC, knowing that, knowing they don't like the decisions, they stumbled across something that happened at the end of May. It's like, all right, we're glad you woke up, you know, Van Winkle. And the chief judge issued an administrative order to address a number of things that the judges were concerned about.

Mainly, even up to the Supreme Court, that the Trump administration was hell bent on deporting and removing people without due process, sending them to foreign countries, and then looking the court in the eye and saying you don't have any jurisdiction, to foreign countries and then looking the court in the eye and saying you don't have any jurisdiction because we might have violated the Constitution or a statute or a law, but you don't have any ability to do anything about it, ha-ha, and taunt them.

They're literally taunting them. And so to avoid that and to enforce or to reinforce what the Supreme Court has said to judges like Judge Zinnis in the court and to support what the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals itself through Judge Wilkerson has said a couple of times, which is federal court judges like Judge Zinnis in Maryland and other places have to do all they can do to preserve and protect their jurisdiction over,

related to habeas corpus and due process, related to migrants, undocumented, illegals, whatever you want to call them. So they came up with a plan. They know that these writs of habeas corpus, which is exactly what the Supreme Court has said needs to be filed, sometimes get filed at odd hours, takes a minute to spin the wheel and assign electronically a judge for the judge to see the petition, for the judge to make an emergency ruling. So they said, we're going to put an administrative stay in place for 48 hours after a petition is filed in Maryland. There will be an automatic stay to give the judge effectively time to figure out the petition, the jurisdiction, and to make sure that person doesn't get sent

in the middle of the night or otherwise to a foreign country purposely to evade federal jurisdiction and oversight. Seems pretty consistent with both the Supreme Court precedent, the orders of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, what's happened in Judge Zinnes's and others other courtrooms, but to Donald Trump, it's an assault on the injunction rules, the All-Rit Act. They're not allowed to do that. So he has sued in their official capacity, every judge and the clerk to try to overturn this administrative order, which he conveniently misstates.

If you were to read the complaint, Karen, and I know you did, it says effectively that the order would prevent the Trump administration from moving these people around the United States, and it puts a hardship on the US in its negotiations with foreign governments. Like, what are you even talking about? It just says for 48 hours, don't move them out of the United States. The fact that they can't read is scary.

Why don't you pick up from that filing, and then we'll talk about what kind of judge and who picks the judge is gonna end up being the judge over this particular new complaint. Look, I mean, let's just zoom out for a minute and talk about the big picture. The fact that you have a federal judge, the chief judge of a district issuing an order that applies to all future cases that basically says, if any of these other habeas corpus cases come in press pause for 24 hours before they can be expelled

from the country or 48 hours, whatever it is from the country. It's just short, tiny little period of time to give them the due process. The Supreme Court has already said that they are entitled to. He's not saying you can't send anyone out of the country ever. He's not saying that Donald Trump can't do what he wants to do. He's just saying he can't send anyone out of the country ever. He's not saying that Donald Trump can't do what he wants to do. He's just saying you can't do it in the middle of the night without giving them notice and an opportunity to be heard.

Just a tiny little brief period of time. But the fact that you have the chief judge of a district of, I think, what, 14 or 15 judges who had to issue this and say this applies to all cases here, and then Donald Trump comes forward, his administration and sues all those judges to try to stop it. It just highlights how broken this relationship is between two of the branches of government. It's just absolutely broken.

There's no trust. There's no, I mean, essentially what the chief judge there is saying is I don't trust this administration to follow the law. I don't trust them to follow the Supreme Court that says you have to give them 24 hours or you have to give it a period of time, right, for this due process so that they can call their lawyer, go to court, try to challenge it, whatever it is. You can't just take someone out in the middle of the night in this country

and send them to a country they've never been to before that has no relationship whatsoever to their home country. And they might not have ever been there before. You have to give them some kind of meaningful opportunity, just a short period of time. And so just the fact that they already don't trust the administration to do that. And then that this administration then had to file this lawsuit.

I mean, it's just really stunning to me that the breakdown in the relationship is just crazy. And it's just, you know, it comes on the heels of the Trump administration constantly trying to delegitimize all the judges and constantly just really calling them names and just ridiculing them and being very unprofessional. But that's what he does. He goes after individual judges.

And it's just this whole broken relationship between two branches of government. And Trump just really seems to be delegitimizing the entire judicial branch. So that's the sort of zoom-out version of this that I find really stunning. But then, as you said, Trump files this lawsuit or the administration files this lawsuit

saying that the chief judge who issued this order, Judge George Russell is his name, that he, that is intruding on the White House's inherent powers to quote, enforce the nation's immigration laws. And goes on to say, this lawsuit involves yet another regrettable example of the unlawful use of equitable powers to restrain the executive. Specifically, defendants have instituted an avowedly automatic

injunction against the federal government issued outside the context of any particular case or controversy. Now, the reason that sentence, the reason I wanted to read that is normally cases need, in order for a court to issue an order or a ruling, you have to have a case or controversy in front of you. And this is really prospective in looking at the future. And that's what they're going to try to get at here, saying, look, he's issuing this order, there's nothing before them.

He's talking about hypothetical future cases, but that's where this is so significant that this judge felt the need, because again, just reading the writing, seeing what's happening across the country, seeing what's happening in other courtrooms, seeing people getting airplanes that are taking off despite court orders,

seeing people whisked away in the middle of the night, there's just no trust that exists anymore in this relationship. So I thought that was what was really interesting about all this. And as you said, what the administration basically said was, okay, I'm bringing this lawsuit and'm asking the the appellate court to put a different judge in charge of this lawsuit because I'm suing all the judges in this district. And it's kind of sort of an interesting thing to do, because if you don't like a particular judge, what are you going to do? Sue them. So to disqualify them so that you can then get a new judge. So I think it's gonna be really interesting

how the appellate court looks at this. And regardless, any judge that gets this is going to see right through that kind of foreign shopping thing. You can't just sue an entire district, but we'll see, we'll see what happens. Trump is breaking all the rules. Yeah, I mean, technically, procedurally,

if you wanted to do it, you sue the administrative, you sue the chief judge about his administrative order, not all the judges. They admit in the body of the complaint that the clerk is issuing off the administrative order an administrative stay. They want to make it into an injunction. It's, I mean, it is an injunction in the sense

that the administrative stay says enjoin, but it really is in the way of an administrative stay, which is sort of the lowest level temporary stay. We've talked about this on Legal AF a lot, sort of the food chain hierarchy of stays. Administrative stay for hours or days, temporary restraining order, weeks, maybe two or three weeks, temporary restraining order, weeks, maybe two or three weeks, could be a month, preliminary injunction from that moment

till the end of the case, permanent injunction, end of the case, until the end of eternity. That's how that works. So that's who you sue. But you're right. They wanted to sue Judge Zinnis, particularly, and another judge there, Judge, I want to say Chung, because they are in hot water with both of those judges, Zinnis in particular, especially after Zinnis has now learned what she always suspected, which is that Emil Bovi, whatever his name is, instructed a lawyer and others that are in front of her, including Drew Ensign,

instructed them to effectively not comply with federal court order and to tell them to go F off. That's Emile Bovey's words. Now, during his confirmation hearing, he denied it. He said, I'm just, I love, it was like a Matlock moment. I'm just a lawyer from a small town, like what small town? New Jersey? I'm from Jersey.

It's not a lot of small towns there. I'm just a lawyer from a small town. I deny everything that was said. I would never tell anybody to violate federal court rules. Really? Really? And that's why they went after him. And I think the Democrats did a good job today with, well, what about the Eric Adams indictment that you dropped

in order for him to play ball on your immigration policies that led to the departure, the noisy departure of a series of senior prosecutors, including the acting head of the office who wrote a 10-page letter attacking you and your ethics? And Erez Rouveni himself being fired because what was his crime? He told the truth. He told the truth to a federal judge, Judge Sinis,

and she commended him for it. He said point blank that Mr. Abrego was illegally deported by ICE even though they knew he had an order of non-removal to El Salvador from a federal judge, an administrative judge, nonetheless, but a judge, an immigration judge, and they did it anyway. And now, in every order we've ever seen about Abrego, it says he was illegally deported or removed,

including the United States Supreme Court saying the same thing. And that's because Reveni, Mr. Reveni told the truth. And so, that's another reason. Now Mr. Ravenny told the truth. And so that's another reason. Now how does the judge get picked? There's a statute, there's always a statute in the law for how you pick a judge in this scenario. And the chief judge of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Diaz, who is I think an Obama appointee,

he has to choose another judge from the Fourth Circuit, and here's where the forum shopping comes in, which includes North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. He's got to pick another judge in there who doesn't have a conflict. So you can see Trump already going, I go from the blue state of Maryland to the red states of, you know, purpley of North Carolina and red of West Virginia and West Virginia, South Carolina. I'll take it.

So it is a way to get the motion in front of a more favorable judge, but that is what's going to happen. And then that judge is gonna have to hear the arguments. Here's the other issue that's up for grabs. Who's gonna represent the judges? Not the Department of Justice. They don't have... That's a good question. Who is gonna represent the judges? Not the Department of Justice. They don't have.

That's a good question. Who is going to represent the judges? They're going to have to use a budget and go higher. There's going to be a pro bono law firm. Let me think who that would be. How about Jenner and Block, Wilbur Hale, Sussman Godfrey, and Perkins Coit, or other firms right behind them that are Robbie Kaplan. There's going to be firms that are going to stand

up and volunteer. Donya Perry. I can think of a million firms that would step up to represent that group. They need a lawyer. They're not lawyers, they're judges. So you're gonna see a group of public interest type law firms or law firms who are not scared of the Trump administration step forward.

Keep going, Quinn Emanuel, you know, representing the American Bar Association in the Abrego Garcia. Well, they couldn't do it because they're in the Abrego Garcia case. Also, they need 14 judges. I mean, 14 lawyers, right? No, no. I think they're all similarly situated. Yeah, but they'll probably hire their own. I think they'll hire. Why not? All right. You and I will fight that that out I think they get one law firm to write with you know, the joint letter you and I've done joint engagement letters that says Well, you're all the same boat seek the dismissal right away of the individuals and keep just the judge the chief judge But this will be fun to watch but while we're watching do you think wait really quick?

Do you think Trump is gonna take one of his? Do you think, wait really quick, do you think Trump is gonna take one of his billion dollars worth of pro bono legal services that he shook down the other law firms? Do you think he's gonna use one of those firms? I think this is gonna play out a battle of the fancy law firms. That's what I think is gonna happen. Well, that's very interesting. You know what we should do another hot take on, you and I together after we do a little bit more research?

I haven't heard, I haven't heard anything about how that billion dollars of free public service pro bono work is being used. Have you heard of a case that where a big, I mean, they're not gonna advertise it, where one of these big fancy firms that was shaken down in Bentheny, where they're doing actual work for Donald Trump in the courtrooms?

I haven't. Yeah, no, I haven't either. No, interesting. I haven't either. No, it's just that. I haven't either. But I think one of the law firms that fought and won against the Trump administration is going to raise their hand and say, I wanna represent the judges and go against one of these other.

We'll see how this plays out, but I think this one is going to be one to watch because this is a big deal. You're suing an entire district of federal judges. This is a huge, huge deal. This is so different than representing somebody who might be here illegally or representing... You know, this is just a different type of defendant,

I think, that lawyers are going to want to be on the right side of. And look, also, guess what? Other district judges are gonna notice that these are the right side of. And look, also, guess what? Other district judges are going to notice that these are the firms who are standing up for their brethren, and that's going to make a big deal. So I think every, you're going to see a lot of lawyers who are going to sign up for this.

Right, great. I just did an interview today that'll be up tomorrow on Legal AF with Sky Perryman, who is this president and CEO of Democracy Forward. And we were there to talk about a brand new filing that they did in federal court in Texas where the Trump administration, this is another page out of their playbook, is conspiring and colluding with red states to try to take laws off the books

by having the attorney generals of those states enter with red states to try to take laws off the books by having the attorney generals of those states enter into phony settlements and consent decrees to declare that laws on their books are illegal, to try to do an end run around the legislature and the will of the people. So there's a Dreamer Act in Texas, a Dream Act, that's been on the books since 2001 with Governor Perry, speaking of Perrys, with Governor Perry.

And he. Governor Perry, Donya Perry, Sky Perryman. Sky Perry, Admiral Perry here. Yeah. No, Perry, it's a Perry day. But that's been on the books giving free tuition to anyone that graduates from high schools in Texas, regardless of their immigration status.

Trump hated it. So he served a from high schools in Texas, regardless of their immigration status. Trump hated it. So he served a lawsuit, and an hour later served the consent settlement with the Texas Attorney General just days after the legislature, even the Texas legislature, was unwilling to take the law off the books. And so, but when I was talking to Sky, and Democracy Forward, I was gobsmacked

by how many lawsuits she is, her organization is involved with. They have 70 lawsuits just themselves right now against the Trump administration. Great interview, everybody catch it tomorrow on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. But it could be Democracy Forward, they just filed a new case with the Perry firm

in Washington about some other issues. So we're gonna be onboarding just a little bit of a public service announcement. Democracy Forward's gonna be on regularly with Legal AF talking about their cases. And they are in the courtrooms. I mean, I talk about it because I've been in courtrooms, but they're in these courtrooms about these cases.

And also the ACLU is gonna be coming on regularly talking about their cases as well. And so when we come back from our final break today, I wanna talk about the Murphy case, Judge Murphy, and Donald Trump also running, very busy, Department of Justice and Solicitor General's Office, running back to the Supreme Court off of what looked like a win for them on Friday, and Donald Trump also running, very busy, Department of Justice and Solicitor General's Office, running back to the Supreme Court

off of what looked like a win for them on Friday. But you know, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. You go in on an emergency application with limited briefing and no oral argument, you get a one paragraph decision, and then the dissent comments on, well, this only applies to the injunction that's before us, not to other remedial orders that the judge has entered.

It doesn't divest them of jurisdiction. And lo and behold, Judge Murphy agreed with Judge Justice Sotomayor and made a ruling that the Trump administration is upset about. We'll talk about that, and of course, we'll end it all on this particular podcast with E. Jean Carroll. But we have our break here to help support the show. People always ask us what can we do to support the show. Let's be frank we don't put this behind

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We vibrate on a frequency. We're just glad we have everybody here with us who wants to be educated and updated on law and politics. And at that intersection, that's that. Legal AF Substack, everything we're talking about today that resulted in a written decision or order or filing or lawsuit up on the Legal AF Substack along with some amazing commentary.

Come over there, hit the subscribe button as well. Audio versions of this podcast, the Midas Touch Legal AF podcast. Come over to the audio version. Hit follow, hit subscribe, listen, leave a five-star review. Come back to the YouTube version of it. We just got the new rankings, Karen, for the top 100 podcasts on YouTube.

They just started ranking that about a month ago. And this show is in the top, what is it, 50? I think we're in the top 50. 49. 49. Out of like- That's the top 50. The top 50. Out of every podcast in the world that's on YouTube,

we're in the top 49. The Brothers, I don't know, I'm getting hoked by my producer. Yes, the brothers are number two. Who's number one? I don't know, who cares? Number two, Rogan, Rogan's bound. Rogan's number one.

Brothers are two. We're in the top 50. I have a show which is called The Intersection, which is also in the top 100. I moved up to 86, yes. All right. So I got three for the Midas Touch Network, basically. That's amazing.

We're dominating the top 100. And that's another way to do that. And then of course we've got our pro-democracy sponsors. And here's a word from them. Physio, chiropractic, and massage therapy are all great resources for when you need them. But going to these appointments every few months does not give me the ultimate results I'm looking for

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time you can get Honey Love on sale. Treat yourself to 20% off your entire order by heading to honeylove.com slash legal AF. Support the show. Again, that's honeylove.com slash legal AF. Welcome back midweek edition of Legal AF. Karen Freeman, Igniflo and Michael Popak. Let's start with, or we're going to wrap it up here with the homestretch. Supreme Court makes a ruling last Friday. Ben and I talked about it on the Saturday edition.

But when I was putting together the list for today, earlier, I was thinking, we're just going to have to talk about, you know, that case, the lack of silver lining in which the Supreme Court in one paragraph effectively turned due process on its head and is allowing people to be deported and removed to third world countries without notice and really effective due process over an injunction

of Judge Murphy in Massachusetts. He's the same judge that has already found that the Trump administration had violated his injunction and continued to send people to South Sudan and to Libya of all places. Now the Trump administration, not now, is offloading to countries that don't share our values. That's the thing that sticks in my craw the most.

You know, he's sending it to, he's not sending it to like European countries, you know, like, well, they're sent to Germany today. I'd be like, all right, well, at least they're in Germany. But they're sending them to places that don't share our values, our constitutional values, our justice values at all. Quite the opposite.

These people are in fear of being tortured, killed, or worse in these countries. And that's why even the immigration laws say you can only deport people to where they're from or where they are willing to go. And if you're sending them to a third country that they don't wanna go to, there has to be a process around that. But the Supreme Court, off an emergency application, off a

Judge Murphy's injunction from April, said, it's interesting, but we're going to let them continue to do that while we wait around for the full-blown merits appeal to come back up to us maybe a year from now. We're like, what? And then Sotomayor writes this scathing dissent. And in it, there was a curious line. I read it, I kind of read over it. And in it, it said, I'm paraphrasing, this order does not, and our jurisdiction does not address the remedial orders of the trial judge, of the judge below.

Like, huh, interesting. of I kind of blew it off Well, you know who didn't blow it off judge Murphy So you go back to the docket for his case and he's the guy that found not only a violation by Donald Trump But he's the one that made the Trump administration hold at an Air Force base in Djibouti eight Libyans and Not deport them until they get due process, keeping them on US soil in an Air Force base.

And he's pissed off. And he said, I'm not ready to find contempt yet, and issued a remedial order a month later in May, in which he said, you are as part of the remediation for violating my prior order, you are to do the following, which is don't deport anybody, keep them on US soil until I get around to deciding whether you have the grounds to do it and notice has been given properly

and due process has been given properly. And he said on Monday after reading the Supreme Court decision, nothing's changed. It did not enjoin my May 21st remedial order, nor does it divest me of jurisdiction. So nothing's changed. So why don't you take it from there, Karen? What did the Trump administration do about that? Well, what do you think?

They, again, ran to Mommy and Daddy, the Supreme Court of the United States, and basically said, you know, basically is trying to get the situation clarified and asking for clarity about whether or not this applies to them. And, you know, look, it's just they're, of course, once again attacking, you know, attacking everybody under the sun, you know, look, it's just they're, of course, once again attacking, you know, attacking everybody under the sun. You know, John Sauer, the Solicitor General, said, this is a lawless act of defiance that once again disrupts sensitive diplomatic

relations and slams the brakes on the executive's lawful efforts to effectuate third country removal. He asked for an immediate stay to make clear beyond any doubt that the government can immediately proceed with these third country removals. You know, the White House is basically attacking Judge Murphy and other judges as usual. And of course, while all this is happening, by the way,

and Stephen Miller is saying, you know, the, Stephen Miller who seems to be the architect behind all of this says, quote, expect fireworks tomorrow when we hold this judge accountable for refusing to obey the Supreme Court. I mean, if that's not a veiled threat. And of course, what does Donald Trump say about all this? I'm not really sure what's going on around here.

You know, he just, I know nothing about the situation, right? And then he says, oh, but it's out of control. The situation's out of control. But I don't really know a lot about it, you know, which is sort of his go-to answer with these kind of difficult things that he doesn't wanna really wade into. So that's what's gonna happen.

And meanwhile, you've got these eight men sitting on, in this country that kind of in purgatory, right? Waiting to go and see what happens to them. But that's kind of what purgatory, right, waiting to go and see what happens to them. But that's kind of what's happening. Yeah, and I think they lose because, as I said on the hot take about this, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. You go in with a half-assed emergency application,

limited briefing, limited record, no oral argument to clear up these issues. You get a one paragraph decision that appears on face value to be in your favor. But Sotomayor circulated her dissent. And nobody made a, nobody from the majority in a statement, which is what they use nowadays for these granting the states, nobody said she was wrong

about the remedial measures, the jurisdiction of the stays. Nobody said she was wrong about the remedial measures, the jurisdiction of the court. Because just like Judge Breyer in San Francisco about the California National Guard still has jurisdiction over new temporary restraining orders, new preliminary injunctions on new evidence, and the Posse Comitatus Act, he's not divested of jurisdiction just because the appellate court has blocked a temporary restraining order. Same thing here. But they don't like it.

So now they want to supplement their briefing and try to get new argument and try to get four votes or five votes from the six that ruled in their favor to clarify. I'm not sure the Supreme Court clarifies on this, because there's not much to clarify. They saw Sotomayor's dissent. They didn't challenge it.

They didn't say, well, she's wrong on that issue. We're blocking the whole case, all of the orders. This is about the powers of a federal judge wearing a black robe with lifetime appointment to administer justice in their courtroom using their inherent authority. This has nothing to do with the United States Supreme Court blocking one of those orders, especially when there's another order that happened after it. And a pox on Trump's house because they should have brought a more fulsome appeal about orders that related to the original injunction, but they didn't. And so it wasn't up before the United States Supreme Court. And if it's not there and it's not in the record and it's not properly briefed, the Supreme Court doesn't have the power to rule on it.

They should lose on this. There should be crickets, no clarification at all, and then they can try to appeal the remedial order on another emergency application. But that has to do with the power of a federal judge to enforce his own orders. Exactly. I mean, you're assuming people here are going to play by the rules, right? I mean, that's why the story we talked about earlier that you were talking about in this confirmation

hearing with Emil Bové is so significant because part of what he's being accused of is basically telling the members of the Department of Justice to basically say, F you to the courts and to not abide by the court order. So even if the court says, this is what you have to do, that he is accused of saying that. And there's a little colloquy between Adam Schiff and Emil Beauvais. Schiff said, did you suggest telling the courts, fuck you in any manner, question mark? Bové, I don't recall, Schiff. You just don't remember that? In my experience, the answer to a question like this

is either yes or no, and we all know which of those I don't recall is. You know, I mean, that's pretty astounding. That's what he said. I don't recall. That's astounding. It's an admission that happened. Of course it is. Of course it is. It was in a room full of people. There's no way you can deny that. And if that's really coming, he's the number three in the Department of Justice. That couldn't come more from the top. If that's really what the Trump administration

is telling the rank and file of the Department of Justice is to just ignore court orders. This is, because everything you just said, Popak, is 100% right and 100% just completely accurate. But that's assuming everybody's willing to play by the rules and everybody's willing to abide by the rules. I mean, that's why people always say, you know, democracy is so fragile because democracy depends on all of us agreeing to abide by the rules, even the ones we disagree with. It's not the reason there's no lawlessness in the streets is not because of any law enforcement

or laws, et cetera. It's because we all have this social construct, this compact that we're all going to abide by the rules, whether we agree with them or not. This is the first time in my life that coming from the top, coming from the administration, coming from the federal government, they are basically saying,

sorry, it's my way or the highway. I'm not going to abide by the rules that I don't like. That is why our democracy is so fragile and why this authoritarianism government that is coming forward is really so terrifying to all of us. And so that's why, Popak, when we talk about these things, they're all interrelated because they're all pointing to the same thing.

They're all pointing to where we are headed as a country and as a democracy. And that's why I love doing this with you because they're all pointing to the same thing. They're all pointing to where we are headed as a country and as a democracy. And that's why I love doing this with you every single Wednesday and why I think the work that the Midas Touch Network is doing and Legal AF is so important because we have to keep really shining a bright light

on what's happening here. Yeah, I agree. The social contract is in tatters around the feet of Donald Trump. And that's a scary place to occupy because we do keep this together as a, that's what a nation of laws, not men means. That means that we, and laws are on a book

and they have to be abided by because you want your neighbor to do it and you want to contribute that to the social cause. When I was talking to Sky Perryman today, she said, she's, her democracy forward is representing the JGG class action in front of Judge Boesberg. And I said, well, you saw the whistleblower letter

by Mr. Ravini, what are you gonna do about it? And you know, I didn't wanna put her, I said to well, you saw the whistleblower letter by Mr. Ravini. What are you going to do about it? And, you know, I didn't want to put her, I said to her, if you can't tell me because you're working on it, it's confidential. I totally understand that, but I know you're involved. And she had a good comment. She said, it's new information, but not something that the judges like Zinnis and Boesberg didn't already suspect. They just now have the proof that's necessary. I mean, if I'm the judges, I make referrals to the Bar Associations for disbarment. I call these people in, Drew Ensign needs to come in.

He was the lawyer that's still there that's running around between Boesberg's courtroom and Sinis' courtroom and answer for it because he threw, he threw, Reveni threw Ensign under the bus and said he's been lying in court. I mean, there's no other way to put this. And we'll see if this scuttles.

There's many, many reasons why Emil Bovi should not be a circuit court judge or get anywhere near it. There's right-wing conservatives that don't believe that, that he should be a judge and that he's temperamentally and mentally unsuited to have that role. And they've come out against Boeve and against Donald Trump, including those that would be considered, you know, this is one of the things that started the fight with the Federalist Society, is that major people in the Federalist Society were coming out against Boewe and Donald Trump wouldn't stand for it, or Boewe. But we're going to watch that.

We'll do some hot takes on that confirmation hearing. But let's turn to somebody who demonstrates that it's necessary, even though there's hard work there to protect our democracy, it's necessary to hold these people accountable and go through a process, file the lawsuits, have the trials, suffer through the appeals by Donald Trump, and come out the side victorious. I know you're a big fan, as I am, of everything E. Jean Carroll has done to try to reclaim her life as a sex abuse victim.

Not my words, the words of two different juries who got to see the case, it's got to see the evidence. Donald Trump has been trying ever since to rewrite history. While on one hand he continues to defame her, I know they're considering other lawsuits against him, he's also lost two trials. He's got an 83 and a half million dollar judgment in one case about him defaming her when he was president

of the United States. And another one for 5.5 million when he defamed her when he wasn't president of the United States. The sex abuse happened when he wasn't even a candidate. So it all goes back to the 90s. And so Donald Trump has tried every which way at the appeals level to avoid paying her the money. Now, to remind people or to tell them for the first time,

there is a bond for each of these judgments. So she will be paid eventually, even if Donald Trump refuses to pay her when he has exhausted all of his appeals. He had to post a $5.5 million cash bond. He's got a bonding company for the 83 and a half million running with interest. So she'll get paid. He ran to the Second Circuit a number of times. One of them we reported on two years ago, where Alina Habba, yes Alina Habba, went to court to argue that the judgment that the case against Donald Trump related to the $83.5 million should never

have gotten off the ground because he enjoyed presidential immunity. And the Second Circuit panel two years ago looked her in the eye and said, that's sort of interesting, except you haven't raised that issue in the 18 months of this trial. And you have to raise immunity as a defense. And she said, well, no, you don't,

presidential immunity is unique. You don't have to raise it. It's just automatic. And they did not buy that. And they shot her down. They never took an appeal to the Supreme Court. So, for me, it's a conclusive order law of the case, if you will. Now you fast forward and they decide now

that Trump controls the Department of Justice, they'll try a new trick. They'll file a motion with the Second Circuit, this is now in the last several weeks, to try to have the United States of America intervene in the case and take Donald Trump out as a defendant. So the case would then be E. Gene Carroll

versus the United States of America on the argument that he was acting within the coercive scope of his duties as president and has what we call Westfall immunity. And why would he do that? Because the next step is the government saying sovereign immunity you can't collect against us. And the Second Circuit panel,

and we did the live audio of the oral argument on legal AF said, led by Judge Chen, said, Chen, sorry, said, no, no, we are not allowing, it's already been up on appeal on this issue, it's not, him defaming her as president of the United States is not part of the course and scope of his duties, we don't find Westfall immunity, we're not going to allow you to intervene. That was just the last several days. Same panel has to hear a new issue. Donald Trump now argues, wait for it, presidential immunity

on the same judgment, on the same argument he already raised and lost two years ago. Karen, why don't you take it from there and then I'll give you the wrap on it. Yeah, so look, they're basically saying the case should be thrown out because of presidential immunity because that, I'm not sure if that's true. But I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point.

And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point.

And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. And I think that's a very important point. It was an inquiry about a matter of public interest. So this was part of my presidential authority. And, you know, the panel who heard this was essentially skeptical because what they're citing is Trump versus United States that basically gave him criminal immunity, but didn't say anything about civil immunity. And so the panel was skeptical, basically saying,

he may have waived this by not raising it earlier. Of course, the Trump administration says, well, how could we have raised it earlier? Because at the time that we made this appeal, Trump v. United States hadn't been ruled on yet. But look, the issue of immunity and civil immunity has already was something that has already been settled in and has been kind of well settled law that they are not immune

from civil suits. When it, for things outside of your presidential duty, that's why Paula Jones was able to sue Bill Clinton while he was president. And of course, it was about something that happened prior to his presidency. But Trump's trying to make this, that this was, I had to, I defamed her as part of my job description,

as part of my job duties. So we'll see what they say. We'll see what happens. Ultimately, does it matter? Not really, because the audience is the Supreme Court. And so that's where he's going to appeal it to. And let's see what they end up saying. But that's where we are here.

And, you know, we'll see what ends up happening. And, you know, you said earlier, Popak, that she'll get paid no matter what because he posted a bond. Not if the case is reversed, right? Not if the Supreme Court ultimately says, sorry, we do find you immune. Or that if she wins.

If she wins. Exactly. Exactly. I know. That's why I wanted to clarify that. That's why I just wanted to clarify that this is not, this still, this is, the Supreme Court is really unpredictable and very pro-Trump, as we know. And so we'll see what they decide here. I mean, no one in the million years thought they would have said he was, he would get immunity, you know, presidential immunity criminally. So I don't know. All bets are off for civil, for civil immunity.

I don't see it on the civil side with the Supreme court. I'll tell you why they already raised this issue of presidential immunity. And as you rightly pointed out, the civil immunity, the, the criminal, the June, 2024 immunity decision, which we talk about in shorthand, was about immunity from criminal prosecution for core presidential functions, constitutional core presidential functions, or those within the scope and course of a president's job description, if you will, stretched to its outer boundaries.

And then this third bucket, which is private conduct, is always prosecutable. They never really addressed the civil side. Now, with their argument here, this guy, Justin Smith, who argued for Trump, they said, well, why, you know, why are you here? You raised this issue at the Second Circuit two years ago, and you lost on waiver. Why hasn't it been waived? Well, we couldn't have waived because, as you said, Karen, the new decision came out. But the new decision did not change the jurisprudence

as it relates to civil liability for non-presidential conduct. Oh, but the underpinnings of it. Well, okay. But you've waived it. Now, they're going to make the argument ultimately on appeal. If they, when they filed a writ of Sir Sherrari asking for a full blown appeal on this, because they're not gonna get an emergency application on this.

On a civil case, not involving the US government, this ain't happening. But the court could take it up. He only needs four people to be interested, five to overturn. But I think they're going to find it a little bit unsavory, given that the conduct that a jury found that he did happened before he was even thinking

about running for president. It's sex abuse and defamation with a dollar amount judgment. And it doesn't impinge. And I don't think they're going to be that enthusiastic about revisiting the wet cement of the immunity decision from a year ago. You know, if John Roberts doesn't have to type out the word immunity for a president ever again, I think it will be too soon.

He just, I just don't see them wanting to do that again, although they want to help Trump, the guy named Trump, as opposed to the presidency as an institution. So they'll try. I think it's been waived. I don't think there's anything about the immunity decision that helps revive the claim. and the only remaining argument is the one that Elena Hoppe made without any case law and that was shot down two years ago which is you can't waive presidential immunity there and remember the panel that I was like sorry you can't waive it it's unwaivable well why is it a waveable it has to do with the

institution of the presidency but it's a privilege it's an immunity right yes so all immunities and then they say all the case law, all immunities can be waived by conduct or action or otherwise. Suppose the president wanted to fight this off because he wanted, or the candidate or whatever, wanted to have the American people, you know, have the evidence heard in public. He'd been charged in public.

He'd been accused in public. Had a judgment against him in public. Maybe he wanted charged in public, he'd been accused in public, and in judgment against him in public. Maybe he wanted to clear his name. Couldn't you envision? I remember them saying to Lena Hama, can't you envision a president who wants to clear his name in a courtroom? And she was like, no.

Because that's not Donald Trump. It's the opposite of Donald Trump. So I think they lose on waiver. I think this is, you can't wait two years into a case to raise the issue. But it doesn't get revived because later on, a better Supreme Court decision on the issue comes out. Pardon me.

So, and if to be rounded out to be clear. Yeah, well, my point about the bonds were, don't worry that then when he finally loses, I put it too short of a hand, he won't pay, don't worry about it. He has 30 days to pay after all appeals are exhausted, including at the US Supreme Court. Meaning, if they don't take the case, and I think that's 50-50, they're like, yeah, no.

If they don't grant cert and reject it, it's over. There's nowhere else to go. And if that happens, 30 days later, he either pays her or she runs to the insurity company, the bonding company, and says, okay, the judgment debtor didn't pay me, pay up. And they have to pay up.

And the money, the other money, the 5.5 million, is sitting earning interest at the statutory rate in the court registry. So, you know, she's one step, every time she wins the Second Circuit, she's one step closer. Now, of course, that one step, you know, talking about crevice risk,

is the United States Supreme Court. But she's got a phenomenal lawyer in Robbie Kaplan, who's, when she's not, her day job is representing E.G. and Carol. But she also represents other people. She's involved with a lot of different cases where she successfully has beaten Donald Trump and the Trump administration. And she's, she's one of the good guys. She's one of the courageous people that's out there fighting for justice.

So, um, Carol, we've reached the end of the midweek edition of Legal AF. We started it with welcoming you back, talking about family, talking about Donald Trump's assault on now the judiciary. I'll give you the last word as always. Family is a blessing, even if at times they can be inconvenient or some other, you know, difficulty, they're such a blessing. And so I'm just so grateful that my fam that I have such a great family, both my actual family and my Midas Touch and Ligalea family that includes you Popak. And speaking of, I think a family member of yours has a big birthday right around now. I think a family member of yours has a big birthday right around now. My daughter Francesca had her birthday, her first birthday yesterday.

And we'll post some pictures up on that. Happy birthday, Francesca. The cutest little thing ever. Big party on Saturday. And we're just so blessed. And we've got my mother-in-law in from another country joining us here and then we're gonna be going abroad to go visit family of my wife's that I've never met I've seen on my face on FaceTime and things like that

so yes family very important in all different versions here on legal AF and the Midas and the Midas Mighty so you know how to you know how to support us you know how to follow us Saturday I'll be doing the show with Ben and myself. Back here again, Rinse, Wash, Repeat with Karen Freeman and Nick Nifilo next week. Until then, Michael Popa, Karen Freeman and Nick Nifilo. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and illegal AFers.