Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 7/16/2025
Episode Date: July 17, 2025Dina Doll and Lisa Graves guest host the top-ranked law and politics podcast Legal AF and break down this week’s most explosive legal and political developments at the intersection of law and democr...acy, including: 1) the latest Epstein chaos, as the DOJ fights a major appeal while internal turmoil erupts with ethics-related firings and resignations; 2) a dramatic update out of Los Angeles, where a judge halts Trump’s ICE operation, triggering an emergency appeal and a sudden move by Trump to pull federal troops; 3) Trump’s escalating effort to purge federal appointees—including a push to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell—as the Supreme Court hands down a shocking ruling on mass federal firings; and 4) new developments in the Abrego Garcia case, where the courts continue to push back against Trump-era abuses of power. All that and more on the podcast that exposes the legal chaos threatening American democracy. Support Our Sponsors: Armra: Head to https://tryarmra.com/legalaf or enter promo code: LEGALAF to receive 15% off your first order! Qualia: Head to https://qualialife.com/LEGALAF and use promo code: LEGALAF at checkout for 15% off your purchase! Soul: Go to https://GetSoul.com and use code LEGALAF to get 30% OFF your order! Delete Me: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join https://deleteme.com/LEGALAF and use promo code LEGALAF at checkout. 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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Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal AF.
It's Dina Dahl and Lisa Graves.
We're standing in for Michael Popok and Karen Freeman Agniflo as they are both under the
weather.
But I am super excited to have Lisa Graves here co-anchoring this with me.
Those of you who are subscribers to the Legal AF channel
are familiar with her work, but those who aren't,
she has a wealth of information about corruption,
which seems to be the defining issue right now under Trump.
So I can't wait to hear your perspective
on the many legal issues that we are going to get into it. For those of you who are not familiar with court accountability, they are an advocacy group focused on corruption with the courts. Lisa Graves specifically deals with North, True North research, which is the investigative arm of Court of Accountability. This is why she has all the info, all the details.
And like I said, unfortunately,
we are rife with corporate corruption right now.
And that kind of leads me into our first topic,
which is the Department of Justice.
As we know, we kind of see it blowing up in real time, right?
With Epstein, MAGA trying to get Pam Bondi out,
at least a segment of MAGA trying to get Attorney General
Pam Bondi out, acting as if it's her fault
that the Epstein files aren't being released
and not dear leader Trump.
But at the same time, we see what she is doing
within the Department of Ethics, specifically having to deal
with the ethics at the Department of Justice.
And that leads into corruption.
If you get rid of the watchdog,
if you get rid of the internal ethics leaders,
there's nobody at the department
who's able to pay attention.
Nobody who these attorneys can go to
when they get an illegal order, an unethical order,
they have nobody to go to and that is the point.
So just to kind of set it up specifically,
and then I want to hear what you have to say, Lisa.
The director of Department of Ethics, this was the person
that Pam Bondi just fired.
His name is Joseph Tyrell.
He was a career service.
He worked for the FBI for 10 years before he started
with the Department of Justice. And now with him, because he's the last in several people
at the DOJ dealing with ethics who have left,
there is now nobody left who these attorneys can go to.
So speak to that specifically with your background.
You know, this is no mistake, right, that she's kind
of clearing out the people there in charge of making sure the attorneys
are ethical.
That's right, Dina.
And it's always a joy to be on with you and really a wonderful chance to talk about this
issue because I was Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the
U.S. Department of Justice.
I worked under both Janet Reno and John Ashcroft.
And I used to be proud to walk into
that Department of Justice building,
which had engraved above the aluminum doors
on Pennsylvania Avenue, it had engraved,
the place of justice is a hallowed place.
But it is not a hallowed place right now,
because we've seen from the beginning
of this administration, this effort by Donald Trump and his agents
to just decimate the ethics and oversight
of several agencies, including the Justice Department.
One of the first things that Donald Trump did
was to basically fire all of the inspectors general
for these agencies, including the Justice Department.
Other officials like this man who has helmed
this ethics department within the Justice Department,
these are important roles. They provide an avenue for Justice Department-line attorneys,
people who are civil servants, sometimes political appointees, but predominantly civil servants,
and other employees of the Justice Department to report ethical issues, raise ethical concerns.
ethical issues, raise ethical concerns. This role is also important for getting ethical ethics opinions.
And so what you've seen coming from this administration from the beginning,
from the Trump administration, is this idea that Donald Trump is the only person,
along with Bonnie, who can issue ruling statements about the law.
They made that edict a couple months ago.
And now you're seeing, among other things,
this crush down within the Department of Justice
of the determinations by this president
and this presidential administration
of just firing people, not for cause,
not because they did anything wrong,
not because they weren't doing their job,
but I think in some cases because they were doing their job.
So I think that that's a
pretty good snapshot of what's happening. And there's more. We've seen hundreds of lawyers leave,
the Civil Division, the Civil Rights Division, other parts of the department, really hollowing
out the lawyers who have served their careers, defending the interests of the United States,
including lawyers from federal programs whose role is literally to defend the United States' agencies,
the government's agencies.
And so, I really think the Department of Justice
has been harmed by Bondi's leadership,
and it's been harmed by the Trump administration.
Its independence has certainly been collapsed
because of Bondi's closeness to Donald Trump.
Yeah, and I think just last week,
they fired 20 employees of the DOJ who worked on, you
know, with Jack Smith on the January 6th prosecution.
So they are definitely clearing people out.
And when they remade the Civil Rights Division to instead attack people's civil rights, we
saw an exodus there as well.
So Joseph Turrell, the director of ethics, who just was pushed out by Bondi,
his responsibility was to advise Bondi and Todd Blanche,
both obvious, huge Trump loyalists,
Todd Blanche, a former attorney for Trump, on ethics, right?
So they pushed him out and was also in charge
of like the day-to-day ethics.
He did not go quietly.
He posted a statement that said, I took the oath at 18 as a midshipman to support
and defend the Constitution of the United States.
I have taken that oath at least five more times since then.
That oath did not come with the caveat that I need only support the constitution when it is easy or convenient. work to try to keep this Trump regime in check
because we've seen quite a bit of people
who have been pushed out go on
to kind of nonprofit advocacy works,
perhaps doing the same kind of work outside, right,
government that before they were doing inside government.
And then this is all kind of, of course,
happening with the backdrop of Epstein. And interestingly enough, as we know,
Jelaine Maxwell just filed a request to the Supreme Court
that the Supreme Court set aside her conviction
because she says the non-prosecution agreement
that the DOJ entered into with Jeffrey Epstein in 2008.
And if you remember in terms of the many connections
around Trump and Epstein, the US attorney
for the Southern District of Florida
at the time of that non-prosecution
was later appointed by Trump to be Labor Secretary,
Alexander Acosta.
So that non-prosecution agreement clearly covered
Jeffrey Epstein, right?
You know, that's how he avoided any kind of significant consequence. non-prosecution agreement clearly covered Jeffrey Epstein, right?
You know, that's how he avoided any kind of significant consequence.
She's now arguing that that also covered her, and she's asking the Supreme Court
to set it aside, her conviction based on that.
The DOJ putting themselves in it at the timing of this, Lisa, I mean,
let's talk about the timing of this,
how it's right in the moment when we see Trump trying
to say nothing to see here, nothing to see here,
of the MAGA base getting more and more upset,
the fact that he's not releasing it,
he sounds guiltier every time he tries to dismiss it.
We see now his Department of Justice
who he really controls completely, right?
You know, I guess you could say that's one detriment.
He can't separate and say the DOJ is doing something
on their own because it's been so clearly run by Trump,
unlike other administrations where there really is
the separation that they're supposed to be.
So the DOJ going to the Supreme Court,
asking the Supreme Court not to take the case.
So what are you thinking on this?
I know, cause you cover the courts.
I mean, it seems like her argument's a little bit farfetched
whether or not the Supreme Court
is actually gonna take this case or not.
What are you thinking in terms of,
I mean, the Supreme Court keeps surprising us,
however, in ways that we don't like? Well, right, we don't know what this
court is going to do. In this instance, the Sister General, Mr. Sauer, has said that the department
does not support this appeal. Of course, I think we all remember that when she was convicted,
or when she was facing charges and then ultimately convicted, Donald Trump actually publicly said he wished her well.
That's not the type of sentiment you expect someone to give
to someone who was accused and convicted
of basically trafficking, human trafficking of young girls
for prostitution, for basically pandering
and putting them into sexual service to Epstein's clients.
But the story now is, or the big story now,
is how much Trump is trying to get away
from all of the accusations that he put out there
about the Epstein client list and also Bondi as well.
And so they've really been spinning
and spinning these past several days
about how no one should be concerned about the fact
that they're not releasing the client list.
There's this assertion that there was never a client list.
There have even been claims by Donald Trump that he never flew
on Epstein's plane even though there's a photo of him on the plane, that,
you know, this is long distant in the past and, you know, just move along,
move along, even though within the right-wing infrastructure,
this has been a story that they've peddled
and tried to basically smear Democrats,
even though in fact, you know, this idea of this list
was affirmed even just a few months ago by Pam Bonney,
along with video evidence.
There's no indication that they're actually
gonna be prosecuting the men who are seen in the videos that she says she'll now never release.
No one wanted to see, you know, pornography, obviously.
But this idea really does lend to the notion that there's a real coverup going
on by this administration.
You even had Dan Bongino, who's a right-wing talk show host who's now
in a leadership position at the FBI arguing with Pam Bondi about how
to handle the Epstein case.
But let me just add one thing to the equation
that I think most people don't realize.
This Alex Acosta, who was someone
who Donald Trump personally tapped for a cabinet position
in his first administration, he is the person who,
as you point out, Dina, and as people know,
signed off on that rotten plea agreement
with Epstein back in the early 2000s, mid 2000s.
That was in the George W. Bush administration.
I remember Alex Acosta because I first encountered him
back in the 1990s when he was working on efforts
to block Bill Clinton from putting judges
on the US federal courts.
Then after I went to go to work
for the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Alex Acosta gets named to the Civil Rights Division.
This is a guy who never handled a civil rights case
in his life before then.
Then he was rewarded for his efforts back then to,
in my view, weaken the Civil Rights Division.
He got the job as the head of the Civil Rights Division.
Again, a person you wouldn't actually hire
as your lawyer in a civil rights case.
And then he fell upward from there.
He was rewarded with the job of being the US attorney
for the Southern District of Florida,
one of the most significant jurisdictions of the country
in terms of prosecuting serious crimes,
drug trafficking, human trafficking and more.
He got that job and then he cut that sweetheart deal
to basically let Epstein off the hook.
And it was only when he was nominated a few years ago
by Donald Trump for another position,
and I think it was the Labor Department,
in the Trump administration,
did his role in that dirty deal come out.
And so, you know, what kind of vetting
was the Trump administration doing
when it tapped this guy to reward him
with yet another post after that Epstein deal, it was only because of the public rejection, reaction
to Epstein's role that his nomination to that post finally failed.
But the fact is, is that this administration, I think has been really misleading, not just
its base, but the American voters about what's at stake here, what happened in the Epstein
case, Epstein case, what
those files are about.
And I honestly, I just cannot believe that they're going to get away with, and maybe
they won't get away with this effort to just say, move along after all of the effort they
put into trying to hype this really terrible person and his terrible schemes and his, you know, his effort to basically procure young women for really wealthy men
in New York City and in Florida and people coming from around the world to his island,
a state where young girls were trafficked into prostitution either directly or the equivalent.
And Michael Wolf just in a recent interview speaks about that Trump contemplated pardoning
Jelaine Maxwell.
And so it will be interesting.
This filing to the Supreme Court comes at, I would say,
like an opportune time for Trump,
because perhaps he's concerned again
about what she might say, or especially with his DOJ
kind of trying to argue the non-prosecution agreement does not work.
And just going back to the Department of Justice
and kind of the chaos there,
because here we have a Department of Justice
whose whole point, right, is supposed to enforce our laws,
enforce our federal laws,
and instead they have remade it into their own,
Trump's own bidding, MAGA's own bidding,
taking away like the corruption units.
And now we have like the ethics unit being gutted.
At the same time as the DOJ is suing,
where we see them suing Los Angeles
for their sanctuary city policies
and kind of using frankly frankly, at this point,
very limited resources.
And when I say resources, I mean attorneys,
because so many attorneys have gone, right?
And let's talk about that.
So here at this ethics department, with it being gone,
the attorneys there won't have somebody to go to,
to be able to speak about, for instance, what happened with Mayor Eric Adams, right?
And being forced to dismiss his case.
And the attorneys there, a few of them resigned
rather than do that because they felt like that was unethical.
They felt like it wasn't based on the law and fact
and didn't comply with the oath that they took.
Now these attorneys, some of them, honestly,
just maybe nonpolitical, they're there because they believe in the job, they took. Now these attorneys, some of them honestly, just maybe non-political,
because they believe in the job,
they're there for perhaps most of the criminal cases
that they take, their career prosecutors,
and now they're being forced
to go after denaturalizing somebody, right?
The DOJ just sent a memo to the entire civil division
not that long ago saying, basically use your discretion
if you want to denaturalize somebody,
completely opening up Pandora's box.
So let's say you have an attorney in that division
or one of the many others,
they no longer have somebody to talk over
whether or not this order is ethical or not.
Lawyers are governed, right?
We have a professional licensing organization.
We have a bar association.
We are limited on what we can say or do.
And so these lawyers who stay now in the DOJ
don't have an internal person to be able to talk over.
Hey, am I, how close to this professional line am I,
right,
with this order are at risk of losing their license. And we have seen in the first Trump administration,
of course, so many of Trump's close allies
lose their bar license, right?
Rudy Giuliani, perhaps like the most popular,
let's say, person in his thing
that lost their bar license, which is very shocking.
He was this federal prosecutor for so many years.
But you have now more career level people
who are frankly at risk of losing their bar license,
no longer having somebody that they can go to.
And I think that that in itself,
sometimes we talk about the bigger issues, of course, right?
Pam Bondi herself being unethical. But it's the day to day people who frankly help carry out our laws or will carry out
Trump's bidding. And those day to day people are going to be faced with so many choices. And now not having an advocate, they're going to be
in a much more difficult position of whether or not
to take on a certain action, whether or not
to just go ahead and quit.
You know, and I imagine we will see a lot more lawyers doing
things that are going to make their bar license at risk.
And we saw the American Bar Association sue Trump over his executive orders attacking
law firms. And perhaps we're going to need those kind of nonprofit associations step up and watch
what these kind of lower level, career level DOJ attorneys do and report them to the Bar Association.
I mean, perhaps Lisa, that is our last avenue.
If they're gutting the ethics department,
is these outside licensing organizations?
Well, you know, it is true that from an internal basis,
having those offices, the Office of Government Ethics
and other offices like the Inspector
General's Office, those are important for the internal functioning of the department
in terms of people being able to blow the whistle or seek ethical opinions, seek guidance.
But it's also about how government functions for the rest of us.
By having attorneys who are bound by ethical codes, who are led by people who have ethics,
who have that responsibility.
This helps serve the American people.
And I just want to touch on a couple of things you mentioned.
One was, you know, that this is also happening in the context
where the Trump administration has also decimated the offices
that handle investigation of corrupt corporations and CEOs.
So there's been this wholesale effort
to basically weaken, undermine, mothball
the experts within the justice department
who have talent and skill at investigating corruption
in the private sector.
So that's really a gift to Trump's cronies,
to people that are under know, are under investigation,
have faced investigation or would face investigation.
Then you have this effort by Trump agents
and actions by Trump agents to fire people
who were doing their job investigating
and prosecuting the people who attacked our Capitol,
who tried to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes,
our votes in that 2020 election, to fire prosecutors who were doing their job,
not, you know, in a political way at all,
actually just trying to protect our rights
and our democracy to have our votes counted
through that Electoral College process.
People who... investigating and prosecuting people
who were engaged in violent acts of destruction,
attacking police officers, attacking Capitol Police,
and putting the members of Congress
at risk while they were doing their job.
Then you have the Trump administration trying
to cut this sweetheart deal with Eric Adams,
the mayor of New York City,
who was facing a very detailed criminal complaint,
an indictment by a grand jury that had very serious charges
of corruption by him with a foreign government,
foreign agents.
And the Trump administration with the assistance
of Emil Bove, who I'll talk about in just a second,
but with the assistance of Emil Bove was trying
to direct those federal prosecutors in New York
to drop the case, to drop it and basically not with prejudice,
but leave it hanging over him.
And the talk on the street was that this dismissal of charges
against Eric Adams was in order to get his compliance
with the administration's efforts to assail New Yorkers
through its, you know, immigration policies.
The federal judge presiding over that case rejected
that outlandish effort by, orchestrated by Emil Beauvais
and the Bondi Justice Department to try to basically be able to keep squeezing Eric Adams
whenever they wanted to do, take action in New York City.
And so he, so that judge required that those charges
that they were going to be dismissed be dismissed with prejudice.
So Eric Adams is off the hook, which I don't think he should be,
but, you know, he's no longer under this sort of damocles basically of,
or this threat of the administration
if he would not comply with their demands.
But in that instance, you had again, federal prosecutors leaving their jobs, denying us
of the expertise of these experienced federal prosecutors in prosecuting future cases just
because they wanted to, in my view, seal the deal on this really corrupt deal that they
were, this plea agreement that they were trying to make, not plea agreement, seal the deal on this really corrupt deal that they were, this plea agreement
that they were trying to make, not plea agreement, pardon me, this dismissal they were trying
to make with Eric Adams.
And that was executed by another Trump attorney in Mill Bow Bay, who then Trump turned around
and nominated to the third circuit court of appeals, the US Court of Appeals for the third
circuit, which has jurisdiction over New Jersey, which includes some Trump properties, some
pretty famous Trump properties. And in Mill Bow Bay, there's a whistleblower who came out,
and there's internal text messages that confirm this,
saying that Immobove was basically telling
Justice Department lawyers to F the courts,
to not follow the court orders involving these immigration cases.
And this is someone who Trump now has chosen
to get a lifetime position on the federal bench.
At his hearing for that Third Circuit position,
Imobobe basically said, he didn't recall ever saying that,
the whistleblower's testimony
and statements I think are quite strong.
The text evidence is quite strong.
There's a recent statement, a letter just written,
just I think today by Senator Cory Booker talking about why this is important,
why this man should never be, pardon me,
confirmed to a federal judgeship.
But this is the type of corruption.
Now that's not necessarily legal corruption
to nominate Emil Boves to this position.
In my view, it's moral corruption for this president
to reward his personal attorneys
with these positions of power that could last decades,
especially someone who has played such a central role
in this administration's assault on the rule of law.
I don't know what your thoughts are on that, Dana,
but I wanted to pass it back to you.
Well, I think you coined a new phrase,
moral corruption definitely fits the bill here,
moral corruption and financial corruption.
And we are going to go to an ad break.
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be sure to follow us there.
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as well as the legal AF sub stack.
For me, I don't know about you Lisa
but it's always kind of hard to find all these filings.
Sometimes it takes me forever
just to actually find the filings.
They have put it all on the sub stack.
So when we are speaking about a filing,
as we will after the ad break, because Trump is trying to appeal the Los Angeles judge trying to
stop ICE there, that's going to be on the substack. All the many legal filings is so easy in one place,
so be sure to check that out. But we are gonna go to the outbreak, our sponsors.
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So we will move on to like a really important LA ice judge
and the Trump appeal as well as an update on Obrego Garcia.
He had a hearing today after this ad break.
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We're back and we're diving into Los Angeles, which
is the central focus, it seems for sure, with Trump and ICE.
He's targeting Los Angeles.
I mean, we had DeSantis and Abbott,
their whole Biden term act as if they're
having some sort of emergency on the border.
They're flying people via planes to Martha's Vineyard.
All of a sudden, Trump decides to help Los Angeles?
I don't know, maybe he doesn't care about his friends,
Abbott and DeSantis that much, but regardless,
here in Los Angeles, that's where I'm based.
This is affecting our community,
and of course there's some legal actions.
Quick update, we have a Trump appeal as well.
So, and you and I actually did a duet on this
for the legal AF channel.
So perhaps some people already kind of got up to speed
on that, but we had the ACLU public council,
United Farm Workers, Sue Ice saying among other things,
you are basically racially profiling
when you are stopping people.
And they just cited a ton of evidence,
as well as the fact that you're not allowing people
to have attorneys, despite the fact that ACLU
and public counsel went to these detention centers saying,
hey, we're here, we're available,
we want to speak to these detainees,
and they were denied it.
And then the overcrowded conditions
that they are being held in.
And so they argued that this was a violation
of the Fourth and Fifth Amendment.
Mayor Karen Bass, as well as some other cities,
including West Hollywood, Pasadena, Clover City,
joined in that lawsuit after that whole, you know,
theater, let's say, but really awful theater
in MacArthur Park, where they kind of showed their force
and detained absolutely nobody.
So we had a hearing on Friday
and the judge issued an order
in favor of the city of Los Angeles
and as well as the ACLU,
saying that there was, quote,
a mountain of evidence to support the claim
that agents are arresting people
solely based on their race accents or the work they are engaged in
in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection
against unreasonable government seizure,
which those of us with eyes are seeing this, right?
I mean, you don't go to a Home Depot parking lot,
you know, unless you are targeting it based on the fact
that the people there tend to be Hispanic, right,
or the fact of the type of job they have, right?
They're not going in and raiding a law firm, right,
or something like that.
So they are doing, we have seen this,
and the judge saw it with this evidence
and issued an order that only applied
to the central district of California,
although it's Los Angeles County,
as well as I believe six other counties.
So it's quite a bit of area,
but this is not a nationwide injunction.
This applied there and said that ICE,
you have to stop this indiscriminate detaining of people
and you have to allow them an attorney,
because otherwise what you're doing right now
is a violation of the Fourth Amendment,
issuing this temporary restraining order.
We saw Trump go into court and argue a few things.
They argued they didn't get enough notice.
They argued that this judge, the typical arguments,
this judge is trying to dictate our policy
and stepping into our executive power.
And also interestingly,
they brought up nationwide injunctions.
The Supreme Court just stopped nationwide injunctions.
We don't want the judge being this powerful.
Of course here, this was not a nationwide injunction.
This was an injunction overseeing that the district that this judge governed as well as the people
that were interestingly this was also a class action. They argued this on
behalf of the class of people who were being detained. There's three different
groups in that class action. It was really interesting. It was like one who
didn't have a warrant, one group who
didn't get identified, the federal agent didn't identify, and one where there was no suspicious
activity. And so, because you have to have reasonable suspicion in order to detain somebody.
It is less than probable cause, but you still need reasonable suspicion. We have been here before. This is what that Arizona sheriff tried to do years ago.
This is clearly within the realm of what a judge can do.
But of course, Trump going in there,
trying to reverse the TRO, trying
to get an administrative stay.
Los Angeles continuing to be the focus of how they are treating our neighbors, people of
our community, just because they happen to have an accent or speak Spanish or work in
construction. So Lisa, tell me your thoughts on the kind of legal developments here.
Well, it is really important that this judge issued that ruling. I think it's the right
ruling on the merits. The case that the ACLU pleaded,
that the city of Los Angeles and their cities joined,
I think was well pleaded.
It really articulated very clearly why the actions
of the Trump administration were in violation
of longstanding law.
As you mentioned, Dina, there, you know,
there is an ability for law enforcement officers
for agents to stop
someone based on reasonable suspicion.
But in this instance, there's no reasonable suspicion.
And instead what we've seen coming from Tom Homan, who is the person that Donald Trump
has tapped to really spearhead these efforts, he has admitted publicly that they are detaining
people in part based on physical appearance, as well
as their occupation.
That doesn't make it into reasonable suspicion.
You just can't assume that anyone who is working in landscaping or in a restaurant or, you
know, at a farm is somehow reasonably suspicious of not being lawfully president of the United
States.
That's not reasonable suspicion at all.
That's racial profiling.
There's a word for it.
There's a phrase for it.
And it's something that has been barred by many governments,
federal and state government agencies,
to try to prevent the type of discrimination,
stereotyping that racial profiling involves.
And that's what's happening,
or what's been happening in Los Angeles,
among other things, including this sort of assertive use of force or show of force to really try to intimidate people
and there's another component to this that I think is really important to underscore which is this
playbook is right out of the project 2025 playbook. Donald Trump during the presidential campaign
tried to distance himself from the heritage foundation's Project 2025 agenda. He claimed he had no idea, even though there were photos of him at a Heritage
Foundation event talking about how the Heritage Foundation was going to fill in the details,
even though the man he chose as vice president, you know, was involved in writing the forward to
the book by the president of the Heritage Foundation, putting forward this agenda. And
this agenda included many of these types of immigration actions
that we're seeing this Trump administration implement.
And so basically, you have Trump and his people following the playbook
that was written out for them in this Project 2025 agenda,
which is super extreme.
And an undercurrent of that agenda is that they were
going to use these policies, particularly to target blue cities, to target cities, to target
not just sanctuary cities, but cities led by Democrats and states led by Democrats. This is
a political maneuver to try to discredit the political leaders of large democratic states,
large democratic cities, and try to like go there.
They're not going, as you pointed out, Deena,
at the outset of this, they're not going down to Texas.
They're not going down there.
I mean, they are in terms of the other parts of the border,
but they're not using these tactics in Texas.
They're not using this, you know, bringing the Marines
into Dallas or something, or Austin.
And I'm not suggesting that they do to be equal or fair.
I'm just saying this is a political agenda,
trying to target California.
They were doing the same in Chicago.
And then it's also sort of beyond a political agenda
because it's also about targeting,
new targeting that this administration has unleashed
to target kids in schools,
going to actual schools to try to seize children
or their parents, invading the sanctuary of churches,
of religious sanctuaries to seize immigrants.
These are very aggressive actions, and they're happening
in the face of really the lie that this administration is told
and that the Trump team was telling
during the political campaign for the election, which was this notion that there's millions
of murderers who are immigrants who've been unleashed in the United States.
That's not true.
People who have been convicted of murder are in jail and awaiting deportation at the end
of their sentence.
People who are working on job sites, who are helping our communities,
who are part of our communities,
who may be married to US citizens,
have US citizen children.
These are people just trying to get by
in this world and this economy.
And what we need is immigration reform
that actually protects the work processes
in the United States,
and that doesn't try to criminalize people
for being here in the United States.
But instead, just today, Dina,
the Trump administration is talking about
basically deploying detention policies
to sweep up anyone who doesn't have papers,
deny them bond, and hold them indefinitely
for months in detention.
And we've already seen, as ACLU and others have raised,
the problems with these detention facilities, not just, you know,
alligator alcatraz, but in general.
And I would say to you, one of the things that I'm watching is the following,
that we've got to follow the money because this scheme to engage in mass detention
is really about giving money, sending huge contracts, billion dollars,
billion dollar contracts to buddies of Trump like Eric Prince, perhaps,
who's proposed building his own
detention facilities and more.
This is about, also, it's about corruption,
and it's about the denial of human rights.
It's about trying to rewrite the rules
that have long governed our country in terms
of immigration processes, as well as the processes
for people to be united with their families,
to adjust their status, to continue to contribute to the American community.
I completely agree about the for-profit detention centers. I think that is why the ICE
budget is so big in his recent bill is because they are budgeting for these sort of detention
centers, which we saw with the for-profit, it becomes a whole lobbying campaign
and it helps benefit, as you said,
his billionaire oligarch friends, unfortunately,
profiting off the fear of people
and people who just came here to have a better life,
because that is what this lawsuit showed,
like their use of quotas.
Their use of quotas is what is causing the racial profiling
because to actually do the work you need to do
to find the criminals, that takes time
and you can't use that amount of time
if you're a fitting profiling.
And here in Los Angeles, I've talked to so many people
and it is affecting families, mixed status families.
People are afraid, as you said,
people are getting detained at churches, at schools, affecting families, mixed status families. People are afraid, as you said,
people are getting detained at churches,
at schools, at their workplace.
Construction is slowing down because people, you know,
are afraid to go to work.
And this is during, after the Palisades fire,
before the Olympics.
Mayor Karen Bass just announced that they plan
on giving cash cards to people
who are affected by these ICE raids. The fact is California was fourth largest
economy in the world, the city of Los Angeles, as much as Fox wants to degrade it, is also has always been doing great. And this attack on California is
solely because they don't like we're a blue state and they want to instill that fear that fear is part of it and
this is kind of coming around also they just talked about maybe giving as little six hours
notice right before they send people to third world countries which is horrifying and scary
and also about fear but to their point of you know the reason why racial profiling like if
is so bad not only because you're racially
profiling somebody and violating their constitutional rights, but it's because you're not actually
getting the criminal who nobody really wants this criminal to stay here, right? And the
White House just put out a post recently saying that 70% of those arrested under TRIPES ICE
program had criminal convictions or pending charges, right?
This was the post on the official White House account.
And NBC News was able to easily fact check that.
And instead, only 752 people, or 0.4%
were convicted of murder.
And 1.8% were convicted of or facing pending sexual charges.
Instead, they're talking, you know, so the White House account is saying 70%
and we're talking murderers, rapists and child predators,
and that's not even close to the facts.
You know, so why don't you spend less time targeting people who are trying
to just do their job and contributing to society
because they have brown skin and they have an accent.
And instead, actually go after the people that you said,
say actually in current time you're going after.
This isn't just even about lying on a campaign trail.
This is lying from a White House post.
And I do think that his lying is getting,
you know, they've always lied,
but they're doing it so much more brazenly
by doing it on these kind of official posts.
And it is so important to fact check it for us to get the word
out here on Legal AF to have the facts, to rebut the facts
when we talk to people.
But, you know, so thank goodness ACLU and Public Council
and City of Los Angeles have gone in there
and gotten this temporary stay.
We'll see what happens
with his appeal. As we know, there's more going on with Los Angeles and California. Newsom,
you know, sued Trump because of the federalizing of the National Guards. Trump has just announced
that they are, or Hegseth has just announced that they are drawing down those troops instead of 4,000
federalized National Guards in Los Angeles.
It's now going to be 2,000 because they don't need anybody.
It's very quiet here in Los Angeles in terms of, I mean, they didn't need anybody to even
begin with because they were the ones that created the atmosphere.
But certainly it has been so quiet.
The fact that they even are using 2000 National Guards
when they could be doing it.
I know Newsom said that before they were at the border
actually trying to stop fentanyl from coming
into this country, there's certainly more important
and useful things they could be doing
than being at a city where it's quiet
and people aren't even,
there's no reason to have them here.
But at the same time, you know, just recently,
just to update on that Newsom case, as we know,
Justice Breyer in the district court ruled in favor of Newsom
and said that Trump could not nationalize
the California National Guard.
It was a violation of the 10th Amendment
as well as a statutory violation.
He was then a return. He was then overturned by the three judge panel
at the Ninth Circuit.
Well, interestingly, an anonymous judge
at the Ninth Circle has requested an unbank review,
which means that a majority of the,
well, actually it means that 11 judges
of the Ninth Circuit could review the case
and make a different decision than that three judge panel.
We don't know yet how that is gonna go
because they have asked for briefing from the two parties,
from Newsom and Trump as to whether or not
the entire panel should review it. In the Ninth Circuit to whether or not the entire panel should review it.
In the Ninth Circuit, it's not the entire panel.
Most other circuits is the entire panel.
Because the Ninth Circuit is so large,
it is just the chief judge plus 10 others.
So it's 11.
So they're going to receive that briefing
in the next few days.
They're going to then vote.
The judges vote.
We don't see the vote.
That's an anonymous vote.
But the judge, and it's not anonymous to the other judges
who requested this.
It's just anonymous to us who requested it.
But it's very interesting because the Ninth Circuit,
as I know you know, Lisa, is very liberal.
For it, for him to have drawn two of his own appointees
on the, on the, on the panel, on the three judge panels, highly unusual.
Of course, Trump and other Republican judges
have appointed more to the Ninth Circuit.
So perhaps it's a little bit more conservative
than it used to be 20 years ago.
But you would think that if they do do this
en banc panel, most likely they will side
with Governor Newsom.
So it's very interesting.
That court case is still proceeding at the same time
as Trump is drawing down the troops.
Well, that's right.
And, you know, as you point out, there was a long set of rhetoric
by the right attacking the Ninth Circuit
in the 90s, early 2000s.
But there have been more Republican appointees, not majority,
but substantial number of Republican appointees
over the years, including appointees who were handpicked
by Leonard Leo advising Donald Trump
on his judicial nominations.
And it was really, I think, a bad draw for the country
and for the Constitution to have a three-judge panel
that included two Trump appointees.
That, you know, that's just drawn basically, they have,
you know, the equivalent of the wheel they used to have
in the old days of choosing which judges get to hear a case.
In this instance, as you point out,
if this case is heard by a wider set of judges
than judges who may be very loyal to Donald Trump,
it's highly likely that the lower court would be affirmed.
Because what Trump did here in trying to deploy these troops over the objections of the governor,
over the objections of the city, was really irregular, really in violation of not just
in my view the letter, but the spirit of the law governing when U.S. troops can be deployed within the United States,
in particular deployed at the American people.
And typically, the National Guard, you know,
they're deployed with the consent of the governor
or with the order of the governor kind of in cooperation
and collaboration between the federal government
and the states.
And that's often in cases of national emergency
where there's a disaster like the fires or floods.
But this was just, again, a show of force by Trump, an effort to, you know,
kind of test in Los Angeles and perhaps for use in other places whether
and how he can try to use federal troops against the American people.
There was, you know, some rules of engagement that were deployed in theory
to try to prevent those troops from having sort of direct violent encounters so that
we didn't have another Kent State disaster like from the 1970s in Ohio. But the fact
is that those troops are trained predominantly for fields of war, for zones of war where the conditions are very different
than the United States.
They are, you know, have, you know, equipment that is, you know,
very deadly and dangerous because they're trained for war.
They're not trained for responding to ordinary dissent by the American people,
by people who are concerned about what's happening to their communities.
And so the drawdown is an important step forward,
a complete reversal of that policy is what's actually
in order, but I am hopeful, even though en banc grants are rare
by the Ninth Circuit and other courts of appeals,
I'm hopeful that they will grant en banc in this case
and have a full argument so people can understand why this matters so much,
why the idea that Donald Trump can just send in the troops
over the objections of the people you elected
to represent you in your city and in your state,
why that is such an anathema so contrary
to not just our statutes, but to the structure
of our federal and state governments.
We have had troops deployed, for example,
to help effectuate the Brown versus Board
of Education decision to integrate schools
in the United States after schools have been racially
segregated and there were violent mobs trying
to prevent school children from going to school.
And so in that instance, President Eisenhower did order
the federal guard to come protect those
students so that they could exercise their fundamental rights as Americans to go to public
schools that were, you know, under the equal protection of law that were not racially segregated.
This what's happened in Los Angeles is nothing like that.
Nothing like that in terms of trying to actually have a very limited constrained use
of the National Guard in order to protect people's civil rights.
In this instance, it's been designed
to basically effectuate Trump's terrorizing policies,
his policies to invoke fear in the populace, and to do so
over the objections of the elected officials
in our democracy is really outrageous.
Yeah, to your point of him doing so,
over the objections of Newsom, the governor,
I cannot think of any case more important
for them to take on Bonk.
This is certainly, this executive authority of a governor
versus the executive authority of a president.
And I can't think of a more important issue
for them to take a look at.
Before we go to Adbrek,
I just want to jump right into Jerome Powell,
Federal Reserve Chair, because as we have seen,
Trump and not just Trump, JD Vance,
a lot of the allies really want Jerome Powell to step down,
nevermind the fact that Trump actually appointed him
years ago, but he's not doing their bidding.
He's not lowering interest rates. And so there's a lot of talk, right? A lot of bullying, actually,
let's just be frank, a lot of bullying, a lot of talk trying to get him to step down. But I think
the reason why we haven't seen him step down, and just want to get your quick thought on this also,
Lisa, is because the Supreme Court basically already told him not to do this. We know there was a case that came before the Supreme Court
because Trump fired one of the members
of the National Relations Board, Wilcox,
and she went to the Supreme Court
and said this was an illegal firing,
which under the existing Supreme Court precedent,
it was an illegal firing because Chief Justice Roberts
had said you cannot fire a member of a multi-member board without cause.
But they decided to, of course, let Trump go ahead and do it.
But in that order allowing Trump to do it, they specifically said that this situation
was different than the Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell, making, telegraphing this to Trump
well before Trump actually fired it,
well before they got the case, telling Trump,
we're not going to back that firing.
Of course, you know, you can be very cynical and say
they don't care as much about labor
as they do about the stock market.
But regardless of what their personal motivations were
for that, I don't know if I've ever seen the Supreme Court take
such like an activist position, you could say,
because it wasn't even in front of them.
But they're real people.
They saw the news.
They heard the chatter.
They knew Trump wanted to do it,
and they kind of told him in advance, don't do it.
And I think that's why Trump hasn't done it yet
and probably won't.
Well, that's interesting.
I really appreciate how you set that forth, Dina.
The fact is, as you pointed out,
longstanding precedent was against the Trump administration
in these other firings.
It's outrageous that this Supreme Court
has basically abrogated almost 100 years
of legal precedent about the circumstances
under which a president can fire a member of these boards.
But as you point out, John Roberts, because in my view, he's such a political animal,
he basically said, sure, go ahead, fire these board members.
But in essence, you can't do this in this one instance with the Fed.
And so I guess we take solace in the fact
that Roberts was trying to protect the Fed
from having a total meltdown
of just being an absolute instrument of this,
in my view, very erratic, irrational president
whose policies on trade have already had
significant adverse consequences for our economy,
consequences that we're going to see more and more in these coming weeks and months as we get the
effect of some of the effects on trade on shipping containers in Los Angeles and on the west coast
and more. But today we've just seen Trump just you know blathering on trying to smear Powell for office renovations
for the Fed as a way to kind of construct, in my view, pretext for firing him based on
cause.
So in essence, Trump is trying to articulate, in my view, a smear campaign in order to justify
firing Powell so he can install some lackey who will do whatever he wants on interest rate.
Now, you know, people have views about the Fed and, you know,
it's longstanding independence of the President.
I think most people favor the independence of the Fed
from the White House.
I certainly don't think
that Trump should be setting interest rates
for anyone anywhere after we saw his, you know, seemingly AI, you know,
AI concocted trade tariffs where he was, you know,
putting tariffs on Penguin Islands but not Russia.
So, you know, I think that there are people
in the Republican Party, including Republican operatives
who do not want Powell removed.
And it seems like the Supreme Court is, you know, in that camp.
But Trump is making his, taking his efforts to try to get rid of Powell so he can install
yet another loyalist to him, not to the American people, not to the Constitution, not to the
mission of the Fed, but someone loyal to him, which is his only test really for anything.
Absolutely.
Well, thank goodness, at least in this instance, Supreme Court seems to probably not be willing to go down that road for him because that would be awful for all of us
if he starts playing around with the economy. So if you are watching us on YouTube, be sure
to also listen to us on the podcast version of Legal AF. And if you have not yet subscribed
to the Legal AF YouTube channel, be sure to follow it, hit subscribe.
PO-POK has done an amazing job curating
so many new commentators and podcasts.
And if you want to stay informed,
speak about everything Trump is doing with the facts
and all the issues laid out.
That is definitely the place to go.
I love it when it gets bigger
because it makes me feel
like we are in the majority,
because otherwise hearing a lot of these things
can get overwhelming, quite frankly,
and really depressing, but we are the majority.
As those numbers grow, it helps show that.
And also, if you haven't yet subscribed
to the Legal AF Substack, There are articles, Popak says,
a morning, wake up in the morning
and you get to hear his thoughts
on the legal news of the day.
There's all the filings all in one spot.
I think he's getting more and more contributors
writing things.
So if you like to read your news
instead of only just listening,
be sure to check out the Legal AF Substack.
And now we'll hear from some sponsors
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It allows us to speak the truth, speak democracy,
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And then when we come back, we're
going to just tackle our last issue, which
is the hearing today and the Abrego Garcia case,
the new criminal defendant, Abrego Garcia,
which ironically I think is giving him a lot more rights.
So we'll discuss that after the break.
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Deena Dahl, I'm here with Lisa Graves
and we're gonna break down our last topic
regarding today's hearing,
Abrego Garcia, who has been through quite a bit
and has really become, I would say,
kind of a flash point for both sides.
You know, those of us who really believe in the rule of law
and the fact that the US admitted
that they had mistakenly deported him
to this El Salvadoran president,
and now he was brought back only to be charged criminally.
And then of course, for Trump,
really becoming, I think, a symbol of him believing
he can do whatever he wants to anybody at any time.
So what happened was in June,
there was a bail hearing of whether or not
he was going to be released pending trial.
And because the government could not state
that they would not deport him while he was out on bail,
the judge there, the magistrate Judge Holmes said
that although he was not a threat to society,
which is usually something that would keep somebody in jail,
pending their criminal trial, she was going to keep him because she did not
have an assurance as that he was going to be deported.
So this hearing today was with the judge, Judge Crenshaw,
who's actually going to oversee the trial.
Judge Holmes previously is going to be dealing
with the pretrial type issue.
So Judge, it's this irony here situation,
Lisa, because we have the DOJ, the prosecution,
asking that Abrego Garcia be released
pending his criminal trial.
This is like a complete flip from what we normally see.
All of this happening at the same time, actually,
is the civil case in Maryland is proceeding.
And they are asking there, the attorneys,
asking the judge to issue an order
that he has to remain in the US in that case.
So there's multiple cases going on with him,
and perhaps whether or not that judge issues an order
may affect also whether or not he's released.
Judge Crenshaw has said that he's not issuing an order today,
maybe sometime this week or next.
But interestingly, some of the defense attorney,
his attorney got a chance to poke some holes, let's say,
at the evidence, I'll say evidence,
that the prosecution is putting forward to indict him.
And kind of what I said before the break,
you know, he now has a whole set of rights.
As a defendant in this country,
we have, or that person has quite a bit of rights
that weren't maybe afforded to him, right?
As somebody who was a non-citizen immigration courts,
although there is due process there.
He now has this all on top of it.
His attorneys were already able to get a gag order, right, against Pam Bondi and the other
DOJ attorneys.
They stopped lying about me.
They're calling him a criminal left and right.
He's never had a conviction.
He's just an alleged criminal.
They're talking about his character, irrelevant information to it.
He wasn't able to get that kind of gag order, right, with his immigration case. But now,
as a criminal defendant, he has a right to a fair and impartial jury. And if they go out talking
about him, they are prejudicing or potentially prejudicing a jury. So he's got these rights
that he didn't have before. So it's interesting because yes,
you could argue that the DOJ made this move
to get the upper hand,
but in a lot of ways they have put themselves
into a system where he has quite a bit of rights.
As Donald Trump knows, as he afforded himself,
every single one of those rights
when he was convicted during his trial.
Anyway, so we have the today some of the interesting,
let's say polls that they poked through.
One of them was the fact that they are asking,
that prosecutors have alleged that Abrego Garcia
solicited nudes from a minor on Snapchat, right?
That's one of their allegations.
There's so many kind of allegations that they're alleging here.
And the defense attorney pointed out the fact
that the birth date on that Snapchat account
that the prosecution is using, saying that this is Abrego Garcia's,
doesn't even match his birth date, right?
So they, and then, and it came out in the hearing
that the investigator who's working for the prosecution
didn't even know Obrego Garcia's birth date.
Now I have filed true crime cases quite a bit.
This is messy.
You do not get a conviction with this kind of testimony.
I mean, I know we're way far from a trial,
but it doesn't even seem like they,
like that's the bare minimum, okay, right?
Lisa is like knowing the birth date,
so that way you can confirm the Snapchat account
can actually be linked to the defendant
and not just words to a court.
So that came out as well as the fact that one of the other pieces was, was they, oh,
yeah, this was another, one of the lead witnesses that the prosecution plans on putting forward
if this goes to trial, was calling other witnesses from the jail.
And when the defense was asking them
whether or not they could have coordinated the testimony,
it was brought out that three of the witnesses
are actually related.
So this kind of hearing,
what came out of this kind of hearing today shows,
you know, I haven't seen all the evidence.
I can't say for certain, you know, what evidence there is or isn't.
But when you have a hearing like this and they can so easily point out this kind of holes,
I mean, having witnesses speaking to each other, possibly coordinating testimony,
you can just get that whole thrown out, right?
You may not even be able to introduce that kind of testimony in court.
You have to be able to only introduce testimony to it in a jury trial if it's reliable, if
it's credible.
This is like a gold minefield for the defense attorneys, it seems like today.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, the rules for witnesses coordinating their statements are pretty, it seems like today. Yeah, that's right. I mean, the rules for witnesses according to their statements are
pretty, it's pretty clear. I confess that I actually declined to take a detail to go
work as an assistant US attorney on state at Maine justice, but I did work on criminal
justice policy and I've watched a lot of your work, Dina, and other work covering trials. And I don't think I've ever seen anything like what we're seeing here,
including, as you point out, the idea that the situation is so
reversed where you have the prosecutors trying to get him out of jail.
This basically almost never happens.
Prosecutors are usually calling for bail or no bail under some of the rules that we
operate under in the federal system, not calling for him or no bail under some of the rules that we operate under in
the federal system, not calling for them to be released.
And then the defendant usually wants to be released to go be with their family as they
prepare for their defense.
But in this instance, this is acting almost like the denial of, or at least so far, it
may happen next week or in the next hearing. But in this instance, the defendant doesn't appear
to want to be released until there are guarantees
that he won't then be deported
because that's what the Trump administration has said,
that if the judge grants bail, they will remove him
from the country mid-trial.
If that's not an indication
that your criminal prosecution
is weak, I'm not sure what is.
But on top of that, as you point out, Dina,
in civil court in Maryland,
Abrego Garcia's lawyers are also trying to protect
his ability to stay in the United States,
not be just surreptitiously removed
against the United States.
And so everything is sort of upside down and topsy-turvy.
And this question of witness, I wouldn't say like,
I'm not gonna call it witness tampering per se,
but witness coordination is something that is usually
very tightly restricted in grand jury proceedings and beyond.
And in this instance, when you look at this case
from the beginning to now, what you see, as
you pointed out, was that the head of the Office of Immigration and Immigration in the
Justice Department, I think he was fired because he was in court and conceded that there was
not evidence that basically justified a Brie Garcia's removal from the United States.
But in essence, the Department of Justice was taking the position
that they could just remove people, in essence, without evidence,
if they, you know, if they asserted this power,
this extraordinary executive power.
And that's another part of the Justice Department that has been,
you know, has had a spate of firings of people retiring
and people taking early retirement or buyouts,
the Civil Division, which is the defense part of the Justice Department,
you know, has been under extraordinary pressure from Pam Bondi,
from the Attorney General, Trump's loyalist,
and from her henchmen, in essence,
to basically, you know, do whatever they can to buck up Trump's claims and Trump's case.
And that's why, you know, after weeks of saying, you know,
basically that innuendo about a Brigadier Garcia,
the photoshopping, claiming that he was an MS-13 gang member,
et cetera, after all that innuendo,
finally the Department of Justice issued an indictment.
And he's now back, you know, facing this criminal trial,
these criminal accusations, but that indictment was immediately
upon its filing was criticized by legal observers
for inaccuracies, inaccuracies from the get-go.
And so I think when I look at this case as an outsider,
it certainly looks like the government's case may be very,
very weak.
Perhaps he might get it dismissed, right? I mean, that is, you know, you do again,
you know, as a criminal defendant, you know, the government has to meet burdens and have actual
evidence that is reliable in court for a judge to rely upon. So we'll kind of see where this goes, but that is unfortunately, you know,
Abrego Garcia targeted by the government, you know,
frankly, that's what's happening here,
targeted by the government,
despite the fact that they admitted
he was mistakenly deported.
And now going through this, you know,
you just feel because this man never asked
to be a symbol, right?
Even for us, never asked to be a symbol for,
you know, the rule of law, right, and due process.
And, but that is what he has become.
His wife certainly stepping up to the plate as well,
filing her own lawsuit, you know, and,
but really, you know, just,
they were just trying to live their lives
and being caught up in this is really just
a further example of the lack of humanity and really where we're at as a country, how
disturbing it is.
But I'm so glad, Lisa, that you and I got a chance to talk about all these topics.
Thank you so much for helping me co-anchor this in the absence of Popok and Karen,
who do it so wonderfully every week.
But I had a great time with this
and certainly wanna keep watching your court accountability
and just how can people find you?
Oh, sure, sure.
Well, I was gonna say, Deana, it's a joy to talk with you,
to be on this with you and be part of this network
and to defend due process, because at the with you, and be part of this network, and to defend due process.
Because at the end of the day, people can be convicted,
they could be removed if there's evidence,
but that lack of evidence,
the lack of any independent oversight,
that's what risks all of our freedoms.
And so I'm really happy to engage in this ongoing dialogue,
conversation with you about how we protect the rights
of all the people in the United States
by ensuring that we have due process. And there are ways you
can find me here on the Court of Accountability channel here on legal AF,
but also my research website is true north research dot org. We also have
legal materials over at court accountability dot org and my new book
is coming out soon about John Roberts. And you can find more information at withoutprecedent.info.
And, sorry, one less thing.
I also have a Substack newsletter that I do
with Courier News.
It's called Grave Injustice.
And so there's lots of places to find me.
I'm at the Lisa Graves.
Where can people find you, Dina?
How can people follow you?
They can find me, Ask Dina Dahl, on all the platforms
as well as Midas and of course, Legal AF.
And I'm trying to do more on Substack as well.
And it's great that your book is coming out
basically right before the next term starts.
We will definitely have to dive more into
all of your knowledge with Chief Justice Roberts
and how he's remaking the court.
And, you know, the Supreme Court used to be kind
of a sleepy institution that very few people talked about.
Now, you know, the Republicans, after Roe v. Wade,
have played the long game with the Federal Society
of remaking the court.
And Democrats really didn't
because the Supreme Court was upholding our rights. The Supreme Court course has never always upheld our rights right with a dress work
Dreadscot decision, but it had for a while and so I think that we
You know turned our heads so to speak to our detriment is not happening anymore
You're all becoming Supreme Court experts now
Well, so great to find you. And of course,
for everybody who has not yet subscribed to the Legal AF channel, that's where Lisa and I are
doing duets. I'm doing some solos. Lisa Graves does some solos as well as duets with her
Court Accountability colleagues. So be sure to free subscribe and listen wherever you are listening to podcasts and subscribe to
those sub stacks, get you informed. It was a pleasure being able to co-host this with you today.
I hope everyone is trying to enjoy their summer despite, you know, the news, it's like whiplash,
there's always something bad that's happening. But we are in this together.
We're growing both the Midas
and the legal AF communities together.
So we're ready, we're ready.
But we have to keep growing because it's so bad.
But hopefully everyone is enjoying their summer day,
taking some time out to be among friends or family
or just on their own, having a good walk,
while we can before we get to the next whiplash moment.
Thanks, Dina.
Thanks everyone.
