Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 9/3/2025

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Legal AF, the top rated Law and Politics podcast, is back. Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo discuss Trump’s attack on the Epstein Victims, the new health/life and death Trump coverup; and Trump’s Worst Court Losing Streak Ever, with 6 losses in 6 courts in just 8 days, finding he violated, among other things, the Posse Comitatus Act, the Alien Enemies Act, the First Amendment, the Separation of Powers, and the 5th Amendment and its Due Process Guarantees. VIIA: Try VIIA Hemp! https://viia.co/legalaf and use code LEGALAF! One Skin: Get started today at https://OneSkin.co and receive 15% Off using code: LEGALAF Moink: Keep American farming going by signing up at https://MoinkBox.com/LEGALAF RIGHT NOW and listeners of this show get FREE WINGS for LIFE! Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Check Out The Popok Firm: ⁠https://thepopokfirm.com/⁠ 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 Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: ⁠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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The Conjuring Last Rites. On September 5th. I come down here with you now! Array! Hooray! Hooray! Array! The Conjuring, last rites.

Only in theater, September 5th. Legal A.F. The podcast has begun. What an epic losing streak for Donald Trump, Karen. There are four losses, no, five, if you go back just eight days, four in the last four days, against the Trump administration, because it's working because the wheels of justice turn slowly, but they grind fine. We came on the air to Harvard University, winning on summary. judgment in front of Judge Burroughs in Massachusetts to restore $2.2 billion worth of grants because she found in her words that anti-Semitism was being used as a smokescreen to violate the First Amendment rights of the most oldest, the most prestigious university in America, Harvard University, making us, this is going to be a common theme for the Republicans at the midterm, making us less healthy and less safe because where do you think those grants were going? They weren't going into endowment. They weren't going into retirement funds. They were going into

research, research for the National Institute of Health, research for the CDC. I know we don't believe in those things anymore under RFK Jr., but they really do make people healthier. And so they have one. That's one. Let's just, we'll do the head, we'll do the count here, Karen. We'll do like a counter. One, one. Federal Trade Commission. We got a ruling today in the D.C. Appellate Court, finding two to one that Donald Trump can't just fire the only in lone remaining Democrat on the Federal Trade Commission because there's a case about the Federal Trade Commission and exactly that from 95 years ago called Humphreys' Executor

and in a two-to-one decision, they reinstated Rebecca Slaughter to her position on the Federal Trade Commission. That was earlier today. That was going to be the lead story as we came on. And then the Harvard thing came out right before we recorded our live today. That's two, three. Judge, and she'll get the award for the best name of all time.

Sparkle Supnanan, a judge that Biden appointed, I mean, amazing judge, even though she's only been on the bench for a short amount of time, took her 15 different orders over 24 hours to get 76 migrant children, children off of a plane where they were loaded at 1 o'clock in the morning. Nothing says, I'm not doing anything wrong or unconstitutional, like loading. children unaccompanied by adults onto a plane in El Paso, Texas. Fifteen orders later, all 76 are present and accounted for back in the refugee resettlement program where they belonged, instead of being sent off in the middle of the night or early

morning hours to Guatemala. So we've got third loss, fourth loss. Pasi comitatis, anyone? So we finally got the ruling out of Judge Breyer. No, not that one. the brother of Supreme Court Justice retired Stephen Breyer. Charles Breyer, after having a three-day trial that we followed here on Midas Touch Network and on Legal A.F., ruled that Donald Trump

and the Trump administration and his Department of Defense violated the Posse Comitatis Act. But more to the point, he said what we are watching, and he called it out as a finding, is a president attempting to create and creating an illegal federal police force with him as chief. And he is calling it out. He issued his injunction.

First time in our history of president has been, I would say convicted, has been adjudged to have violated the Possecomitatis Act. That would have been the lead story if we didn't have these other ones. And then the fifth, which just is just outside the last week, but go back eight days or so, you've got the district. D.C. Federal Circuit that rules that Donald Trump's two-thirds of his tariff scheme is completely, as we knew it, illegal under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and tore those down. That's just in the last eight days. And for those that think that we're losing because of the

Supreme Court issue, the wins against Donald Trump have been accomplished by various groups in Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, District of Columbia Appellate Court, San Francisco Federal Court, and the Federal Circuit Appellate Court. Five different courts have all ruled against Trump administration. I'm exhausted. I need my co-anchor. Where's Karen Freeman, McNifalo? Hi, Popak. What's going on? What is, we created this thing called Legal A-F a number of years ago, and I remember we were scratching. So you're going to be enough to talk about, and this is it

could be interesting. Holy shma. This is, as one of our editors said, coming on the air today, this is like an embarrassment of riches if you're trying to hold Donald Trump accountable for being for his abuse of power, which, of course, we are. How are you? I'm great. I'm great. You know, it's funny that Donald Trump has losing a lot for somebody who doesn't like losers, right? That's kind of his thing. And he loses all the time in court and everywhere. It's fascinating. And yet he keeps going. So this can't be a good week for him. That plus, the fact that there's all the speculation about his health, and you've got J.D. Vance coming out saying he's ready to be president. You've got Elon Musk who's stepping aside and no longer doing a

third party. I don't know. Is he brokering some deal with Vance? Who knows? But this can't be a good week for Trump because there's a lot going on. And you know how you know it's not a good week for Trump? It's when he, what I call the wag the dog moments, when he starts a war, he bombs 11 people out of existence in the Caribbean waters claiming that we're at war with Venezuela, so we had to bomb one of their warships, apparently. When he drops, you know, his MAGA in Congress dropped 33,000 pages of stuff we've already seen about Epstein to try to stop what's happening in Congress, which is Republicans leading, led by people like Marjorie Taylor Green and Representative Massey, trying to take a floor vote against Mike Johnson. So they have been

and trying to contain that Epstein scandal. And then while they were doing that unsuccessfully, because it's not contained, despite summer recess and all sorts of things. Then the health scandal came up, which is, and I'll put it this way, when Pete Ducey from Fox has to form the following sentence, when did you learn you were dead, Mr. President? When he has to actually ask it that way, we have, we have, the worm is turned, right? And I love your J.D. Vance comment.

J.D. Vance, he always finds a way, I mean, back in the day, Anne Richards, who used to be the governor of Texas who passed, she had a great line for George W. or George Bush. She said he was born with a silver foot in his mouth. Jady Vance has a way of making things infinitely worse. Exactly. Whenever he's put in charge of something. Like he was put in charge of getting rid of the Epstein scandal,

and it became, he tried to turn it on Joe Bollinger. and it just blew up in his face. Now he's sent out to ensure everybody that Donald Trump is vim and vigor, don't worry, he's robust. And instead he says, well, God forbid, I don't know what will happen, but I'm ready to step in.

Exactly. This is like the equivalent. I said on one of my hot takes, this would be like if Lyndon Johnson before JFK went to Texas on that fateful day, said, I don't know what's going to happen at the Texas school book depository,

but if anything happens, I'm ready to become president. I mean, right? Yeah, no, I'm wondering, is Trump having someone to taste his food for him before, you know, looking over his shoulder? And as Richard, who's the guy that used to be Meet the Press or Face the, Meet the Press, Todd, what's his name?

The guy that took over for one of my favorite longtime hosts, it'll come to me in a minute. He said, one of these reporters said out loud, that they have nobody to blame but themselves. this has turned into a health crisis for Donald Trump, that we don't trust him about his health because of his attacks, merciless attacks on Joe Biden,

because of his failure to release proper medical records about himself, we still haven't had anybody trust. They still haven't pushed anybody in front of the microphone, you know, any kind of surgeon general or somebody from, you know, William, you know, what is it, Walter Reed, Naval, Naval Hospital to say that Trump is in tip-top shape. We can see with our own. eyes that he's not. He's an 80-year-old that may or may not have had an assassination

attempt. Something hit his head, you know, eight or nine months ago, who's a morbidly obese, whose only form of recreation besides eating McDonald's is having the Secret Service push his golf ball into holes while they drive him from hole to hole. He's not carrying his own bags. He said, that's not exercise. He's not even finishing his own round. So this guy could be on the precipice of a complete and utter health failure, or maybe not. But the point is that he left open the door for us to talk about this. And something that's important. Like, should we be exercising the 25th Amendment?

This guy seems to be completely failing before our very eyes. Legitimate questions, but made more legitimate if I had Donald Trump handles it. And I don't think he did itself any favors. Did you see the press conference or read about the press conference today of the 10 Epstein victims? I watched it. It was incredible. It was absolutely incredible. What was your takeaway?

Talk about that. So I watched it because I'm obviously very interested, but I was surprised that I actually learned something or I have a different perspective. First of all, I had goosebumps and the whole time, and I was practically in tears. I mean, they were so courageous, these survivors who came forward and told their story. I mean, it was, it's worth watching. I mean, you can do without the introductory. politicians and the lawyers who spoke, just watch the survivors who spoke. Their words were so

powerful and what they had to say was so meaningful. And what was really incredible, first of all, they were saying I was 14 when this happened to me. I mean, 14. One of the women dropped out of school because she had to continue to service. She never went to high school. She had to continue to service Jeffrey Epstein. And when you just, these were babies, these were young girls. And what they said and what was interesting was sort of a perspective that I thought is really a reason to release all these files to them. They're like, we want the unredacted, I want my files. I want my unredacted files.

Some of them have buried some of these horrific memories as a survival tactic. And they're saying, I want to know what happened to me. I want to see what pictures you have of me. I want you to fill in the blank of what are the terrible things that happened to me. I know some of it, but I have blocked some of those memories out, and I need that for healing. And so they said, release everything to the public, but unredacted it for us as individuals. I thought that was really compelling. The other thing I thought was really compelling is they said there was no list.

That's not how they did business. That's not how Jeffrey Epstein did it. And they said, by and large, they mostly serviced him and Gilane Maxwell. And that's what they were required to do as children. But they said what we want the lit, and they said there were others and we're going to get together and we're going to compile our own list because we know who we had to deal with and who we had to service and who we were forced to do these horrific acts too in addition. And they're going to get together and they're going to compile the list.

So I thought that was the second thing that I thought was incredible that they're doing. And the third thing and the most compelling thing that I thought they said, which is a reason to release these files, was not necessarily other people who sexually abused these young children, but the people who enabled the behavior, they said there was cash, tons of cash that would be taken out of banks. And they literally gave a roadmap. They said all the different agencies who had people in past,

who covered up and enabled this behavior. Some of them went to the authorities and made a report, hoping they had the strength at the time, hoping that it would stop. It didn't stop. So who are these enablers that allowed this rich, powerful man to continue? Those are people who are in power. They're wealthy or powerful people,

and those are the people that are contained in those files. They're bankers, there's lawyers, and fix-ups. and politicians and celebrities and other billionaires. That's the list that I'm most interested in. Who are the enablers of Jeffrey Epstein and Gilling Maxwell? And that was the point that I thought they made that was so compelling. And they literally gave a roadmap, check this agency, check this agency, check these files,

go to this government. And it's all there. And so I thought it was incredibly, incredibly compelling. and I thought it was a great thing that they did this press conference today. And for those that kind of are forgotten, because we've been on the air for so long, you know, when Karen Friedman Ignifalo makes an observation about sex trafficking victims and rape victims like that, it takes on a whole different context for me. 30-year prosecutor, number two, in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

And you have a background in sex crimes prosecution, right? Yeah, yeah, that was my, that was my background, sex crimes. And so I've heard a lot of stories, obviously. I've sat with many survivors and shed tears with them. It takes a lot to move me at this point and to hear things that really still get under my skin. And this was one of them. I mean, I had tears in my eyes and I sat there, like, chills. Like, I had chills up and down my arms thinking, I am so just in awe of their strength and their courage to come forward and tell their

story and to continue, the thing that I can't, that really is so surprising to me is after all the years of being shut down and had this powerful man to get away with it and no one believed them, that they still have the power and courage to come forward and the strength, to come forward, to tell their story, and to do this, and they said they want to do this so that this doesn't ever happen again, that the enablers of these predators have to be exposed so that other people won't be victimized by other powerful predators. So that just to me shows a level of strength and courage that is incredible. And they also called out Trump, by the way. They said, you know, they thought Trump was on their side because during the run-up to the election,

he was calling for all these things, too. And they said, we don't understand what changed and why he did a complete 360. They're really disappointed by that. And interestingly, what they were announcing today was the introduction of a new bill. And the bill is about, I think I wrote down what it was called. It's just Massey and Conno's. Yeah, exactly. They were, they were writing down, they were, they're calling for the release of all,

the files. And, you know, it's called the Epstein Files Transparency Act. And it's to both release all the files and provide resources to victims. And they called on Trump directly and said, basically, and they also said, and this is bipartisan. They said this is a bipartisan bill. They had members of Congress from both sides standing there, including Marjorie Telegreen. And they specifically said every single con they want to out every congressperson who votes against it and and that's what they're going to do it was a really powerful conference the political cowardice that we've been watching on full display in contrast to the bravery of these victims who who have to live with this their entire life they're not doing it for fame they're doing it to reclaim some measure of dignity

watching watching galane maxwell's rehabilitation tour that donald's been participating in. Even when Congress' leadership on Maga's side meets with them, it's always behind closed doors. I'm not going to credit Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, because he met with them for two hours behind closed doors. I'll credit him when he brings that bill forward, doesn't require a discharge motion with 218 signatures to make that happen by continuing to point to the spoon feeding that's going on with the oversight committee, which is under the control ultimately of Donald Trump. That's what we're watching. We're just watching spoon-feeding of America of the stuff.

And, of course, they're going to avoid, I assure you, in the 33,000 pages, 97% of which we've already seen, there's no mention of Donald Trump. And what caused the 180-degree turnaround that the victims, which I'm sure they said tongue-in-cheek, which is the fact that Donald Trump and his people have seen the entirety of the 30 gigabytes, of the tractor-trailer-filled, the mountain of evidence, because that was all searched and scraped and reviewed by the FBI in the month of March so that in the month of May, Pam Bondi could tell Donald Trump, your name is lousy all over those files.

That's what changed. That's why we'll never see each and every scrap of paper unless people like Representative Massey, I never thought I'd be saying these words. Representative Massey, Representative Marjorie-Teller-Green, and Representative Moe-Connor, sorry, and their bill gets passed. Otherwise, we're just going to be given as little as possible to see if they can put an end to the Epstein scandal.

It hasn't worked so far. Taking recess and avoiding it and hoping that the error we get taken out of the ball related to the Epstein scandal did not work. Donald Trump continuing to. to, and he just did it today after he had an opportunity to embrace these victims, get back on their side and get on the right side, not the hump side of this issue. And what did he do? He attacked the Epstein victims again and said it's fake news and let's talk about something else

as he generates fake news to avoid talking about all of his court losses and all of the courts holding him accountable, which we're going to talk about here. One of the things I wanted that when we come back from our break, we'll talk about kind of a speed round. We'll talk about the win for Harvard and for First Amendment speech and for our institutions of higher education. The courage of a judge like Judge Breyer to rule for the first time in history that a president has violated the Possecombatatus Act, which we talk about it in shorthand, but it simply stands for the proposition. that a president of the United States cannot use a standing army or the might of the U.S. military on domestic soil for civilian law enforcement purposes.

They can't turn the turrets of the tanks and turn them towards the American people or people on domestic soil. And that has been a touchstone of our democracy since the Declaration of Independence, as noted by Judge Breyer. but he had to make it he had to make a declaration that just shows you how rogue and immoral this presidency is we'll talk about the posse comitatis act ruling which is historic we'll talk about the ruling just a few hours ago by the two to one panel of the dc court of appeals or the u.s district court the appellate court for the dc dc court reinstating rebecca slaughter to be the only democrat on the

Federal Trade Commission and their challenge and their rebuke of their bosses at the United States Supreme Court, I'll leave it at that. We'll get into it in more detail. And then we'll talk about how the 600 children who are now in a class, or a putative class of Guatemalans who were here for refugee status and had that attempted to be revoked by Donald Trump without due process, how that was stopped by Judge Sukhnan. But we'll also explain why Judge Sukhnan is not longer in the case, and it's been reassigned to Judge Kelly, who was a Trump appointee, and what could be the differences now that a Trump appointee has been appointed to the case. But now we've got to take a break to sort of, I don't want to say pay bills.

That sounds pretty crass. But talk about how you can support Legal AF and Midas Touch. And I'll run through the list. Legal AF, the podcast, which has always had your fervent support, and we are so appreciative. of our audience and their commitment to us and it makes this job easier. I'll put it that way. We're top 15 in all YouTube podcasts.

We're top 50 or so in audio versions of this podcast. But we need your help. So if you're a watcher, go download and listen on Spotify and Apple and the like and vice versa. Leave comments, leave reviews and five-star reviews and all that good stuff. That is one way. Then we've got things devoted to the LegalAF ecosystem. There's a whole community that we've built from the podcast on LegalAF, the YouTube channel that I curate. Got about a dozen contributors there.

We're about to hit 250 million views of our work in less than a year. That's all, you know, I'm doing the content side, but that's all because of you. And we appreciate you. Become a free member there, no paywall, no outside investors, no corporate parent, just us. So that's the way. And then from that, it spawned a new thing, LegalAF, the Substack, where we now have about 80,000 subscribers in less than three months. And we are doing, I'm doing lives there on a regular basis twice a day where I can put people

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and join the wait for it, Moink Movement today at Moinkbox.com slash legal a. F right now and get free bacon for a year. That's one year of the best bacon you'll ever taste, but only for a limited time. Spelled M-O-I-N-K box.com slash legal a F. That's moinkbox.com slash legal AFF. Welcome back to LegalAF, the podcast. We've got a speed round coming up because we've got to cover all the losses that Donald Trump and his administration have suffered in the last four days.

Harvard, Possecomitatis, Federal Trade Commission, and 600 children who were almost removed in the middle of the night without due process. Not even an adult on board the planes. We're going to cover it all right here. Thank you. Welcome back. and thank you for our pro-democracy sponsors and all the different ways we've gone over for you to support us.

Kara, let's kick it off with Harvard and what happened there. So Judge Burroughs, who's been on this case as a federal judge of Massachusetts for like five months now, we've already gone through and covered all of our temporary restraining orders,

preliminary injunctions. And now we're going to talk about her summary judgment, which means game set match against the Trump administration for cutting $2.2 billion worth of research grants. I want to make sure everybody understands these are research grants to help the American people because Donald Trump under a, as the judge called it, a smokescreen of combating anti-Semitism decided they wanted to do a hostile takeover of Harvard.

Tell them who they can hire, who they can tenure, what they can teach, who they can admit in. And Harvard said, go legal a. F. I mean, in their own Harvard style. A lot of veritas, which is their motto, a lot of truth and stand up and fight, and led by a very courageous president and Aligh Gharber. And finally, after winning every round, it came time for the summary judgments. Trump administration filed summary judgment saying they should win. The Harvard said, we should win on their end of their case, their case was premised on.

our First Amendment rights have been violated, who we can hire, who we can fire, what we can teach, if they're being violated in retaliatory fashion and vindictive fashion by the Trump administration, under the guise of anti-Semitism, what they really don't like is our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. They don't like what we teach,

and they're claiming it's because we have a poor record of trying to handle anti-Semitism on campus, a lot of which happened after Hamas attacked Israel. And the judge took a look at all of this, Karen, right, and came up with her own conclusions in reinstating the grants. Why don't you take it from there? Look, she basically, well, she could have just ruled against the government and ruled in favor of Harvard. But she went on this very, very long description about why she was ruling what she was ruling in her decision. And I thought it was really powerful.

She said, we have to fight against anti-Semitism and protect our rights, including the right of free speech, and neither goal should be sacrificed on the altar of the other. And so she basically said, look, the court's job is to step up and safeguard academic freedom and freedom of speech and ensure that important research is not improperly subjected to arbitrary and procedurally infirm grant terminations or risk the wrath of the government no matter the cost. I mean, pretty powerful language in there. My favorite part of the decision was one of the footnotes. I always love footnotes. That's where you kind of get some really powerful language sometimes. She basically said, look, the court is mindful of the Supreme Court in certain other agreements that basically, certain other decisions, sorry, that basically says, look, the court is not free to defy the Supreme Court decisions

and were duty-bound to respect the hierarchy of the federal court system. Okay, and she acknowledges that. But she says, consistent with these obligations, this court, like all district courts, are trying to follow the Supreme Court's ruling no matter how misguided it may think that it is. And she said the Supreme Court's recent emergency docket rulings regarding grant terminations have not been models of clarity and have left many issues unresolved. And this is, she's sort of calling out this shadow docket, right? This, because when you go on these emergency shadow docket rulings that the Trump presidency basically is, it's what's enabling the Trump presidency to do all these things that they're doing.

What happens is they don't fully brief the issues. There's no oral argument. There's no presentation of both sides. And then there's no sort of decision, right? There's no merits decision by the Supreme Court. Instead, they're getting these couple of paragraph rulings. from the Supreme Court on issues that aren't fully briefed. And the problem with that, what she's saying

is you're not giving any guidance to the district courts. And so we're trying to interpret this mess, this soupy mess that you're creating Supreme Court by making all these shadow docket rulings that are really not based in doctrinal law or precedent. So she kind of goes on to say that, you know, she talks about some of the recent grant decisions on grant termination cases,

and trying to make sense of them. But she says, given this, the court respectfully submits that it is unhelpful and unnecessary to criticize district courts for, quote, defying the Supreme Court when they are working to find the right answer in a rapidly evolving doctrinal landscape where they must grapple with both existing precedent and interim guidance from the Supreme Court

that appears to set that precedent aside without much explanation or consensus. That was a direct, that was a direct, message to the Supreme Court, basically saying you're not being helpful here. You've got to give us some guidance because you're basically lawless. And so we're trying to follow the law and follow what you say, but you're not really spelling it out. So I thought it was a really powerful decision. Oh, absolutely. I'll just read one consistent with that. I'll read one thing that she says in her conclusion on page 79, where she just spent 20 pages.

using Donald Trump's own words against him. Like, in other words, I'll give the summary. Don't tell me this is about anti-Semitism. There's anti-Semitism that needs to be better handled on campus. I agree. There's research grants that have zero to do with combating anti-Semitism. It's not like they're doing research on, it's not like during the Holocaust when they were doing research on Jews.

And we needed to cut the funding because it's anti-Semitic in the, the style of their research, there's no link between the two things. What you're really doing is you're taking away their money to penalize at higher education institution because you don't like their viewpoint. You don't like their First Amendment views. And that's exactly what you cannot do. And she pointed to all the places where for about 10 weeks straight, Donald Trump didn't talk about in his bashing of Harvard, which became the evidence in the case, didn't talk about on a social media. You know, I'm taking the money away in order to get to fight anti-Semitism. He said it's about their left, woke, you know, bird brain faculty, teaching students to fail. It was all about

their viewpoint, what they're teaching, their curricula, not about the research grant. So he screwed himself providing evidence of the discrimination, the First Amendment discrimination in his own social media posts. But this is now like the 12th judge who's been able to use, or more, that's been able to use Donald Trump's own words against him as evidence. Here's what she says to end the decision. After she goes through the fact that there is anti-Semitism on campus, that said, there is in reality little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and anti-Semitism. In fact, a review of the administrative record makes it difficult to conclude anything other than defendants used anti-Semitism as a smokescreen

for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country's premier universities. Because it's not just Harvard. It's Duke. It's Columbia. It's Princeton. It's UCLA. It's Berkeley. It's he's going after a, you know, there's a guy.

I'm going to do a hot take on him one day. There's a guy within the administration that is their guy to go after, quote, unquote, these woke universities. He's almost like the Laura Lumer of the education police for Donald Trump. And they're just following his list. So she knows it's not just about Harvard. But she said, but to do so in a way is a smokescreen for targeted, ideologically motivated assault on the universities in a way that runs afoul of the Administrative Procedures Act, the First Amendment, and Title VI.

Further, their actions have jeopardized decades of research. Think about that. They were in the middle of research that had to be ended because the grants were taken away and the welfare of all those who could stand to benefit from that research, as well as reflect a disregard for the rights protected by the Constitution. And what is it with this administration, it's the worst administration I've ever seen in history against public health between RFK Jr., who's about to get run out on a rail from this town, and what he's done to destroy public health as the chief public health,

official, and the attack on ripping away these grants to make us less well, this is what's on the agenda, I think, Karen, health, not just the president's failing health, but the failing health of America caused by Donald Trump and, of course, his economy are all going to be fair game for the Democrats to bring to the attention of the American people coming into the midterms, right? Yeah, totally. We'll see. I mean, you're 100% right. So we have to use so we got i mean i was i was joking earlier today on something else where i said if people were wondering what a failed presidency looks like this is it yeah you know and he has to do all of this all of this uh band um tambourine shaking to try to convince you that he's not failing and the more he does

it the more he's failing you know and and and i'm trying to think of what is the constituency that is turned on and ignores everything about his administration by we bombed 11 people out of existence today without due process in international waters. Who is this group that is buying the 33,000 pages of nonsense that was released to try to deflect from the Epstein scandal? I mean, how did Alex Jones's Info Wars get to be so popular? How did Laura Lumer get to be who she is? I mean, it's, they're, they love a conspiracy.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's crazy. Even Nick Fuentes, who's a white nationalist, of the first order and Maga Maga to the extreme hung out at Mara Lago with Donald Trump. Even he and his podcast said something's going on with Donald Trump's health. Even it got to him because they're getting obviously bored with the Epstein scandal. So they need to move on to some other shiny object. And now they're moving on to maybe he is dying.

Well, obviously he's dying, as we all are, but dying faster than others. Let's just put it that way. So Harvard, it's a win. And I think it's also a win and gives them tremendous leverage now to push back against Donald Trump, who just last week in his high chair was saying, I want $500 million. I want $500 million from Harvard. And, yeah, well, I have a toddler. So I like using that imagery.

I want $500. He's not going to get $500 million. Not with this major win for the Trump, for Harvard. And I was wondering what was happening to those negotiations I heard about. I think you were waiting to see what Judge Burroughs was going to do. knew they were going to get a win with her. So it's off to the First Circuit where there'll be likely another win. They're not going to vote against the hometown team of Harvard, I assure you. And then it's off to the United States Supreme Court where a lot of those judges went to Harvard,

including Chief Justice Roberts and Kataji Brown Jackson, who's a double crimson, whatever they call it there. So we're going to see. This is going to end up there sooner rather than later, you know, because they need the money to do all that great welfare, social welfare stuff and public health stuff. Let's move on, Karen. into posse comitatis, you've got Judge Breyer, the brother of the Supreme Court Justice retired Stephen Breyer, who had a three-day trial and issued a ruling with a lot of courage and even took on the Ninth Circuit, which ruled against him on an earlier related matter about whether Donald Trump could federalize or commandeer the National Guard, the State's National Guard in California. This is the

case for those that are wondering, literally of Trump versus Gavin Newsom. And I just had Rob Banta, the Attorney General for California on the day that this decision came out. And you can come over to Legal AF Substack and see the interview. Amazing interview we had. We'll put it down a note so you can find it here on tonight's podcast. But he was very proud, of course, of what he was able to accomplish because the judge effectively adopted all of the Attorney General's arguments So what did you take away from the ruling, the injunction, the stay of it for a period of time? Tell our brief our audience about what this means and what it means going forward. Yeah, so this is a great decision also because it talks about the history and the founding of this country and what this country, how it came about and how the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

And most court decisions don't read like this. These are written for the ages. These are written so that people can understand and really get an explainer about sort of, they know that this is going to be watched by many and commentated on by many. And so they really take the time, and this is another example of that,

of really teaching the history of this country. And really basically said, look, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were a reaction. They weren't created in a vacuum, and they were a reaction. to the fact that we came from England, we came from a king, and they wanted to create separate but equal branches of government

without this powerful king. In fact, they made Article 2 be the president, not Article 1. And part of what they were reacting to was the colonies, the original 13 colonies, had British military troops patrolling it, and they did not want that. That was something that they were reacting to. And so it was created as a way to kind of say, look, the police function is going to be with the states. It's not going to be this federalized thing.

Okay, so that was that. Then fast forward 100 years later, you have slavery and reconstruction, and you had basically you had military in the South that was preventing newly enfranchised people of color, you know, former slaves from voting. And they passed the Posse Comitatis Act. Congress passed it, essentially, to ensure that black people and former slaves now can vote and that the military is not going to be used against them. And it was just really, when you, when you hear that history and you see how that has been the case for so many years, and it's almost 100 years later, and yet here we are. You have the government, you have the Trump trying to turn the military on its people under the guise of, oh, we're just protecting federal property. And we're allowed to protect federal

property. And the judge here basically said, look, you know, and it was interesting because the people, he had people testify from the military at this trial. And the military people who testified were very much, we're very clear about what they're allowed to do and what they're not allowed to do. And they were taking the interpretation of whether what they were doing was in violation of the Posse Comitatis Act from above, from Pete Hegeseth and from this administration. But these were, you can tell these were heroes, frankly. These are the men and women who sign up to serve this country. And they stand by the fact that they are here to serve this country and not to enforce laws. But they kind of had the wolf pulled over their head and were told that they

were allowed to do basic things like enforcement and things like that, which they're really not allowed to do. And, you know, they actually had had a list of things that you're not allowed to do. And but then they highlighted some of them in red basically saying, oh, but you can do these four. And the judge said, no, no, you can't. It's actually not allowed. And the posse, you are in violation of the Posse Comitatis Act. And I think that was huge. You know, it was really a great decision. And again, talked about Marbury v. Madison, which is one of the foundational cases in our country that says that courts can interpret laws and that, you know, that the president isn't all-powerful and that the court is interpreting the law here. And basically, you can't do

that. It was a resounding, resounding victory for California. What this case is about is the fact that our founding fathers from the Declaration of Independence saw the threat of a president slash king having a standing army that he could use domestically to enforce his power and flex his muscle. And literally, you know, I rarely see, as you said, it was written for the ages. I rarely see a court order that references language from the Declaration of Independence, our founding document in one of our founding documents, in order to make the point, which is we, that was the problem with the colonies, is that King George had these roving bands of British Army troops who were lawless and were not responsive to a civilian

authority, and certainly not to the Americans, colonists that were there, running roughshunders. shot over their civil liberties, which were really non-existent. And for those around the world that join us, we have a tremendous following all around the world, 140 countries plus, Canada, Australia, first two among them, who were interested and intrigued by this thing we call the American experiment. We're still trying to get it right, as you can tell, and not end it. And so our U.S. military, we're not supposed to have as an other country. like in Latin American, Central American and dictatorships, federalis, federal troops on the streets.

We have a federal system where law enforcement, civilian law enforcement, is in the hands of the state and subdivisions of the state like municipalities and cities. That's what sheriffs and cops are for. That stands in contrast to the U.S. military, which is supposed to be outward looking. and Donald Trump has blurred those lines to create, as Judge Breyer said, a national federal police force with him as the chief. And that's a scary, chill-down-your-back moment because that's a federal judge calling out for everyone to see what's happening,

not just in D.C., but what's being threatened in Chicago, in Philadelphia, what happened in California, and throughout the country, with Donald Trump trying to scare the crap out of America and bend to his power by having his own, his own paramilitary force. And there's different components of it, right? There's the, there's ICE, there's border patrol, there's the FBI, there's the takeover of the National Guard in blue states and red states volunteering to give Donald Trump a standing army.

And that's what the judge Breyer is fighting against. And he said, I looked at the statute. It talks about I can issue fines and I can find people in criminal violation. I'm going to make a declaration and I'm going to do an injunction with my inherent authority. And he also then spent a lot of time chastising the Ninth Circuit for allowing Donald Trump to federalize the National Guard. And he gave a series that I went over these with Attorney General Banta. I almost said Governor Banta. It'll be Governor Banta someday, trust me.

Or he'll be the Attorney General of the United States if Gavin Newsom becomes president. And he would be a fine attorney general for the United States if that were to happen. But there were these scenarios where he said, what's to stop a president based on the ruling, the murky ruling of the Ninth Circuit

about the National Guard? What's to stop him? And then he had this one example. On anecdotal evidence or or lies about voter fraud, what's to stop the president from using the National Guard to interfere with an election? And seize voting machines.

Yeah, he didn't say that. Yeah. But that's where it goes. Sees voting machines, seize ballots, end voting, and mail-in voting, and absentee voting. He gave other examples, but that's the one he ended with that I was like, chilling, prophetic, hopefully not about what this, what this president. it could do. What he wants is he wants the Ninth Circuit when they get this case back to fix the problem by putting limits. This is something that he said over and over again in the trial. What are the limits? I am struck by the Trump administration telling me there are no limits to this

power and this takeover. So he set the guard rails and he set the limits. Now it's going back to the Ninth Circuit. Well, they get a new panel or the same panel? So it's funny you said that. A.G. Banta said he thinks it could 50-50 it may go to a new panel I joked with him and I said I'd like a new panel he goes I'd like a new panel he said but if we get the same panel then fine it could go on bonk meeting all 20 or so in the ninth circuit eventually but it'll be this will be the case that eventually gets to the Supreme Court who's been sitting on the sidelines because they haven't had any appellate case in front of them to rule in anything but they are going to have to make a ruling for the first time since 1789 or whatever it was about the effing posse comitatis act and a president violating it with this. And, you know, we got a, we got maga, maga, right-wing Supreme Court justices that think the president can do no wrong. You know, he's got all the power. Well, we'll see what happens about the limits of that power as we move forward.

So we're going to talk about the two, well, really one remaining thing. I want to talk about Judge Sparkle-Sukhnan and the 600 children and what happened there and the Federal Trade Commission. and the ruling there by the, by the D.C. Appellate Court and why it matters. We'll cover all of that, but we're going to take one final break here on legal A.F. The ways to support our channel and our podcast is to help us with the views and the downloads, which keeps us at the top of the charts, which keeps this content coming to you, signals to us that you want this content, makes us work harder to continue to deliver it.

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to just talk about issues that have just happened. Things are happening, you know, Memorial Day, Monday, and 3 o'clock in the morning on Saturday, with this administration, and we've got to be there for it. So LegalAF Substack is the way to do it. And then finally, for those that I think know this, I formed a new law firm called the Popak firm about a year ago where I'm focused on something that really helps our might as touch in legal layoff community, which is catastrophic personal injuries.

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support the show and tell them we sent you. Welcome back. We're in the home stretch of legal A.F. With Michael Popock and Karen Friedman Ag Nifalo. Two last cases to tie together. This is all this week, by the way. This is joining late. This isn't like,

oh, Popock and Karen are talking about like a month's worth. This is like an administration's worth of cases. No, this is this week. So we just went through the Harvard case. We went through the things related. of course to the Epstein matter. We talked about the posse comitatis case. We got two left. Federal

Trade Commission and the 600 children. It's a pickum for Karen. Karen, which one do you want to do first? Let's do the FTC Commissioner first and we'll end with the children because yeah, that's a good way to end. That's a powerful one to end on. Yeah, agreed. So Federal Trade Commission, interesting one, right, Karen? We talked for a long time more than I ever thought I would have to about a 1935 case called Humphreys executor. I'm doing videos on Humphreys executor, I feel like since 1935, which stands for the proposition

or stood for the proposition, that at least when it comes to the Federal Trade Commission, and I think the Federal Reserve also, Donald Trump can't fire commissioners in a structure created by Congress without a fore-cause reason. just fire them. And even the four cause has to be a limited forecause. It has to be like something they did on the job or not did on the job. And Donald Trump, that stands in contrast to things

like the National Labor Relations Board and the Office of Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protection Board and other agencies where the Supreme Court said, yeah, Humphrey's executor doesn't apply because they set up a scale. The more an agency or a commission exerts presidential executive power, the less the less the Congress can control what the president does with the people's employment on those commissions or agencies. So if they exert a lot of executive power, you can't limit the president's ability to fire them in any way. If they exert a little and not as much, so it's that scale, then a president has to abide by what Congress wants, which is a for-cause termination. That came up at a case.

from 1935 involving a commissioner of the federal trade commission. I mean, Humphreys was a commissioner of the federal trade commission. Rebecca Slaughter, who's fighting for her job now, and just got reinstated, is a commissioner of the federal trade commission. And what the argument for the Trump administration is, is that the federal trade commission today is so powerful and so different than in 1935 that it now is using up more and expending more executive power and therefore Trump should be able to fire it. Well, the counter argument of that is the Federal Trade Commission has been doing the same thing one way or the other

for like the last 95 years and certainly for the last 20 years. And every time the Supreme Court touches Humphrey's executor, they leave it standing and they know what the Federal Trade Commission is today versus then. So they obviously agree. But here's how the three judges, or two of the three judges on the D.C. panel, Millett, Pallard, and in dissent, Rayo, the Trumper. The two-to-one decision, which was powerful for me because there was a line on it where they effectively challenged the United States Supreme Court in a couple of different ways.

They said, first of all, Humphrey's executor is exactly Rebecca Slaughter. In this case, is on all fours, as we say in the law. It's directly on point. It's the same agency and the same position. So you've told us, this is my artist rendering of their decision, you've told us that we as appellate court judges and district court judges below you, Supreme Court, cannot avoid the application of precedent. We can't change precedent at the Supreme Court level.

Only the Supreme Court level can do that. Okay, Humphrey's executor is still on the books. You did not remove it. You did not take it away. as it relates to the Federal Trade Commission. So it is the extant precedent that we need to apply. You've told us that. The fact that you've chipped away in various emergency shadow dockets,

back to that shadow docket that you referenced before, Karen, at things like the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Service Protection Systems Protection Board, allowing Donald Trump to fire, those were on procedural non-substitive grounds, and you haven't reversed Humphrey's executor. we are not going to do your job for you. I mean, that's barely a paraphrase.

You, Supreme Court, if you don't like Humphrey's executor and its application of this case, then you need to change it. But we are going to rule consistent with it that she gets her job back. How did you take the order and the ramifications of it moving forward? Yeah, I mean, look, it was just, it was a reminder that the FTC, when it was created by Congress, was supposed to be bipartisan and it's supposed to be five commissioners, no more than three are members of the same political party. They're nominated for seven-year terms.

They're supposed to be cross administrations. I mean, and that's not for all agencies, right, but there's certain agencies like the Federal Reserve that when they were established, they want it to be above politics. They wanted to be putting the American people first, putting science first, putting data first, information first versus instead of just politics and ideology. And Trump tried, has tried to fire two of the Democrats. One of them decided to resign, but, you know, this one, Ms. Lauder decided to fight it,

and she's won, at least for now. And I think it's just a good reminder of, of A, what Trump is trying to do and run roughshod over our institutions. And I'm grateful that she's fighting back. and we'll see what they say. But as you said, this notion, this doctrine that the Humphreys executor case created so long ago is still in existence. And let the Supreme Court continue to do Trump's bidding for him if they want. But I'm happy to see that the lower courts aren't doing that. And she got a job back.

I mean, Trump doesn't like it. Oh, she's fired. She's not. She's been reinstated. And she's already posted on her. own social media that she's happily back at work doing the job. The sad part is because he fired both the Democrats. So there was no, there was no, there was no, what's the word I'm looking for? No, no other rationale than politics. He fired only the two Democrats, leaving three

Republicans. One Democrat, he went off and got a private sector job so he didn't fight for his job back, leaving only one Democrat. It's supposed to be no party having more. than whatever amount of seats, but it's not supposed to be just four seats in three of them Republican. For various very good reasons, I'm so sick and tired of the Supreme Court interfering with Congress. When Congress sets up and will be Congress the next time they set up an agency or commission, thinking that they'll be able to control the Supreme Court in how they set their rules.

I'm so tired of the Supreme Court taking out a big red pen or a blue pencil and saying, this delicately balanced commission thing and agency thing that the Congress created as an executive agency and then turn it over to the president. Oh, now, all those requirements and limitations and restrictions, we're getting rid of those. Well, maybe Congress would not have created the commission or the agency had they known that the Supreme Court was going to get rid of all of the protections that they built into it. Anybody ever think of that? That maybe they would like to get their agency back and their commission back? And certainly, I think an argument that should have made and could be made in the future is this is going to have a chilling effect on future Congress's

willingness to set up commissions and agencies for the protection of the American people for fear that the Supreme Court is going to rewrite the statutory scheme. I've never seen that argued. I just argued it here. I liked it. Congress is a complete, has completely, it's like a dereliction of duty. Congress does not exist anymore as a check to this president. They are not, over and over again, they're not doing their job. And they're not forcing any issues. They're just kind of like, Trump's going to get away with it. I'm going to support it. And I was reading today, there was an article, I think it was in the New York Times where Laura Lumer, of all people, stopped Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who's the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. And he's a long-serving

member of that panel. He was going to go visit an agency, I didn't even know existed, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. And this is under the Pentagon. It's highly classified. He has oversight over this agency. And Laura Lumer got wind of it through Tulsi Gubbard. And as a result, they canceled his visit there. It was supposed to be classified. It wasn't supposed to be public. No one was supposed to know about it. This is what they do. They go and they, they're supposed to have oversight. They're supposed to see what's happening. And now what they're basically saying is,

gee, sorry, we're taking away the oversight capability of Congress, and we're just going to do what we want in the intelligence community. I mean, it's just bananas, and Congress just going along with it. They're just these willing participants, and they're not doing their job. And I really hope they get smacked in the midterms because that's outrageous. You know, they're supposed to be separate but equal branches of government. There's not even time to talk about other things. the Fifth Circuit just destroy the National Labor Relations Board coming into Labor Day,

saying that its entire existence of the way it regulates workplace grievances and other attacks on employees is unconstitutional. That's the Fifth Circuit, which will end up back at the United States Supreme Court. So let's turn to and end the show with the plight of 600 Guatemalan children in a refugee resettlement program. I mean, the Statue of Liberty must be spinning on its axis that we are rejecting through the Trump administration spreading our wings of freedom

that was used to protect children like this who don't want to be and their parents don't want them to be in Guatemala for obvious reasons because of their own lives there are being subjected to torture and other things. things. These kids were sent here, much the way that a group of Cubans were sent here in the 1960s in the Peter Pan movement to bring children, sometimes unaccompanied, over to the United States for refugee resettlement. But because these are Guatemalan children, and Donald Trump wants to get rid of anybody who is black or brown, I guess. He put them on a plane. He revoked

their refugee status without due process. Stop me if you've heard this before, everybody. He put them on a plane at one o'clock in the morning to send them back to Guatemala announcing that he was doing, get this, talking about Orwellian, a family reunification program, pilot program is what they called it in court. It gets, once the planes are up and running, immigration rights groups bring into action. They file a lawsuit within 58, minutes in federal court. When you do that, you get assigned an emergency duty judge who happened to be Sparkle Sukhnan, who herself was a Horatio Alger story up from her bootstraps, is an immigrant who came from Trinidad and Tobago, who got honors and everything she ever accomplished in academia,

had top jobs, top leadership positions in the Department of Justice under Joe Biden, including in the Civil Rights Division, was an appellate lawyer in the civil rights division, was an appellate lawyer in the Civil Rights Division was in a major law firm in Washington and was appointed by Biden at the end. She was assigned, because she was the emergency duty judge. She picked up the phone at 3.30 in the morning, Karen,

as soon as she got assigned the case and started calling the Department of Justice and got no answer. Remember that old political ad? Who do you want picking up the phone at 3 o'clock in the morning? This presidential candidate or this one, nobody picked up the phone. She set her hearings,

And we're off on 15 separate orders by this judge over the course of a single day, Labor Day Sunday, to force the Trump administration to get 76 of those children that were actually on the planes, off the planes and back into custody of the refugee resettlement program. And then certified, or at least temporarily certified, created a putative class of 600 similarly situated Guatemalan children who were on that plane, you know, remind everybody, unaccompanied. in order to make sure that they get the due process that they deserve. That's what happened, but then we've got a development that happened next. Won't you pick up from what you observed in the case, and then we'll talk about the assignment now of Judge Kelly to the case. Yeah, I mean, look, not that's saying not all heroes wear capes. I would say some wear robes, and that's this judge.

I mean, when you read what happened, the reason she was up at 3 o'clock in the morning trying to get someone on the phone. These were young children who were asleep in bed, in a shelter, essentially, who were woken up in the middle of the night, pulled out of bed, terrified. There was testimony that some were vomiting in fear. I mean, pulling these children out of bed, you know, as a mother, you know,

like anyone who knows what that would be like, what the terror that would be like for those children. was just so unsettling and so upsetting that this administration would do that to these young children who are just really were so terrified of what was happening to them, put them on a plane, had them pack lunches. I mean, it's just outrageous.

And she was up all night trying to figure out what's going on. And she ordered that they come back and put them back into their beds. And unfortunately, after the weekend when the emergency was over, so she She fixed the emergency. She got them back where they belong.

Then it went to a regular judge, you know, because this was the emergency judge, the one that was on duty. It got wheeled out, and it got wheeled out to not the greatest judge. So I'd love to hear what you think about who got the case. Yeah, Tim Kelly is not Sparkle Sukhnan. He is a Trump appointee. He worked. He's a protege of Chuck Grassley, who's still, you know, 85 years old.

He's on the, he's the head of the Senate. Judiciary Committee. He worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee as a lawyer. Is he MAGA? I don't know. He's had some cases where it looks like he is. He's at other cases where he's ruled against the Trump administration. But he's not

what I thought was the perfect judge for a case involving immigrants and the deprivation of their due process rights in Sparkle-Supnan. And I'll tell you that. So she, before she departed, however, set a couple of briefing schedules, which are going to occur this week into early next week, one about the class action status.

She's got a couple of briefs that she's ordered due there, and a series of briefs about the preliminary injunction, starting with today, that the lawyers for the immigration rights lawyers are filing to move from a temporary restraining order, which she already entered, into a preliminary injunction, which will be considered by Judge Kelly now. Now, to answer the question, does Judge Kelly have to accept this briefing schedule? Not necessarily. Could he modify it? He hasn't yet, but he could.

Could he make different findings and different rulings than she made on temporary restraining order? Yes, completely. And so we're going to see if the change in judges affects the outcome in this case. It shouldn't. I'd like to say it won't. But there's a good chance that he's going to see this through a different life experience. He's walked in a different pair of shoes, if you know what I mean, than Judge Sukhnan. So we will report on what happens.

Briefs are going to be flying in to different tracks of briefs will be coming in over the next several days to have a hearing in the middle of September about whether these children are going or staying. Remember, they're refugees who are asking to be left in America. Now, the Trump administration, this will be another scandal, I'm sure. I think offered something to the Guatemalans to get them to stand up and say, we're just reunifying all the families and take them back. I don't know if it's on the tariffs or financial payments. Something happened there. And we're going to get to the bottom of that as well as the record is developed in that particular case.

But look what we've accomplished in this particular legal AF, Karen. Four losses are five and eight days, four and four days, five different courts, all for the Trump administration, answering the question, why does it matter? It matters because when you put, when you pressure the Trump administration, you put their feet to the fire, he makes mistakes. And when he makes mistakes, it benefits the cases. He doesn't appeal everything. And ultimately, the Supreme Court doesn't take every case. So you've got to win at the trial court level. You've got to win at the first level of appeal. And then you've got to take your best shot and your best swing at the United States Supreme Court. Sure, he's won 16 cases.

at the United States Supreme Court. But he's lost eight, and not every case gets there. And he falls. He doesn't appeal everything. He folds along the way, exactly. Billions of dollars of federal aid have gone back to the states for schools and other things because he's faulted. He stopped using the Alien Enemies Act as a tool to remove people without due process.

The last time he effectively used it was in March, even though, yeah, we actually, we didn't even cover that. We'll have to do a whole other segment. about the Alien Enemies Act ruling that came today. It's really six in five days. You know, we had a panel that, we had a panel that ruled in the Fifth Circuit of all places. Yeah, that's what I thought was bonkers. It was a Fifth Circuit, which is normally conservative.

Yeah, I mean, it was a Biden, a Bush, and then a tryout, a person, Judge Oldham, who's trying out to be on the United States Supreme Court on the Trump side. But they declared that Donald Trump doesn't have the right under the Alien Enemies Act to deport anybody, remove anybody. because he declared war improperly or a predatory incursion, which there isn't one. Of course, he covered up that story. I have a hot take up on this by bombing 11 people out of existence without due process and then acting like a tough guy.

Like, we're at war with Venezuela, not the first time we've ever used a bombing of a ship as a pretext to a war. So, you know, we'll cover that more in detail on the Saturday edition of LegalAF. Karen, always great to do this with you. Any last words for our audience? I just really hope that somebody like Melania gets involved and like she did the first time Donald Trump was separating children and families during, remember when that was going on back in the first administration?

I think that a lot of women, including his wife, got involved and got him to stop doing that. What's happening to the Guatemalan children, I think, is on that level. And I really do think hopefully somebody will basically say to him, These are children. You can't, you can't do that with their lives. And I hope somebody, I hope somebody gets, gets the better, gets him to think better of that. Because it just really upsets me when, when children are the victims of, of politics, which is what's happening here. So, but that's, you know, that, that's, that's, that's my last plea to Melania Trump to please, please save these children.

If that's what we're left with, we're in deep shit. I know, but, you know, she did it last time. So maybe she'll do it this time. I just, like I said, when it comes to kids, I just can't, like, that's, that's what, that's what that gets me. I think it was more Ivanka than Melania, but we'll find out. Well, okay, Ivanka do something. Somebody do something. Somebody just, you know, don't, don't do that. You know, of all the things, like, just leave the kids alone. You know, we're here to protect them. We're not here to hurt them. So, thank you for joining Legal A.F.

And thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors to my co-anchor, Karen Freeman McNiflo, our Legal AFers and the Mightest Mighty, join us on Saturday, where we'll do another version of Catch Up with the New Developments between now and then with Ben Micellis and me. In the meantime, check out LegalAF YouTube channel, LegalAF Substack, and of course the LegalAF podcast, both in audio. And in YouTube version, until our next time together, I'm Michael Popak with Caird-Free Minute Network. Thank you.