Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Maxwell Conviction, Truck Driver Sentence Reduction, Freedom of the Press, and More!

Episode Date: January 2, 2022

The law & politics do not take a break for the holidays, so neither does the LegalAF x MeidasTouch podcast. Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast is back for another hard-hitting, thought-provoking look in “real time” at this week’s developments.  On this first episode of 2022, Ben and Popok analyze: 1. Ghislaine Maxwell Sentencing and Broader Implications. 2. Colorado Governor Commutation of the Sentence Down to 10 Years for Truck Driver sentenced to 110 years for reckless homicide in highway pileup that killed 4 people. 3. 5th Circuit Taking Up Texas Abortion Ban Law—Again. 4.Oklahoma’s Efforts to Prevent National Guard from being Vaccinated is Rejected. 5. The NY Times and its appellate efforts against a trial judge’s order preventing reporting on Project Veritas as an unconstitutional violation of its First Amendment rights (i.e. “prior restraint”). 6.The Biden Administration ramping up of antitrust and other anticompetitive laws and directives in the shipping, meat, and fuel industries to address the highest inflation in 40 years. 7. Jan6 Committee Updates including the National Archive case before SCOTUS, & Minority Leader McCarthy receiving an “invite” to appear. And much more. Support the Show! AG1 by Athletic Greens -- Athletic Greens is going to give you an immune supporting FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit https://athleticgreens.com/legalaf today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Midas Touch legal a f Ben micellas Michael Popeock happy New Year's legal a F's I'm broadcasting from Mexico where I'm taking some time off but no time off from the legal a f, fingers crossed, Popock that taking all the precautions here that you can wear in the masks literally everywhere trying to distance myself from people, but not on wood that when I catch a flight back, there's not a positive COVID test. Your 2000 miles from me.

But we're always close at heart, Pop, that's what that's what I like about this. And I'm definitely like that we haven't taken any breaks. The law doesn't stop and we don't stop here on legal a lots of news this week. You know, I think we be remiss if we didn't touch upon the Jazein Maxwell conviction. Everyone I think has been following this story. If not, Jazein Maxwell, a co-conspirator of Jeffrey Epstein. He died purportedly of suicide, but under somewhat mysterious circumstances in jail while he was awaiting his trial, Jazein Maxwell, was charged. She was accused of recruiting and grooming, in this case, 14-agers between 1994 and 2004, for Epstein, who was her former boyfriend at some point in time. He killed himself in 2019 and had a, jail cell. She's convicted on five of six counts,

including one count of sex trafficking. She will face up to 65 years in prison. The jury deliberated for quite some time, Popat. They were out several days and then came back after Christmas. And then there was some questions where given the spread of Omni-Kron across the country, but particularly in New York, whether the jury was gonna even be able to stay convened

or if they would have to be quarantined. But did anything about this surprise you, Popak? A couple of things. One on the timing of the deliberation and the verdict. I was not surprised that a day after Judge Nathan, who has already been nominated and had her interview with the Senate, to be elevated from the Southern District, New York to the second circuit. And she'll be a very good addition to the second circuit. She sort of tapped her watch, tapped her foot until the jury. Yeah, continue your deliberations. But with Omni-Gram, it might screw up this whole case. So you might want to speed it up. Literally a day after she said

that, they reach their verdict. I don't think any of them want it to hold this case over and continue to deliberate or come back and be reconvened two or three weeks from now. I hadn't read that they lost any alternates or any jurors because of COVID, but you know, Judge Nathan was concerned. Plus, let's be frank, Judge Nathan's human being. She liked to wrap up her docket and take her seat on the second circuit. And this case was sort of holding her back. The surprising thing is not the conviction of Jazein Maxwell. Obviously guilty for working with her then boyfriend and Paramore to sexually abuse and she participated in the sexual abuse of various women underage and assault.

The interesting thing is what's now come back to the surface in the media, which is the appropriate story of why a Republican at the time, a US attorney for the Southern District of Florida in 2008 didn't put a stop to the whole Epstein, Jacelle Maxwell case 14 years ago. Why didn't he properly prosecute Epstein when a 14 year old woman said that she was sexually assaulted and abused by him in Palm Beach County, Florida. Why? Why did Alex Acosta, who later became Trump's labor secretary, and had to step down and disgrace because of the reporting of the Palm Beach Post, which made it clear that he had improperly and showing bad judgment

allowed Epstein rather than face a federal suit and federal charges to plead guilty to one count of solicitation under state law under a parallel state prosecution, in which he did 15 months in jail, but only half of that was done in the jailhouse most of that was done at home confinement. And that was it in 2008. And Epstein went on for the next 14 years or 12 years abusing women. So the real issue is, you know, it's really a reflection, the Jazein Maxwell conviction, the dog-head reporting of a journalist for the Palm Beach, uh, the Miami-Herald, the Palm Beach Post, who stayed with this story. And even the Department of Justice in 2020, reprimanded Alex Acosta for showing bad judgment in not properly prosecuting Jeffrey Epstein.

And just, Al Maxwell is going to go away for a long, long time. She may try. I've seen in the media reports where she suggested, or there's been suggestion, that she would continue to cooperate with prosecutors to try to go against some other big whales. I don't know if that's Prince Andrew or if that's Joshua it's or any of these other people, but I'm not sure she's got much more to give that the prosecutors need from her and they're not independently developing. So I'm not sure she's going to get much credit for cooperation because remember,

she ran an in head for six months or more from the federal authorities under assume names in various countries. You know, I don't think they think she's got the most credibility. So why local journalism is just so incredibly important and all the work that was done important and all the work that was done by journalists who doggedly kept on the story. And look, Jazein Maxwell absolutely deserves the conviction. I do want to point out what one Twitter user Wilson 6923 wrote though, he said. So a woman is going to be the only one punished for a global sex trafficking of a minors ring that involved the most powerful men on the planet. Yeah, that tracks.

And I think that comment does make you think, I mean, when I read that, that's her defense. She participated in sexually abusing and molesting women, but because one guy hanged himself and the others haven't yet been brought to justice, she gets a pass. I don't understand that tweet. So no, I mean, Popak, I think what the tweet is is that she should be held to justice, but the level of energy that's directed at her, the level of people's approbation against her. Where's that against other men who we know against Prince Andrew,

against others and who are seeing you. I don't know about immunity. I mean, the cancel culture and starting with hashtag need to has can't properly canceled out many male, you know, X chromosome people who did really bad things who have had to leave office and disgrace Cuomo, you know, all the way to, you know, our favorite Senator, Senator Adam Minnesota, Al Franken. I mean, I mean, I, I just, I get it. It's an interesting tweet. I'm sure it got a lot of retweets. I just don't, I think you have to take this. You have to chop wood one log at a time. Jazeem Maxwell did bad things that are criminal. She should go to jail. Others that did bad things are being similarly investigated and will either lose their careers money and or go to jail. We will see where those investigations go. We will keep everybody updated and keeping everybody updated is the name of the game on legal IEP.

We talked about the Colorado truck driver, Rahal Aguilera Madero. He was 26 years old. He was guilty on 27 counts relating to an incident in which a truck that he crashed led to the deaths of four individuals. There was really no argument that it was intentional. His brakes failed. He was speeding no argument that it was intentional. His breaks failed. He was speeding, so he was driving recklessly. But based on the mandatory minimum laws in Colorado,

he was sentenced to 110 years in prison as a result of mandatory minimum sentencing. This grew a lot of international outcry. We talked about it on the podcast. And the one update that I want to bring all our legal a efforts up to date on is that Colorado's governor, Jared Polis, this past Thursday issued a commutation.

He commuted the 110-year sentence of this truck driver reduced it by 100 years so that it became a 10 year sentence. Governor Polish stressed that the crimes that Aguilera Maderoz was convicted are serious but said he was encouraged by the personal reflection the defendant has done as well as commercial vehicle safety changes that were made in this clemency order.

Governor Paulus also said, you were sentenced to 110 years in prison effectively more than a life sentence for a tragic but unintentional act while you are not blameless, your sentence is disproportionate compared with many other inmates in our criminal justice system who committed intentional, premeditated or violent crimes, popuck, your reaction.

Yeah, I think it was the right thing to do. I hadn't been aware, and that's why we didn't talk about it in our last podcast, that there was a commutation application pending with the governor, but just to give our listeners and followers a brief, very brief tutorial on commutation. It is similar to the power of pardon, which at the federal level, the president of the United States has sold-powered pardon, commute sentences, grant clemency, all those are the power of the president. At the state level, when you're talking about state charges, which you were here in the homicide,

or reckless homicide charges with the truck driver, you have only the governor can, on an application, usually that state has very similar to the federal side, has an office of clemency or pardons or commutation in exercising the power, and then there's usually a board or a panel of lawyers and others that review the application and make a recommendation to the governor. And then the governor has the final say whether they're going to do it.

This governor took a very personal interest in this case for Merleon. You could tell from the comments the governor made in commuting the sentence. And I think you and I talked offline, I think ultimately it right sized the sentence to an appropriate amount. Let's remember, four people lost their life in that pile up, you know, whether it was because he's hauling tons and tons of timber and he's going 85 miles an hour and lost his brakes. You know, I don't think he could go free. I don't think that would have been fair or just

or equitable with victims who lost their life, but I don't think 110 years was the right amount. And I think, what did you think, Ben? 10 was about right, 10, 15, something like that. Yeah, usually in these situations, if the person is charged at all, you usually see more along the three to five years. So 10 is actually still a little bit on the higher end for still stiff, but you know, again, you and I weren't at that trial. I didn't observe the trial. I wasn't sitting

there as a juror, you know, but 10 years does ultimately sound fair. It doesn't strike me though. If you accept the worst conduct of a reckless kind of negligent driver who wasn't drunk, he wasn't on drugs, you know, it involved speeding slightly more than the speed limit. I mean, he wasn't going 150, it was going 85 at the time when the brakes failed, which is still faster than you should be driving a truck like that. And he'll get out, I mean, look, he'll probably get out in seven and a half, maybe six and a half with good behavior and time served and home confinement. And look, you know, one of the, we don't talk about it much in the podcast, but one of the goals

of sentencing and coming up with the right sentence is, yes, there's a punitive nature to it, but there's also a rehabilitative component or quality to sentencing. This person's life is not over. And yes, going to jail, losing your liberty and your freedom is one of the worst things that can happen to a person, short of death. But he will come out at a reasonable age. He'll have an opportunity. I don't know that penal system that well or the prison system that well in that state,

but I assume he'll be able to take courses, take college courses, learn an additional trade, make himself useful so that when he comes out, and I still will be sent to a minimum security, not maximum, super max where he's put in solitary confinement. I think he'll be put in a better facility. And that'll be also a role for his lawyers to try to advocate at now that it goes back to the judge. The sentence has been commuted, but the ultimate decision of where he serves his sentence is still with the judge.

And the judge hopefully will continue to show mercy as he did when he gave the initial sentence and said, my hands were tied. I got to go to 110 because that's the minimum, that's the sentence in guidelines. We'll send them to the right place. So when he comes out, he can be a productive member of society again. We know the legal a furs were interested in following that case. And while not overtly political, you see how politics does get involved, though, where you have a governor who steps in and issues, a commutation. And then on the past past legal AF, we described how that sentence and that

sentencing process compares to some of the other sentencing processes that we've discussed. One of them being January 6th and we're going to talk more about some January 6th updates later in this podcast, but Polpak, as we've heard about some of the inflation issues that are facing our country. We've heard about one of the reasons that's being caused is supply chain issues. But another reason that we see is perhaps anti-competitive behavior among the big shippers, anti-competitive behavior amongst the large agricultural companies, anti-competitive behavior amongst the large agricultural companies, anti-competitive behavior amongst the big oil companies. That's not to say that because of the pandemic, the pandemic has indeed caused supply chain issues because of certain monetary measures that were

done. People have some more disposable income, which is another factor kind of pushing prices up as well. But then there also is corporations taking advantage of the circumstance and engaging in potentially anti-competitive conduct, a New York Times article this past week talked about how Biden has directed the FTC and other groups to start looking into anti-competitive behavior within these various industries. Just a brief tutorial on anti-trust laws and popok, I will then pass it to you. Congress passed the first anti-trust law, the Sherman Act in 1890, which was a comprehensive charter of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as the rule of trade and then in 1914 Congress passed to additional antitrust laws, the Federal Trade Commission's Act, which created the Federal Trade Commission, the FDC, and the Clayton Act, and the Sherman Act,

which was just referenced, outlaws every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade and any monopolization, attempt in monopolization, or conspiracy, or combination to monopolize. And what the Supreme Court decided some time ago was that the Sherman Act is not prohibit every restraint of trade, but those that are unreasonable. And the penalties for violating the Sherman Act

are severe. Many enforcement mechanisms are civil, but there are also criminal prosecutions that are involved in the Sherman Act, and individuals and businesses that violate it could be criminally prosecuted. dollars or more for corporations engaging in this anti-competitive behavior. So, Popak, I think I gave the overview. Do you think that there's going to be some robust antitrust prosecution stepped up in the Biden administration versus Trump? What do you see happening here? Yeah, I think this is again your your elections have consequences. Let's look at the problem first and then we'll let's look at the tools and the toolbox that Biden has, including the antitrust laws that you've talked about that he's already exercising. We are at a 40 year high of inflation. These are just facts.

We're at 6.8% normal inflation, 2%. You know, most of it is because of a perfect storm of two events. You've got supply chain logistics being impacted severely by COVID and the opening and closing of countries along the supply chain, along the trade winds. Then you've got $3 trillion worth of government money that is coursing itself through the veins of the economy, which led to a part of having it be superheated until it sort of tamps its way down. What you don't want are industries and sectors to use this as an excuse to price gouge and to increase prices above appropriate supply versus demand price setting.

And there are indications at the regulator, at the Biden administration level that certain industries are taking advantage of the supply chain logistics issue and are exploiting it. So what does the president have at his disposal to try to address that issue? Well, you've got various cabinet level and other agencies that he has already issued as a July, an executive order. He's issued 72 directives to the cabinet level positions and to agencies like the agricultural department, the federal trade Commission, the Federal Maritime Commission, all of these agencies are now directed

to enforce antitrust laws and to eliminate with money and regulation and investigations, non-competitive conduct and behavior in their particular industries. Give you an example and talk about the supply chain issue. Shipping, do you know how many percent or how many times shipping and logistics costs have gone up in the last year, Ben, around the world? Nine times. It is nine times more expensive to ship your logistics and do your logistics if you're a company around the world than it was

a year ago. Some of that's legit, cost of doing business because of issues. Some of that is not legit. So a little known agency has gotten new muscularity under Biden, which is the Federal Maritime Commission, who are now investigating and have asked all of the shippers to send them data about why are you nine times higher in terms of price?

Let's get to the bottom of that. And it's been done at the retailer level too. The FTC is getting on top of the oil and gas companies and asking them for data about why their prices are so high when worldwide gas prices and oil prices have now begun to drop. Why haven't they dropped in America? There's a, there is an industry that you and I don't talk much about. I don't think we will called big meat, MET like big sugar. It's the meat industry. Meat prices have gone up 16% during the pandemic. That's a big portion of the 9% overall CPI or inflation index that's gone up during that time. What is big meat doing and why do they need to charge 16% more for their meat? Another thing, the agricultural department under Tom Vislak, who was agriculture secretary

under Obama and got reappointed now by Biden. One of the things that his department is doing is using money to create competition. People say, well, government has no role in the private sector. That's not true. They're using $500 million of Biden administration allocated money to create new competitors in the meat industry to compete with big meat to lower meat costs in America. These are all things that can be done by a president. What else can a president do? He can appoint people who are focused on anti competitive behavior and conduct and rooting it out in key positions.

So you have Lena Khan, K, K, H, A, N, whose Biden's head of the FTC. who's Biden's head of the FTC. You have John Cantor, who's made a career being against Apple and Google. He's in charge of the antitrust division of the Department of Justice. You have Tim Wu, WU, who's also big on breaking up big tech. And he's a major White House advisor to Biden. So all of this sleepy Joe, Uncle Joe, Grandpa Joe,

go fuck yourself Joe, whatever it is, is all ridiculous. You have to look at the body of work. Who's doing good with it? Is that the new one? Yeah, whatever it is. It is all BS. This administration has done a lot of amazing job in one year in changing the course of social policy, economic policy, social justice, and everything else.

I remember once like, yes, but they didn't convict Trump yet. I mean, this cannot be the measure of the success of this administration. It can't be the only metric that we haven't, you know, like Sodom who's saying, pulled Trump out of Trump tower by his toenails and hung him up in the public square. That can't be the measure of the Biden administration. They're doing so many other really really amazing things. And lastly, on the point of antitrust, mainly Sherman act, the Department of Justice and Biden administration have worked to block mergers that would create rising prices for consumers.

So in the insurance world, we all love to hate insurance companies, Aeon and Willis Tower Watson at a London, that merger, which would have led to a real consolidation of insurance company in the raising of rates has been blocked by the Biden administration. Something you would not even think about, the Kansas City Railroad is not going to be able to merge with a larger competitor in Canada, because that will lead to logistics and supply

chain increases in prices. The sugar industry and consolidation there is being blocked and being regulated by the Biden administration and under the agricultural department. So Ben, what do you think? I mean, listen to the stuff that goes on a day-to-day basis under the Biden administration. Why are people so upset with Biden? They don't think he's doing enough. I guess when you say people, the question is which people,

and you have on the one hand people being the GQ peers, the trumpers who are just very loud, obnoxious, and uninformed people. And then we have people on the progressive, left pro-democracy side though, who want to see the ultimate justice and accountability. What they see is how do you have an insurrection take place and how do you have police officers who are beaten and killed and the heart of our democracy attacked by another political

party that has become terrorist and we just let him get away with it. So given that that's taking place, I think what also happens on the pro-democracy, left-leaning progressive side is we're angry and aggravated that, that justice is not moving forward. So all these other things that are taking place, we don't really think through or we're unnecessarily harsh on all other aspects of the positive things that he's doing. But what we need to reflect on,

again, is the Clinton versus Trump dynamic and people thinking Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State Clinton, Senator Clinton. I worked for Clinton when she was a senator. She was experienced. We would have had three Supreme Court justices. You would not have had the challenge to row the Wade, where Rose likely to be overturned in a bit more on that with what's going on in the Fifth Circuit a little bit later in the podcast today. But you would have had all of these mechanisms and we would have been prepared for the pandemic. And there would have been a whole different world global dynamic.

I mean, we take for granted the way Ebola was swiftly dealt with. We take for granted while H1N1 was a serious issue. We take for granted that swine flu H1N1 was still handled in a way that didn't result in a global pandemic. You just had, yeah, you just had 27 Republican Congress people, including Jim Jordan, tweet out yesterday. If boosters work, why aren't they working? I mean, this is such an affront to science. Boosters are working because people are dying from Omnicron.

Exactly. And those are the people who are going to be leaders. These are the people who potentially will control house committees. These are very unserious people. It's a long way to answer your question, Popo. But nonetheless, I think that's why you have kind of the, from both sides, I think, but particularly where I think left, left progressives pro democracy, we need to recognize all of these things that are going on, which is why I like that we highlight it on legal backpack to show I just don't talk about sponsors because

hey, we've got sponsors. I only put sponsors on legal AF of products and things that I absolutely love and one of them is AG one. I talked about how at the beginning of this podcast, I am in Mexico right now for a brief vacation. Look what I do. I take AG one with me. It's how I start my day. Tell us about AG one pop-off because I know you are the biggest AG one fan. I am the biggest AG one fan, but tell us about your experience. I had a lot of excitement because a couple of weeks ago, directly across the street from my apartment on Madison Avenue in New York, giant AG1 showroom is being installed where there used to be a retailer. And I'm very excited about that. I'm going to go in and say, you know, not only are we users, but my podcast partner and I are big promoters of AG1 on our network of followers and listeners. It has helped me get through, you know, I haven't had the luxury and either have you to avoid

travel during this very trying time. Some of it's been personal, you know, in the summer, everybody knows I got ribbed for taking a couple of weeks off and traipsing through Europe. But, you know, I have worked to do too and I've got to get to different cities as you do. And I got to be on planes. In the old days of, I'm going on a plane, I'll just take airborne from the local pharmacy. That doesn't really work anymore. And I feel I need something to improve my immune system and improve my probiotic gut level. And this is a product that I would have not only scoffed at,

I definitely would not have thought about taking five years ago. And now I can't imagine a day without starting it with a green drink of 75 minerals and vitamins and probiotic and prebiotic. And I, to be frank, I haven't knock on wood. I haven't gotten sick at all since I've used AG1. And I think it's part of my lifestyle and AG1 is part of that lifestyle. It's a category leading super food product, bringing comprehensive and convenient daily nutrition

to everybody. And keeping up with the research, knowing what to do before AG1, I would take a bunch of pills and capsules. I'd have a whole medical jar with everything. Now I just basically use one tasty scoop of AG1 with this special blend of high quality bioavailable ingredients and a scoop of AG1 works together to fill all the nutritional gaps in your diet, my diet, support, energy and focus, aid with gut and health digestion, and support a healthy immune system effectively replacing all of

those products or pills with one healthy, delicious drink. Now, to make it easy, athletic greens is going to give you an immune supporting free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Just visit athleticgreens.com slash legal AF that's athleticgreens.com slash legal AF go to athleticgreens.com slash legal AF and take control of your health and give a G1 a try. Join the movement of athletes, life, leads moms, dads, rookies, burst timers, podcasters, and everyone in between taking ownership of their daily and the mightest mighty. Did you see that being a very nice tweet last week of a person who lives, I think, abroad with a big glass of A.G.1 and touting it, you know,

that she got it because of legal AF. And we were all internally, we're like, wow, that's really great. We are helping to change lives here, not just mental lives, emotional lives, physical lives. I love it. I love it. And what I also love, Popak, as we move to Oklahoma, we talked about this on the last podcast, how Oklahoma AG kind of cheered on by Oklahoma governor, Ken Stinth, their AG's, a guy named John O'Connor filed for a preliminary injunction against a federal mandate for the National Guard and the military to be fully vaccinated. One of the things here was that it was a very well first off we talked about how the attorney general of Oklahoma in the initial lawsuit that they filed against the vaccine mandate cited the wrong law. It's cited the civilian federal mandate rule and not the military one. So they literally cited the wrong law. About four days ago, they amended the complaint to try to fix that and

try to hurt the podcast. They they heard you and a bunch of other screw ups that were taking place, but their argument was still an incredibly odd one in essence trying to assert control over federal law, even though they're the state and title 10 under the federal code places National Guard under federal control. It's kind of without dispute like the, the federal government oversees the national guard, that law controls. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, his pronouncements are what ultimately controls what the national guard does. And here we had the governor basically trying to assert control over federal military, which was weird. And the governor was a 29 page ruling. Basically just told Oklahoma governor,

Kevin Stanton, Attorney General, John O'Connor really just called them out and criticized them. The order just dismantles them for doing everything procedurally wrong. It talks about how sloppy they were. And it uses nicer language than that. And then basically says, though, look,

the vaccine mandate obviously applies here. We're focused on the law and common sense. It says, and whether you apply the law or common sense, this injunction should not be given. The one thing though that the judge asks and it's not a legal order, but it just basically says, kind of based on the potentially devastating effect

of the fact that Oklahoma didn't have well-informed leadership at the highest level of the Oklahoma guard, that referring to both the leadership at the highest level of the Oklahoma Guard, you know, that referring to both the leadership there and at the top the governor. This court just said to the defendants to the United States government, the federal government, maybe you can just give a brief grace period just because that state is so incredibly incompetent. The Oklahoma, have you ever seen that, Popeyes?

No, so here, let me just pick out a couple of things I like to them. Then I know we're doing an accelerated version of the pod today. One is just to answer a question or head scratcher for our listeners and followers. States are not allowed to have their own militias ever since the Civil War. For obvious reasons, we don't want, you know, you know, states

massing at the border with their neighboring state, a militia. They are allowed to have garrisons of National Guard, which is under the control of the federal government or the federal or the president, or in this case, the Secretary of Defense, as an extension of the president. And they are activated when the governor needs, the governor decides that there's a need for a national emergency requiring the guard. So it's a cooperative thing, but it's, you're right, it's regulated by the feds. Here was my favorite observation by Judge Friat in that case. Let me just be. But yes, that's right. A push appointee. He made two observations that I loved. One of them was to remind Oklahoma that ever since

general George Washington required the troops to inoculate themselves for smallpox. We have had mandatory vaccination from like the beginning of the nation. And the fact that they're he also recognized that the judge recognized there are already nine required inoculations that National Guards may remember the military have to take. And he did not think it was an additional burden or it was an overreach by the federal government to require a tenth in light of a developing health crisis. So, you know, I think he was being kind in his 25 pages, but it's rejected. They'll be, they can try to take an appeal.

It may kind of marry up at the Supreme Court with all the other sort of Biden level mandates, but I think, inoculations at the military level is so well established, starting with George Washington, that even this Supreme Court would find would would be hard pressed to deny the right of Lloyd Austin to order in inoculation for and boosters for COVID. As we talked about on the last might as touch legal a F the Supreme Court is gearing up to hear oral arguments

on the various federal vaccine mandates and testing requirements as well. And as soon as there's oral argument there and rulings there, we will keep everybody posted for those who didn't watch the last or listen to the last league lay F. Even though you have a radical right wing supreme court right now, Pope Hock and I still believe that the various indicators of the supreme court would be that they would be supportive of the mandates and testing based on their private, their prior rejections of shadow, docket style, emergency style, rulings that would have overturned vaccine mandates.

Jan 7th is going to be Ben just to remind our listeners and followers because there were all arguments Republic. Now with the Supreme Court, Jan 7th, they're going to call up and hear both the But in here, both the OSHA mandate under Biden for employers over 100 for mandatory vaccine and testing were testing. And the one under the health and human services that relates to federal frontline health care workers and federal facilities, also being, being required to vaccinate. So I'll come in together on Jan 7. I guess they skipped Jan 6 for obvious reasons. Got to listen to all the legal

A. Fs though, Pope, I mean, we threw it. We've got a little lifeline there to people who may not have listened to the last one, but these episodes build on each other. So make sure you're going back if you've missed legal A. Fs

to listen to them. We'll try to do our best to give summary caps, but here's an example though, we talked about this on a past legal AF a few weeks back actually, Popok. The Strange New York Times Project Veritas case and these odd rulings that are allowing prior restraint

which is almost unheard of in the first amendment context. And we have Justice Charles Wood, who sits in the Westchester County Supreme Court in New York. And New York. Trial level. Trial level court is a trial level judge. And the New York Times and Project Baratas are embroiled in lots of kind of litigation general project veritas sued New York Times for defamation in another case. But here as part of New York Times regular and customary reporting, they got documents that belong to project veritas. Some of those may have work product or attorney client elements to it, but the

thrust of these documents are basically how to engage in nefarious conduct to set up and potentially engage in a lawful conduct, you know, third parties and people who project Veritas targets. So New York Times writes this ex-Bose on project Veritas. Project Veritas seeks this preliminary injunction to stop New York Times from reporting on it based on the documents it gathered saying, hey, these are attorney client work product privileges. Somehow this judge in Westchester orders New York Times not to publish, but then now even goes a step further and tells New York Times they need to turn over the documents that they have which could reveal their sources. New York Times saw a temporary stay in the Court of Appeals, which was granted. I think that this judges from Westchester is going to be entirely overturned,

but it's just an unusual case that's worth mentioning. Yeah, I think the case is interesting. The fundamentals of the case, as we've discussed in prior podcasts, is that Project Veritas through nefarious underhanded means, espionage, got their hands on and or stole Joe Biden's daughter's adult daughter's diary and started publishing and had a right wing news outlet. I guess that's a right wing outlet. I will call it news, publish excerpts of it. It's a woman that's been struggling with mental health issues and

depression and other things her whole life. And this was her private writings and her private journal. The New York Times separately wrote an article about Project Veritas having nothing to do with the Biden daughter diary, but suggested in their reporting that Project Veritas across the line a number of times. And, and, and we're being investigated by the Department of Justice also, that the issue, so there's two cases going on. There is a separate case not in front of this Westchester trial judge on the defamation case project fairytops versus New York Times. Separately, the New York Times and doing its reporting has been you laid out, got sent to them a leak, a leak document, a

document that was provided to them by, by however, their reporting and journalistic efforts led them to this document that was internal memos of the attorney for Project Veritas allegedly giving advice concerning the Biden daughter diary. And New York Times ran with the story. And on November 11th published a story in the New York Times about it, Project Veritas runs into court and says, aha, that should not have been done. Those are attorney, client privilege. We should get those most back. There shouldn't be any

additional reporting about this issue. You should stop the New York Times from reporting. You would think the judge would say, huh, first year constitutional law class in the law school, I think I read something about prior restraint, which has been got, which has been law on the book's Supreme Court precedent for over 150 years, including a case that the judge might have heard of called New York Times versus Sullivan from 1971, and the, which is also known as the Pentagon papers, in which the New York Times, a judge had tried to restrain the New York Times prior restraint, restrain them from publishing the article in an injunction setting, in a temporary junction setting. And that was ultimately rejected by the US Supreme Court as being an improper violation

of the First Amendment rights, the fundamental freedom of press. And the Supreme Court generally takes prior restraint really seriously. And just as a last point, so people understand the concept, it's not that ultimately at a final trial, a judge can't decide that the publication of the materials was improper and was not covered by First Amendment rights. At a final trial, it's that they can't at an injunction level, temporary injunction level, preliminary injunction level before the final merits are decided, issue an injunction prior restraint. That's the prior. It's prior to a final judgment

after trial. And that's exactly what the Westchester judge has done. He's he's prior restrained the publication without having had a full adjudication of the merits. And his hook, which is just plain wrong, is that because there's a lawsuit, a separate lawsuit between Project Veritas and New York Times, that he has the power to control discovery related to those parties. And that and the attorney client privilege takes so his discovery rules and his and powers and and the power over attorney client privilege overcomes a constitutional right of the First Amendment, a right that even Antelene, Antenine Scalia, who is the touchstone for many of these right-wing radicals, said that the greatest threat to the First Amendment is prior restraint.

The Supreme Court is going on to say that any system of prior restraint of expression comes to the Supreme Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity. And that was Bannon-Bucks versus Sullivan. So this judge is gonna, I believe it's ultimately gonna be found wrong. What I was surprised by, Ben, though, is when the second department,

which is the first-level court of appeals over Westchester, when the second department blocked the portion of the judge's order that told the New York Times, you need to destroy copies of the attorney client memos that you've gotten and you need to return them to Project Veritas. The court of the first, a second department said, yeah, you went too far on that one. But they did not lift the prior restraint order to allow the continued publication of the journalism of the New York Times. What'd you think about that? I just think it's more of a timing issue of what it was immediately urgent that they had to address because the return and destruction could have, you know, imperiled sources, and there's no turning that back. That's not to say that in due course,

the second department is not going to hear the oral argument, though, right, Popock? They're not saying they're not going to ever hear oral argument on the first issue or that the first issue is right. They're simply saying as a timing issue, this needs to, this needs to go first. Yeah. I mean, I've gotten injunctions, uh, temporary injunctions and stay orders at that level, the second department, the first department, and you know, they're doing it on the fly. I literally got a stay order. You're at wherever you are, Mexico. I was on a beach in New Jersey a year ago in a construction matter that I was handling. And I get an emergency phone call from the duty judge.

It's usually one judge for the, this case, the first department for Manhattan. She wanted to hear right there. I literally had to go to a parking lot behind a tree with a cell phone and conduct a hearing because it was an emergency and I wasn't expecting it that day. And we got this, we got the stay that we wanted in that case.

Let me tell you the dangerous precedent where Project Maritoss is trying to do here. With all the wacky frivolous lawsuits that the GQP files. If you start filing all these cases against media and thereby make the arguments that Project Veritas does that because we're now in a lawsuit, you're not able to fulfill your journalistic duties of covering us or actually, you know, and if you do report on us or get any documents about us, we're then going to file an injunction to then reveal your sources. Think about the wacky Sydney Powell Giuliani type lawsuits and project veritas lawsuits. All these frivolous lawsuits they bring to then turn those into discovery issues versus overall first amendment issues is highly problematic, which is why this case is actually very, very important for its broader

political and first amendment ramifications and we'll keep everybody updated with that. Two final kind of quick updates that we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about. First pop up, it's very procedurally dense. What's going on now with SBA. That's my middle name. It's exactly what the Supreme Court wanted to happen as it has heard oral arguments in Dobbs, Mississippi as it looks to overturn Roe v. Wade or at the very least, uphold the ban of abortions after 15 weeks, which it seems poised to do. It's kind of

now thrown SB 8 into this procedural quagmire where we talked about in the last podcast that Gorsik basically ordered it to then go back to the fifth circuit. The fifth circuit is now contemplating arguments. While SB 8 remains in effect, and for those listening, that's the Texas bounty hunter law that bans abortions after six weeks and basically allows individuals to sue other individuals who aid in a bed abortions or get abortions for up to 10,000. We're right about the time that the SB 8 first first group of SB 8 babies will be born.

If you think of it that way, and I didn't, but that's harrowing to, you know, think about it that way. But one of the issues that's now being raised by people who want to keep SB8 in place is, well, well, wait, wait, wait, we need the Supreme Court and Texas, the state court, the highest court to rule on what enforcement powers, if any administrative entities have the Supreme Court had rolled regarding SB8 that abortion providers could ensue state judges, county clerks, state attorney general, but that left open the administrative officials,

such as the Texas Medical Board, Texas Board of Nursing, Texas Board of Pharmacy, if they had enforcement powers over SBA. So while S 8 remains in effect, the question now before the 5th circuit pop-up, if I have this right, though, is whether they should direct the question to the state Supreme Court over that issue before they make kind of a further ruling on the overall constitutionality of the law. Yeah, this was the fear that the abortion providers had when the ruling came down that they would be sort of the that the Supreme Court and the right wing of the Supreme Court would so kick the can down the road that they would never get their day in court back at the Supreme Court level before the ruling that we expect in the summer on dobs and the Mississippi case on 15 weeks, whether 15 weeks is constitutional as a ban

on abortion or not under Roe v Wade and Casey. So you got Gorsuch two weeks ago who on his own because he's the circuit, he's the Supreme Court judge that sits over the fifth circuit in Texas. Again, we put a right wing Supreme Court justice over a conservative Supreme Court. Thank you Chief Justice Roberts. But he in a one blind decision rejected the request of the abortion providers to send the case, not back to the fifth circuit where they've not done well because it's so conservative, but back to Judge Pittman in Austin, the judge, the valiant judge, who's done so well in analyzing these issues and has cited primarily with the abortion providers and people concerning the constitutional right to abortion. This issue, of course,

says, no, and we're gonna kick it back to the fifth circuit. And if the fifth circuit thinks it needs a ruling from the Texas Supreme Court, now we're getting the highest level state Supreme Court issuing a ruling about whether the medical licensing board for the state of Texas is a proper defendant. The Supreme Court said, that's the only one you got left. the medical licensing board for the state of Texas is a proper defendant.

The Supreme Court said, that's the only one you got left. And Texas is saying, oh, well, if that's the only one they have left, let's get a, let's get a ruling for the Texas Supreme Court about whether that's even a proper party. You see where this is going. Absolutely. Where it's going. Right. So the fifth, so let's just play it out. Fifth Circuit sends it back to Texas Supreme Court, a very, a very conservative Supreme Court, state Supreme Court. They rule, oh, medical licensing board is in a proper party here. And that case then dies with a new appeal that's got to go

on an emergency level back to Gorsuch, maybe back to the full Supreme Court can kick successfully Supreme Court level by the conservatives. And now we're waiting around to see the ultimate ruling in July, June, July, August or whatever it's going to be on abortion as a fundamental constitutional right. And then they're going to overturn Roe v. Wade or at least up all the 15 week ban. We know that's going to, we know that's coming. And so ultimately, this SBA law, which will eventually be declared unconstitutional, it's just going to be moot at the point that it's declared unconstitutional, which was the very point. And one of the reasons

it's going to be declared unconstitutional is also because the radical right does not want SBA style laws being enacted regarding guns and regarding other things as well like that. Okay, then finally, Popak, as we deal with the updates on the January 6th committee, not too many updates to report, although January 6th reached out voluntarily to a GOP leader, Kevin McCarthy, saying, you know, nothing to hide. Why don't you testify? Why don't you show up and speak about what happened. Obviously, Kevin McCarthy was intimately involved.

He was on the phone with Trump during the insurrection. So he's obviously a critical witness to what was going on. And then just other updates going on, there is a subset of documents from January 6th that actually do have potential executive privilege. And what the Biden administration is saying is if they're a legitimate national security documents, they broad swath of documents.

Not every single document should be produced by the national archives, but there is a trunch that has nothing to do with executive privilege. But what I found interesting, Popak, what they're really interested in, and this fascinates me, is the video of Trump when he was giving the speech, finally, where he told people to go home, that there

were various versions of that speech. And he couldn't get it right. And the January 6th committee probably has been tipped off that there's some good info there. So Popeyes, before we wrap up the show, anything there, that's... Yeah, I think you did all of those. Well, the one that I'm interested in

and that you and I will follow is that and to remind our listeners and followers, their national archive is still going on, whether those 800 pages of documents are gonna to go to the JN6 committee on time to let them do their work. And Trump filed two days ago a five page supplemental brief arguing that because Benny Thompson, the chairman of the JN6 committee said in a Washington Post interview that if if Gen 6 Committee sees evidence of potential criminal conduct by anybody, they're going to make an appropriate referral to the Department of Justice. And it trumps, it trumps people actually had the balls and the temerity to say, aha, they have violated their legislative purpose of the Gen 6 Committee, which is only

to investigate the root causes and participants in Jan 6th insurrection. And now they've morphed into a criminal prosecutorial investigatory body because they're making criminal referrals. Let me make this clear. Everyone, you, me, Sochi, anyone else can make a criminal referral. You think your neighbor has got a grow house or is committing money laundering or tax evasion.

You can pick up the phone and call a hotline. You're making a criminal referral. Every agency of the U.S. government, civilian agency of the U.S. government and every member of Congress and every congressional committee has the power to make a referral, it's only a referral. What is the argument counter to that? I can't wait to the Supreme Court ruling on this when they say, when somebody says to them in oral argument, let me get this straight. Gen 6 committee, duly constituted, is doing an investigation of Gen 6 while they're doing the ingest investigation of Gen 6, they find details out about a murder. Let's just take it to the extreme. A murder was committed that hasn't been previously reported.

You're saying that they don't have the power and it undermines the very jurisdiction of their committee by making a referral of the possible murder charge to a prosecutor? This is their argument. You know, five pages of BS, but you know, again, Trump delayed, delayed, delayed. Now, that one we're going to have to keep close eye on because we don't know what Roberts is going to do. He's the judge because he sits over the DC circuit or the DC court. And he hasn't yet made the decision on the National Archive.

Everybody's asked him to roll it over to the January 14th conference among the Supreme Court just this is let full briefing and oral argument happens, but that one's still in stasis. We're not sure what's going to happen on that one. It means I'm Trump's just taking advantage of setting in supplemental briefs as much as he can while Robert's kind of sits on it. At the end of the day, what you have is Republicans are filing press releases. These are not legitimate legal documents at all. But it goes to the overall fundraising material. But that's why we need to keep a strong judiciary. That's why everything we do on legal AF. What we talk about is so important. There was a reason why Giuliani

and all the GQP lost all of their cases in the court of law. So then they got fed up and they started doing fake court appearances, fake hearings in the lobbies of Sheratins and hotels like that across the country. We need to maintain the rule of law. And that's what legal a f is all about. We don't talk about the rule of law as propaganda PR the way Trump and his cronies do. We talk about what the real rule of law is, what real legal precedent is. And we arm each one of you every day here on legal a f. So Popak

want to wish you a happy new year. As always, I love seeing you, I love doing these podcasts with you. Happy New Year to all the LegalAFers out there. Thank you so much, it's been an incredible 2021 with the growth of this show, with the support that we have on these live chats. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Popock any final words before we go. I am so, everything you said I agree with. I love doing the show with you. I love what we've done together and with your brothers. And I'm so excited. I can't wait to turn the page. I'm so excited to start 2022. You and I, we're not ready to announce anything.

We got a bunch of stuff that's really gonna be fun related to League of La F, that we're gonna do together, we're gonna announce that soon as it's out of the laboratory. Absolutely, so thank you everybody, special shout out to the Midas Mighty. We will see you next time on Legal AF. If it's Saturday, it's Legal AF, if it's Sunday, it's Legal AF, if it's a holiday, it's Legal AF,

it's always legal AF. We'll see you next time. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.