Legal AF by MeidasTouch - PISSED OFF Judges GET REVENGE on Trump FINALLY

Episode Date: February 8, 2025

It’s time for the Revenge of the DC Federal Judges, who are now handling 15 out of the 32 cases already filed against the Trump Administration for constitutional and administrative law violations. Michael Popok explains that these judges, who sat in horror handling the 1600 now pardoned criminal Jan6 cases including against Trump, and watched in horror as he pardoned them all, are ready to issue injunctions against Trump’s insane Executive Orders, as he breaks down the 32 cases and the strategy behind them. Honey Love: Get 20% Off your entire order with our exclusive link: https://honeylove.com/LEGALAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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at visitcalifornia.com. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for total fund savings adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. It's time for the revenge of the DC federal judges against Donald Trump's administration. They're still smarting from the Jan 6th pardons, and they're the judges who by and large are going to be making the decisions against Donald Trump effectively for his executive orders that are unconstitutional and illegal.

It's time for the revenge of the federal judges in the District of Columbia. I'm Michael Popock. I'm gonna do a dive into the 32 cases that have already been filed against the Trump administration in just two weeks and one day. That by my math and I'm no math major, that's more than two lawsuits a day already in this administration and and rule of law is winning with three temporary restraining orders of those 32 cases. 15 are in the District of Columbia.

I'll tell you why that matters. You're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. Let's do a deep dive. I joked early on, starting in Jan 20, that we were going to see at least, at least three to four times as many lawsuits filed against the Trump administration as in his first term. There were over a thousand cases filed in his first term and the attorneys general and public interest groups back then had an 80% winning percentage. Now I said because of Donald Trump and his grand schemes

that are insane, or as Chris Murphy, the Democratic Senator put it, he's losing it, and therefore creating a pariah state out of the United States around the world, that we were gonna see three to four times that amount. And if we do the math on that, that meant somewhere between three to four lawsuits a day, every day until the end of his administration.

We're already getting there, right? That glass is already half full with 32 lawsuits. I'm gonna go over broadly those lawsuits. I'm gonna tell you about the revenge of the DC federal judges, because 15 out of 32 of those cases are before them. All those judges that either handled cases involving Donald Trump or the Jan six insurrectionist.

Remember more than a 1600 cases went through one courthouse. I mean, it was unprecedented. It was the largest investigation and prosecution operation of the FBI and the department of justice in our history. Uh, and where, what judges handled? One courthouse, one place, District of Columbia. Every judge in the District of Columbia handled multiple dozens of Gen 6 cases. They did it from bench trials where they handled the trial themselves. They did it from presiding over jury trials. They did the sentencing and they dealt with the aftermath of the pardons. None of them were happy about the pardons, right?

There was no MAGA DC federal judge that was excited about the pardons. All of them objected to them and felt it was against the rule of law, sent a terrible message and was an insult and disrespect to the jury process and to the judges. Yeah.

And so now they're the same judges in these civil cases. Remember, these are civil, not criminal cases that are being brought against Donald Trump's executive orders. He only issued about 30 of them. He's already got 32 lawsuits. Multiple lawsuits being filed by public interest groups. Democracy Forward with Norm Eisen, the ACLU, the NAACP,

22 different states and their attorneys general, all bringing cases around the country, but primarily in the District of Columbia. I'll talk about the other places cases have been filed and their common denominator. The common denominator among all 32 is that they're a democratic and rule of law friendly jurisdictions.

I never thought I'd have to call a federal court a rule of law friendly. Shouldn't they all be rule of law friendly? But they're not. And so strategically, tactically, the Democrats and other progressives that are bringing these lawsuits and winning, and winning three temporary restraining orders already. We'll be getting temporary restraining orders by the day.

Actually, sorry, four temporary restraining orders because one came in late last night with Judge Lamberth in the District of Columbia about housing men who transition to transgender women being housed in prisons with men. That's now stopped by temporary restraining orders. So we have four restraining orders out of 32 cases with more to come. Some class action, some direct action, some seeking temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions, some not seeking it,

some seeking declarations or money damages. Depends on the type of case. Some seeking temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions. Some not seeking it. Some seeking declarations or money damages. Depends on the type of case. Let's look at the 32 cases. The common denominator, rule of law, favorable judges in states along the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest and staying away from red states. Okay. And red state appellate courts, 32 lawsuits. Let's go. Birthright citizenship. That was the first executive order that was challenged.

Many of these lawsuits were filed on January 20th, the day of the inauguration and the first day in office for Donald Trump, first day on the job. Uh, and some just days later, all the way up and through, as I said, on the job and some just days later all the way up and through as I said yesterday and today. We have seven different cases filed on birthright citizenship. Listen to the states, New Hampshire, two in Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington and Washington state, Northern California and DC. And you know for instance in DC the federal judge is Emmett Sullivan, senior status judge, very not in favor of Donald Trump. We already have a temporary restraining order issued by Judge Kofenor in Seattle, Washington, stopping birthright citizenship,

while New Hampshire looks at the same issue. But there are seven cases. The reason? It's a portfolio method, you first of all, these are different groups representing different interests. Some are attorneys general, some in the case of birthright citizenship are actual people who are here with babies who were born on US soil that are now being denied US citizenship. You flood the zone, you file seven cases, you hope to get a number of really good cases and whoever gives you the best decision, you rally behind that judge. It is forum shopping and I don't care. This is the way it works. So right now I

think we're gonna go 7-0 in those cases. If you only filed one case and you got a crappy judge, a crappy rule and you're stuck with it, file seven cases, you got seven different decisions. Sanctuary cities and Donald Trump's efforts to go after sanctuary cities. This is under immigration. And immigration alone, about sanctuary cities, about chasing undocumented through churches

and schools in raids, whether that's legal or not, going after the closing of the website to schedule appointments on the southern border. There are six different cases against various aspects of Donald Trump's immigration policy by executive order. We've got four of them in the District of Columbia, right? Back to my majority in District of Columbia. One in the Northern District of Illinois, one in Maryland.

And yeah, now let's go on to issues related to Donald Trump trying to fire civil servants under Schedule F or otherwise. There are three of those cases. Two are in the District of Columbia, one is in Maryland. A tax on Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. Either him trying to get into, he's already done it, get into the Bureau of Financial Services, which handles $5 trillion worth of payments, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, disability, food stamps, student loans, everything that the federal government pays to its citizens who have earned it. I used the term last night in PO-POK Live, which we've always referred to it

in shorthand as entitlements. Entitlements doesn't mean like you feel like you're entitled, like a Snowflake Gen Z thing. It means you're entitled to it, you've earned it. That's why that term came up. And whatever you call it, it's those benefits that are paid out by Congress allocation that Elon Musk has thrown his hands in, gotten control of the software, turned over to him by the Treasury Secretary,

Steve Bessent, all in violation of law. All in violation of the Constitution, the Appropriations Act, Separation of Powers Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First Amendment, you name it. So we've got Doge Elon Musk suits. He's hooked up to the Office of Personnel Management. He's sending out emails about deleting this agency, like USAID, deleting these people, deleting this DEI or this woke agency, all illegally hooking up to a server

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Treat yourself to the best bras and shapewear on the market and save 20% off at honeylove.com slash legal AF. Thank you so much for supporting our show, Honey Love. So there are five different lawsuits against Elon Musk and Donald Trump as a result, all in the District of Columbia about the attempted impoundment of federal funds, the freezing of funds to states for state-run programs

to help the impoverished, the underprivileged, and the rest, and not-for-profit grants that go to not-for-profit organizations that do the lion's share of helping the poor and the working poor in this country, cutting off that funding, that resulted in a case in Rhode Island and a case in the District of Columbia and two TROs.

Then on, pardon me, on transgender issues, we've got three cases in the District of Columbia and one in Maryland. In the District of Columbia case, Royce Lamberth, a Republican-appointed judge in District of Columbia just last night, issued a temporary restraining order to stop Donald Trump from having his Bureau of Prisons take transgender women and put them in male prisons. How well do you think that's gonna go before somebody is murdered, raped, both or worse

in a male prison, as opposed to housing them with their gender identity, which is, and of course cutting off their gender-affirming care. So things related to transgender and gender affirming care, cutting off teenagers who are in midst of transition from medical care, cutting and doing this, just basically wanting to kill an entire population of transgender prisoners.

As completely, not only arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act, but inhumane, right? As inhumane as that is, as a constitutional violation against due process, against civil liberties and civil rights, three cases in the District of Columbia, one case in Maryland. So when you total it all up, 15 cases in DC.

Now let's talk about that. Firstly, the reason, the common denominator, as I said, these are all fair-minded, moderate to democratic strongholds. That's why these cases are being filed there. And they report into appellate courts that we have confidence in. The Ninth Circuit, which although got a little Trumpy

during his first term, is now basically on balance still more Democrat than Republican. So you've got the Ninth Circuit covering Washington, Oregon and California. You've got the First Circuit, which covers like Upper New England, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, that type of thing. Then you've got the First, dropped down to New York. You've got the Second Circuit, which covers that area. The Third Circuit, which covers New Jersey and Connecticut,

that type of thing. And Maryland. Then you've got the District of Columbia. And it has its own appellate court. And that's where we're living. We're living in the Ninth, the First, the Second, the Third, the Fourth, the DCs. We're staying away the ninth, the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the DCs, right? We're staying away from the Fifth Circuit out of Louisiana and Texas, the Eleventh Circuit

out of Georgia and Florida. We're staying away from the red state strongholds because not only are those appellate courts favorable to us, but the Supreme Court justices responsible for those repellent courts are also the democratically appointed ones. So that's the first step in the train on appeal and most of these cases are going to be attempted to go to the United States Supreme Court. They won't all be successful. Supreme Court takes 60. All right, let's make it 70 this term. Cases, that's it. Out of thousands and thousands that are filed, as you can see. Now, here's the revenge element of the hot take.

Every one of these cases will touch on the District of Columbia in one way or the other, through multiple filings or because exclusively in the District of Columbia. Those are the same judges that watched with horror Jan 6th happen in real time, as in Washington, the immediate arraignment of the Jan 6th insurrectionist, the investigation by the special counsel, what happened to Tanya Chutkin,

the judge presiding over the DC election interference case, and they all had shock and horror over what they watched that the Department of Justice presented in terms of the violence and the carnage on Jan 6th, that they presided over, that they heard in evidence as the trier of fact in a bench trial or presided over in a jury trial and handled the sentencing of it. And were in horror and in shock when the pardons happened and said it was wrong out loud and are still resisting.

They're still resisting. There are still judges that are handling issues related to Jan 6th insurrectionists. And what are they doing about it? They're saying things like, well, you're still on probation or I'm dismissing the indictment, but only without prejudice. Maybe another department of justice will indict you again. And that's how they're doing their profile and courage. So I'm telling you now, watch for the DC federal courts that have an axe to grind against Donald

Trump and they're going to take it out on him now with his executive orders. And if 20 or 25 or so executive orders resulted in 32 cases, you can do the math. Now Donald Trump's been sort of slowing down on his executive orders, but there's going to be more to come. And it's these courts, the ones I've already outlined for you, and the judges I've already outlined for you. Ali Khan in DC, Coffinor in Seattle, McConnell in Rhode Island, and wait till Judge Chutkin in DC gets assigned her case, Emmett Sullivan in the District of Columbia, Amy Berman Jackson

in the District of Columbia, Amy Berman Jackson in the District of Columbia, Amit Mehta. These are the people that preside, Amit Mehta presided over the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Proud Boys leader got 22 years before he was pardoned by Donald Trump. Oath Keeper 18 years before he was pardoned by Donald Trump. You don't think Amit Mehta's ready

to take on executive orders? And this is our dream. I mean it's a nightmare. But the silver lining of the nightmare is that Donald Trump can only rule by executive order. And that is where we get him because these executive orders violate the Constitution. They violate the 14th Amendment. They violate due process. They violate the First Amendment. They violate the Administrative Procedures Act or all five of those things at the same time.

And the Supreme Court, as much as they bent over backwards to help a criminal president and the criminal side, hate executive orders. It's the least enforced item that a president can do because they look to Congress for law, right, about appropriations, about funding, about immigration, big major issues, they look to Congress. They don't like presidents issuing executive orders and acting like they're legislators.

So we will see. Not all of these cases I've just described are gonna get up to the Supreme Court. Some of them, the final ruling is gonna be at the appellate level just before the Supreme Court and that's what we're banking on also. Because the Supreme Court doesn't, is not going to take, you know, the 4,000 cases ultimately they're going to be filed against the Trump administration by all these groups. Maybe over the course of four years, maybe they'll take 200 cases.

Maybe. The rest, the last word is going to be these appellate courts. The Ninth Circuit, the First Circuit, the Second Circuit, the Third Circuit, the last word is gonna be these appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit, the First Circuit, the Second Circuit, the Third Circuit, the D.C. Court of Appeals. And we're here for it. Join Legal AF, the YouTube channel right now. Right now. You've got, if we're doing two to three cases a day,

you gotta go there for the unpacking, for the unveiling, for the analysis and the commentary. Legal AF, MTN. Free subscribe over there and watch my work here on the Midas Touch Network. POPOC Live Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. Eastern time right here on this YouTube channel. New podcast, Wednesdays and Saturdays. It's Legal AF, the podcast channel, or the YouTube channel for the podcast and audio podcast platforms of your choice. And then all the work we're doing over eight, nine, 10 times a day on Legal AF. So until my next reporting, this is Michael Popak. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help

us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at LegalAFMTN. That's at LegalAFMTN. Bet MGM is an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League and has your back all season long. From puck drop to the final shot, you're always taken care of with the sports book Born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with Bet MGM. And no matter your team,

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