Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Supreme Court Makes Major Ruling on Trump Operation

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Trump just suffered his 4th loss in a row at the US Supreme Court, this time another 7-2 ruling that prevents Trump from continuing to fly undocumented people to foreign prisons without proper due process, and before the Supreme Court can ultimately rule on whether he is properly using power under the Alien Enemies Act.  Michael Popok ties the last 4 losses together, and explains how this one mirrors the 1 AM ruling a month ago in the 7 justices and the 2 dissents (led of course by Alito). Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! 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

Strap in, we got a brand new ruling by the United States Supreme Court against the Trump administration Reviving their seven to two majority to stop Donald Trump at least for now for continuing to deport people to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act and particularly because he didn't give proper notice to those people that were affected like all the people that were loaded into planes in the middle of the night that the Supreme Court and the same 7-2 majority stopped four weeks ago at one o'clock in the morning. Remember we did that breathless analysis about the Supreme Court just issued a 1252 AM decision to stop the planes? Well now we've got the final ruling and it is still the same seven to two majority with Alito and Thomas in opposition, in dissent.

But wait till I tell you what they have found and how they have taken the government of Donald Trump to task because of their secretive, furtive behavior to try to load people into planes even while federal courts were still trying to figure things out. They also spent time chastising the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, saying the Fifth Circuit was wrong to deny their appeal, to deny the emergency application for an injunction. The only reason the Supreme Court had to step in at at midnight is because the Fifth Circuit failed to do its job, punted and said we have no jurisdiction, punted and said, the trial court was only given 42 minutes, 42 minutes. The planes are fueling, wheels are about to be up.

And this Supreme Court seven to two also looked Donald Trump in the eye and said, we know what you're saying about Abrego Garcia bringing that case into this. We know you're saying you can't get somebody back from El Salvador and you're not bringing them back and we don't want to have another problem where you're sending people to the dark gulags of El Salvador, my words, and you're gonna claim you can't get them back. I'm Michael Popak. We got you back. You're here on the Midas Touch Network. Let's jump into this decision. The case is

technically AARP versus Donald J. Trump. It's the same case we reported on about the 1 a.m. decision that Alito and Thomas didn't like back then. What's the issue? The issue is the American Civil Liberties Union representing a group of other Venezuelans that haven't already been deported to El Salvador. Remember, there's 250 plus Abrego Garcia who are still sitting in El Salvador.

We have another separate judge in DC, Judge Boesberg, who has a hearing about the fate and the plight of those people. And this ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union, ran to basically two courts, ran to a Texas judge, and ran to Boesberg in a breathless attempt, you know, to pull out all the stops to try to get some judge

that was issuing an injunction. Boasberg felt he didn't have the jurisdiction over that particular issue. The judge in Texas was sort of, well, I trust Donald Trump in the administration. You trust them? Yeah, I don't think they'll deport while I'm considering the issue.

Well, that's BS. So when they didn't get the temporary restraining order out of the Texas judge, they went to the Fifth Circuit. Fifth Circuit said, you didn't give the Texas judge enough time. We don't have jurisdiction. And the Supreme Court now said, no, that's not what you're supposed to do

as an appellate court in review. When you see what's happening, real lives are at risk. You're supposed to step in and protect them. And that's why we had to step in as a Supreme Court. You can see a little bit of orderiness by the Supreme Court. You turned us in to a lower level appellate court when we didn't want to be. Let me read to you from the actual order.

Let's start from the final pages and work backwards. Here's the actual ruling. And then we'll talk about how they got there. The application for an adjunction pending further proceedings is granted, meaning these planes are grounded for these particular people in the Texas area, and everybody in a class action as certified, the putative class,

they're not going anywhere while the proper appeal percolates through the appellate process. Additionally, applicants suggested this court treat the application as a petition for writ of certiorari. Doing so, the petition is granted, meaning they're now going to make a decision at the Supreme Court level whether the Alien Enemies Act was properly invoked or not by Donald Trump. They make it clear that by granting this particular decision, they haven't ruled on the merits, but they've grounded the planes in the meantime.

You see where this is going. They're vacating the judgment of the Fifth Circuit. In resolving the detainee's appeal, here's the instructions and the wrap on the knuckles to the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit should address all the normal preliminary injunction factors. In other words, they're sending it back to the Fifth Circuit to go through the factors for an injunction, including likelihood of success on the merits, as the named plaintiffs underlining habeas corpus claims that the AEA, Alien Enemies

Act, does not authorize their removal pursuant to the president's proclamation. In other words, get to the heart of the matter. Get to the substance expeditiously about the Alien Enemies Act so we can have it brought back up to us at the Supreme Court. The issue of what notice is due as to the putative class's due process claims

against summary removal is also up for grabs. The court, Supreme Court, didn't like the 24 hours or one day notice that the government gave these detainees before they were gonna load them onto planes. Should the petition for writ of certiorari be denied, this order shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition is granted,

the order shall terminate upon sending down of the judgment of this course. So in other words, the court's now gonna get involved, the Fifth Circuit's gonna do some actions as well, Supreme Court's gonna make a ruling if they grant the writ of certiorari, meaning the formal petition to the United States Supreme Court to be heard,

they will keep the stay in place, this new order. If they deny it, they'll send it back to the Fifth Circuit with instructions. Let's get to the headlines here. Let's put it in context. Supreme Court just heard on bank all nine, just yesterday, an oral argument about Donald Trump and nationwide injunctions

and whether they should be class actions and birthright citizenship. And we did a lot of davening over, oh, she said this and this one said that and wasn't Justice Kaken brilliant and all of that. That's all true. But they are also finishing and putting the finishing touches

on their per curiam decision and on Alito and Thomas' dissent. That's why it's seven to two. But listen to their findings. Just the way they recite what happened. On April 17th, 2025, on page one, the district court, the trial court, denied the detainees motion for a TRO.

The detainees alleged that hours later, putative class members were served with notice of their removal by the government and told that they would be removed tonight or tomorrow. Supreme court has a problem with how short notice they were given. So the detainees then moved a day later for an emergency TRO at midnight on April 18th.

14 minutes later, they moved for a ruling on their motion for out of status conference. The same day at 3.02, they appealed their emergency motion to the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit denied it saying, you didn't give the trial judge enough time. This is what the Supreme Court had to say about that. We understood the government to assert the right to remove the detainees

as soon as midnight central time on the 19th. The government guaranteed that no putative class members would be removed that day. But, this is on page two, it further represented that in its view removal of class members as soon as the next day would be consistent with its due process obligations, a point the Supreme Court obviously does not agree with. Evidence now in the record, although not all before us on the 18th of April, suggests that the government had in fact taken steps on the afternoon of April 18th

toward removing the detainees under the Alien Enemies Act, including transporting them to an detention facility, to an airport, and later returning them to the facility. Had the detainees been removed from the United States to the custody of a foreign sovereign on April 19, the government may have argued, as it has previously argued, that no U.S. court had jurisdiction to order relief, citing the Obrego Garcia case. The Fifth Circuit dismissed the detainees' appeal for lack of jurisdiction because the district court was only given, the district court was only given, the lower court was only given 42 minutes.

We now construe the application as a petition for rid of Sir Sherrari from the decision of the Fifth Circuit. We grant the petition as well as the application for injunction pending what the Fifth Circuit does next. Here's the chastising of the Fifth Circuit on page three. The Fifth Circuit, the Supreme Court ruled, erred in dismissing the detainees' appeal

for lack of jurisdiction. Appeal courts have jurisdiction to review interlocutory orders that have the practical effect of refusing an injunction. Here, the district court's inaction, and so now they're wrapping the knuckles of the district court. Not for 42 minutes, but for 14 hours and 28 minutes had the practical effect of refusing an injunction to detainees

Facing an imminent threat of severe irreparable harm accordingly. We vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals They are the Fifth Circuit should should have provided the the Aliens they call them to do process of law in the context of removal, citing the JGG case, which just came out two months ago, six to three against, well, really against the Trump administration. Now, they then talk about the underlying subject matter of the Alien Enemies Act.

And again, they throw in language to, and this is the part I'm sure Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, it's the only thing they're gonna read in this decision that's totally against them, seven to two. It says on page five, we recognize the significance of the government's national security interests, as well as the necessity that such interests be pursued in a manner consistent with the Constitution.

In light of the foregoing, lower court should address the Alien Enemies Act case expeditiously." In other words, get on your horses trial court and get to the matter and the nub of the matter of the Alien Enemies Act and bring it back to us for final decision. So what is this decision? This decision is they're keeping in place the injunction for now while they consider a certain appellate aspects of the case for the people that are already here, still in Texas and in other places. This is gonna be the case

that's gonna keep these people in this country to make sure that the writ of habeas corpus is preserved and the fifth amendment due process rights are protected. People that are already gone, this is not applied to. That's a separate case. The 250 that are rotting in El Salvador, that's before Judge Boesberg, a whole different case. But we're building through Trump a series

of really bad law for him and good law in due process that are gonna be used sequentially against the Trump administration. This is the AARP case. We've got the JGG case. We've got the Abrego Garcia case. You put those three cases together, it stands for the proposition

that these people cannot be removed unless habeas corpus is provided to them by petition and to process rights, including notice, insufficient notice in Spanish through an appeal with a lawyer, with a judge in the middle. And don't start flying people off and wheels up until we say so. That's the synthesis of all of those cases.

Now, of course, because we saw it already before, Kavanaugh did a concurrence, that's okay. That's seven to two. Alito, almost identical to what he wrote the last time at one o'clock in the morning when he objected then, because they want to send all these people off and let them rot in a foreign prison without due

process rights. It's the no-brights club, as somebody on the Midas Dutch network snarkily referred to it. They're all hung up on jurisdiction. The Fifth Circuit was right. They didn't have appellate jurisdiction. We don't have jurisdiction because the planes hadn't yet, they weren't on the runway. They weren't cleared for takeoff, you know, the seats weren't in an upright position or whatever,

they hadn't tossed peanuts to them on the plane. It is ridiculous. And the procurium takes it on and says, we don't even understand your analysis. This is what he says at the beginning, it's really all that it's worth because he was in the loser side. Alito writes on page one of his dissent,

"'I cannot join the decision of the court. "'First and most important, we lack jurisdiction "'and have no authority to issue relief. "'Second, even if we had authority, "'the applicants have not satisfied their requirements "'for injunctive relief.'" Why, their harm is not irreparable enough? Dying in a prison in El Salvador doesn't do it for you, Sam.

Third, granting certiorari before any decision on the merits is unwarranted. This is all standing on Ps and Qs while innocent people, or at least people without due process rights, die. What does it mean? It means we're waiting on about 30 different decisions from the United States Supreme Court. This one right on cue.

There was a reason why they grounded those plays a month ago, and there's a reason why they're grounding them today. To process Fifth Amendment rights, even if Donald Trump can't figure out what that means, the Supreme Court knows what it means. And Donald Trump has been pressing a losing hand when it comes to immigration and deportation and removal

for the last two months. He loses almost every time in court. He's on a losing streak of epic proportion. He's losing at the appellate courts and he's lost at the Supreme Court. This is now the fourth Supreme Court decision against him on issues like this or similar to this, right? We've got two at seven to two,

one at six to three and one nine zero, right? Two seven to two decisions in the AARP case, one six to three decision in the JGG case, one nine zero decision in the Abrego Garcia case. I mean, nothing says I'm a loser like four in a row from the Supreme Court. That doesn't mean they're not gonna side with him on other items.

It just means in this area, Donald Trump is dead wrong and so is his Department of Justice. We'll continue to follow it. Thanks for being part of the Midas Touch Network. We got three of our podcasts that ended up in the top 100 in the new YouTube rankings, and that's all because of you. Thanks for being here. Come on over to Legal AF and subscribe there as well. I'm Michael Popak. Till my next report. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF and subscribe there as well. I'm Michael Popock. Till my next report.