Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Supreme Court Strikes Again with Major Ruling on Trump

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

In breaking news, Chief Justice Roberts has issued a stay of a federal judge’s order requiring that by midnight, KILMAR Armando Abrego Garcia be flown back to the US from his El Salvador prison cell having been sent there illegally by the Trump Administration, and has set a very fast briefing schedule to make a final decision. Michael Popok explains how we got here in this fast-moving story that includes 2 trial court decisions, a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, and a Supreme Court stay all in 48 hours. IQBAR: Get 20% off all IQBAR products. Text LEGALAF to 64000. (Message and data rates may apply) 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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Oh, right! Prague! Oh, boy. Choose from a world of destinations, if you can. Air Canada. Nice travels. We've got breaking news. Chief Justice Roberts of the United States Supreme Court, as I expected, issued just moments ago a stay blocking the order of Judge Zinnes in Maryland, requiring that the U.S. government and the Trump administration return to the United States,

Mr. Abrego Garcia, who they illegally deported in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights, without notice, without due process, in violation of an immigration lawyer's order that he remain in the country and not be deported to El Salvador. The Trump administration doesn't have to go through the Kabuki theater performative art piece of acting like they're complying because at least for now, until

he's done with full briefing on the matter, Chief Justice Roberts, as they usually do, issued an administrative stay. And this is a block of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals 3-0 ruling this morning that was against the Trump administration in support of Judge Zinnis and ultimately Judge Zinnis' order. Let me break it down for you. The only way I know how and the only place I know where.

The Midas Touch Network. Let's dive right in. So on Friday, Judge Zinnis, after having a hearing, determined that she would issue a preliminary injunction requiring the Trump administration based on the evidence based on the confession by the Department of Justice lawyer Mr. Rouvini who's no longer apparently with the Department of Justice who told the truth when asked that Mr. Brego Garcia was deported over an order that the government knew about and they still put

him on that plane without due process and sent him to El Salvador. The government then said, we can't get him back, you can't order us to get him back. You don't have jurisdiction. He's already in El Salvador. It's a delicate negotiation process.

And the judge says, you haven't shown me that you do not have the power as a government having offloaded him to El Salvador to get him back. In other words, Trump, pick up the phone, call President Bukele, tell them they got to spring one guy from jail and bring him back. That went up after Friday when the Trump administration lost. They then asked Judge Zinnis to stay her order to allow them to take an

appeal. She refused on a Saturday, just this past Saturday, a Saturday order in which she said, you've already confessed to an illegal act of violating this person's Fifth Amendment rights and a court order and an order of preventing removal to El Salvador. What else is there to say? You say, I don't have jurisdiction. I say, I do. Federal courts have jurisdiction to oversee this. You say, it has to be done through a certain type of writ of habeas corpus. I disagree with you. I have the inherent authority to review this matter. You say you can't, you don't have the power to get them back. I say you do and you haven't provided any evidence that you can't make a phone call and make this guy come back. At the same time while she was ruling against them on

Saturday on the motion for stay, they filed a motion, sorry, an appeal with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals which sits over Maryland. Three judge panel spent all weekend, not a lot of time, and this morning on Monday ruled against the Trump administration again. Three-zero. In which many of the judges expressed concern that the Fifth Amendment rights of this of this person was violated, Mr. Abrego Garcia, and that the position of the Trump administration was unconscionable to argue that you can deport somebody, pick them up off the street in the middle of the night, kidnap them without notice, no due process, and send them to El Salvador and then claim you can't get them back is

unconscionable, the very definition of shocking the consciousness. That was this morning with a 3-0 ruling. Trump didn't wait around for the results of the 3-0 ruling. He had his new Solicitor General, John Sauer, who you may remember was Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyer, appellate lawyer, who argued at the United States Supreme Court, who got him sprung from all of his indictments based on the immunity decision, that John Sauer, he just got confirmed a couple of days ago. He just wrote his first brief.

And in the brief, he does two major things. He attacks federal judges. That's just political hackism. He spends half the time claiming that this is another in a long line of unprecedented injunctions against the executive branch. I can't believe it. It's always these judges and these courts. You mean all courts?

I mean, Donald Trump has had 60 or 70 injunctions against him. He's got 150 lawsuits against him. The injunctions have come everywhere from Oregon to Washington to Maryland to Rhode Island to Massachusetts to New York to D.C. I mean, they're all over the country. They're just not in red states, apparently. I guess that's what Sauer meant to say, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. So first is an attack on federal courts and federal judges. And then it's like, this is about foreign diplomacy. This is about treaties and the delicate negotiations of the executive branch. No, it's not. It's about

illegal use of war powers to deport somebody. And in this one particular case, a confession that had violated his Fifth Amendment rights and an order of another judge, which of course, in 30 pages filed by Sauer, there's one line, one line about, well of course it was administrative error. An administrative error, another judge on the Fourth Circuit, even though he voted in favor of Mr. Ibrigo Garcia, he said, somebody screwed up.

Yeah, it's a constitutional screw up. I guess that's what you could call it if you're trying to minimize it and downplay it. I think it's of epic proportion, but that's just me. It's pretty straightforward. So Sauer then spends the rest of the time lying about a Briego Garcia. He calls him, because he can't bring himself to humanize him,

he calls him the alien. The alien, the alien is a member of the MS-13 gang in El humanize him, he calls him the alien. The alien, the alien, is a member of the MS-13 gang in El Salvador. No, he's not. There's no record of that. There's no record of that developed below with Judge Zennis. In fact, quite the opposite. If you're going to take judicial notice of the record developed by the immigration judge, he's not a member of MS-13. His parents run a very successful business that MS-13 wanted to shake down. And as part of the shake down in El Salvador,

they like kidnapped Abrego Garcia and forced them into gang duty. That's not the same thing of he's a leader of MS-13, is it? This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack sponsor. IQ Bar is the better for you plant protein based snacks made with brain boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash. IQ Bar is totally free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial sweeteners

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that support sustained cognitive performance. And right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ Bar products plus get free shipping. To get your 20% off text LegalAF to 64,000. Text LegalAF to 64,000. That's LegalAF to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. The guy has a green card. He's married to a US citizen. He has a baby. He's fine to a US citizen. He has a baby He's he's fine. You know what he was doing when they picked him up. He was in the Ikea parking lot looking for work

He was one of those day laborers looking for work and ice came along Oh, we oh, I don't know what your status was but get get in the back of the van We're putting you on a plane of Texas. You're going back to El Salvador. We who? Except we got a little thing called the Constitution and Fifth Amendment rights. Yeah? They're not arguing in this case about releasing Abrego Garcia from detention. They just want him back in the United States. They just want him expatriated from El Salvador where he had an order of protection not to be returned to under certain death.

You don't think people in that jail in El Salvador know who he is? You think they're trying to protect him? This is a jail system, a penal system in El Salvador where it's been reported by outside agencies that look at these things like humanitarian violations and UN violations within El Salvador that when they beat a prisoner to death, they take the rotting body and stick it with the live prisoners in jail. Is that a good place to be right now?

So again, you've got Roberts who doesn't care about the human dimension. Let him stay there a few more days. So he's issued an administrative stay. What does that mean? That means that from now until they get the full briefing and until further notice, the order of Judge Zinnis requiring a Brego Garcia to come back to this country is in a state

of suspended animation. Now, an administrative stay, let me just kind of manage expectations here. An administrative stay does not mean that the court has already ruled on the merits or that even John Roberts has ruled or that even John Roberts believes that at the end of the day he's not going to rule in favor of Abrego Garcia and he set a very very quick briefing schedule which indicates to me they're going to rule very quickly. So he gave Abrego Garcia's lawyers until 5 o'clock tomorrow in the order to file their brief. In this kind of case there's two briefs that's it. There's no oral argument, there's no hearing. Trump

filed his brief the 30 pages with John Sauer, and the other side saw it. They get to respond by tomorrow at five o'clock Eastern time. And that's it. And the fact that on Tuesday they asked for the final brief, we're going to see a ruling Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday-ish. I think it's going to be a this week event. In the meantime, Abrego Garcia is stuck in El Salvador where he does not belong.

And the question for this United States Supreme Court is going to be what kind of country do we live in? Do we live in a country where a person can get kidnapped off the street without notice or due process with no lawyer and without having any ability to confront his accuser, or have a court, or have evidence against him, to prove the case against him,

against his Fifth Amendment privilege, he can be boarded onto a plane and sent to another country. A country, particularly, that he had an order of protection to avoid. What country do we live in? That's the answer for the United States. Now, if it gives you any sense of a little bit of hope, I'm not completely at a loss thinking that Roberts is going to side with Trump. I'll tell you why. About three weeks ago, we reported on another case, a

five to four decision that went against the Trump administration, in which Judge Ali in DC issued an order requiring US aid, which is now out of business. It was an agency that was an arm of the State Department that made humanitarian aid around the world as an act of diplomacy and business development for the United States. Donald Trump and Doge Musk decided, I don't know,

are there black and brown people on the other side of those dollars? Yes, let's end it. Let's end it. Even though US jobs are on the charity side. The Judge Ali ordered that the $2 billion with a B, billion, be paid for incurred debt for services and goods already rendered and supplied. We thought, oh, here we go. Appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Roberts issues a stay administrative and sets a briefing schedule. I think he gave about two more days on that one. We

were like, well, I don't know. He stayed it. Let's see what happens. They usually say it's not indicative of his position, but he's gonna stay it. When the dust settled, Roberts sided with the liberal wing, if you will, the moderate wing of the court, five to four with Amy Coney Barrett and forced the two billion to be paid over a vehement objection by Alito. So that could happen again here. Again, this is going to be a five to four decision.

I'd be shocked if it's six to three. I would eat my hat if it's seven to two or anything higher. Because already baked in, Donald Trump has in his back pockets Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and probably Kavanaugh, that's four. The question is, as it is every time I'm doing a Supreme Court decision about the presidential power here and the checks and balance against it,

Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts, if they flip and side with the other side, it's gonna be five to four. If they flip inside with the other side, it's gonna be five to four. If they split and one goes one way and one goes the other, it's gonna be five to four the other way. That's it. That's the way this is gonna be. The moderates need Roberts and both Roberts

and Amy Coney Barrett. They gotta run the table. The MAGA only need one of the two. And this is our dilemma in trying to restrain and check and balance somebody like Donald Trump. I'll follow it all. We'll get the briefing tomorrow. Come back here tomorrow. We'll give you the update and I'll do it on PO-POK Live, my new podcast on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. on the Midas Touch Network. So until my next briefing, this is Michael Popok at the intersection of law and politics. and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN. That's at Legal AF MTN.