Legal AF by MeidasTouch - The Extremist Supreme Court Overturning Roe, Twitter Beats Trump, and More!

Episode Date: May 8, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look in “real time” at this week’s most consequential developments. This week Ben and Popok discuss and analyze: 1. The Supreme Court’s vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and 50 years of constitutional protection of a woman’s right to choose and what it means for the future. 2. A ruling and decision to find that Marjorie Taylor Greene was not an “insurrectionist” as that term is used in US Constitution, and will be on the ballot for re-election. 3. The guilty plea of a third Oath Keeper for seditious conspiracy and how his future testimony may connect Stewart Rhodes directly to Donald Trump. 4. The Supreme Court ruling 9-0 that Boston’s refusal to allow a Christian group to fly its flag over the statehouse on one of its 3 flagpoles violates the First Amendment, and a few days later the Satanic Temple applying to fly its flag in Boston too. 5. A Federal Judge dismissing Trump’s efforts to get back on Twitter and finding that Twitter “de-platforming” Trump did not violate the First Amendment because Twitter is not the government. And so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1 by Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/legalaf Smith.AI -- Work uninterrupted, run your business with less stress, and get more leads from your marketing efforts. Save $100 when you sign up using promo code "LegalAF" at https://www.smith.ai Policygenius: https://Policygenius.com/LegalAF Join the Legal AF Twitter Community:  https://twitter.com/i/communities/1518253662920974338 Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/161269101 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The administrative law judge in Georgia rules that Marjorie Taylor Greene will not be disqualified from the ballot. We told you that was going to happen. A draft opinion overturning Roby Wade has leaked. Didn't predict the leak, but we told you that opinion was coming another insurrectionist pleads guilty to conspiracy Sedition seditious conspiracy we told you again This was going to happen a federal judge in San Francisco rules against Trump in his lawsuit against Twitter is ridiculous Law suit against Twitter. We told you this would happen and And it's a tannic temple asks Boston to fly a flag

after recent Supreme Court ruling. Again, well, no, we did not predict that that one would happen. Welcome to legal AF, Ben Myceles and Michael Popok breaking down all of the key legal cases, key legal issues, key legal news, the most consequential legal issues impacting your life, great to be on the pod with you. Popuck. YouTube, huh? This is, this one's good. I, I like the fact we're keeping it tight in terms of topics so we can drill down harder. And I'm glad we're just not going to say told you so.

For every one of these topics, we have valuable contributions that we can add, but we did after 63 episodes, our loyal legal AF audience knows that we have a pretty good track record to give them a prediction of what's going to happen in these cases, except for the Satan temple flying thing, which is all new to us two days after the Supreme Court ruled about first amendment speech. We'll get to that at some points tonight. Well, let's get right into it right away. Let's talk about that satanic temple. So here's the thing about the satanic temple when you really drill into it. The satanic temple is different than the satanic church. Did you know that?

I saw that quote that we do not worship Satan. We are a non-theist, non-dirty, based religion. I don't know how they can get away with that with the name Satan in their title, but that's freedom of speech. Exactly. So basically what this group is is that their religion is to actually be tolerant of all speech, all religions, make no discrimination against any type of speech. And so what they basically do, what this group does, what their religion really is, is that when people representing, the, you know, whether it's a radical right kind of religious

group or whatever, when they petition to have their, you know, cross or their religious symbol flown in a public forum, basically what the satanic temple does, and they've been doing this for a long time now is, they then the satanic temple will then petition they've been doing this for a long time now is, they then, the satanic temple will then petition the municipalities and say, okay, well, if they're allowed to do it, you've now opened up the flood gates to everything,

and that's kind of how they use that satanic temple name. So, with this case relates to, is a situation in Boston, where Boston in this municipal area would allow flags to be flown. And some of the flags were like, the Boston flags, you know, there was like the state flag. And there was this one other flag that Boston and its infinite wisdom opened up to the public. They always had the third flagpole. The third flagpole. And Boston didn't, the city itself didn't really regulate other than to make sure that there was like openings on the calendar for people to just, you know,

go there and actually hang their own flags. But Boston didn't actually regulate the type of speech. And so all these, you know, any type of group that wanted, whether you were like a little league team, whether there was a far and dignitary coming into Boston from another country. Might as touch. Might as touch fly. Anyone could, anyone could fly their flag. And so what this group did, there was a Catholic group that came in and they wanted to fly the cross there. Was it a Catholic group or a Christian group they wanted? Yeah, it was a Christian group. There's a well-known flag that reflects Christian values. It's a cross on a blue field. They wanted to fly that on the third flagpole on the statehouse. The Christian group, petitions, and basically says, hey, we're coming in on this day. Then

the city of Boston, the person who's now overseeing the flag. So pretty much let all the other flags go in. But as I said, wait a minute, I'm a little worried now. I'm a little concerned, could this be violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment? And we've talked about the establishment clause and we've talked about the free exercise clause, both relating to religion and the first amendment, which says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. And so that basically establishes the separation of church or state, but also that the government can't then interfere with the practice of religion out, you know, and their exercise, basically a free speech. So that kind of came into

tension. There was this Supreme Court ruling, Pope, I'll let you tell people about this Supreme Court ruling in the case, shirt left versus city of Boston that came down on May 2nd, 2022. And then five days later, this satanic church group then comes in and says, well, if you're going to rule that, this other church group can fly their flag. We should be able to fly our flag too. Yeah, I like this case for many reasons. It just shows you the real world impact of the US Supreme Court, even though we'll talk

later about the voting to overturn Roe v Wade, in which in the draft majority opinion by Alito, he says at one point cavalierly and callously, it doesn't, we are not concerned with what happens in the world after we render our decision. I mean, seriously, he actually wrote that. Well, you know, two days or three days after they decided, and it was a 90 vote in shirt left versus the city of Boston. So everybody on the court believed that the way that the city of Boston was regulating the third flagpole,

and by denying the Christian group, having never in the history of the city of Boston ever denied anyone else or any other group the right to fly a flag. That was a viewpoint based discrimination that's illegal, unconstitutional under the First Amendment. And Breyer, one of his last, maybe his last opinion that he's going to be writing as he departs the court to be replaced by Katanji Brown-Jackson. He wrote the majority opinion which was joined by Sonia Sotomayor, Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett in the majority. All nine voted, and let's talk about this because we're going to talk about what a majority opinion is when we get down to the Roe versus Wade case. The majority 9-0 voted that Boston violated the Constitution and denying the right to

fly that flag to that Christian group. On the heels of the case we talked about last week about the kneeling, praying assistant football coach at midfield. Very similar analysis there viewpoint viewpoint based discrimination under the First Amendment and very similar analysis as as to the question of what is government speech because if it ain't government speech then it doesn't violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. So private speech does not violate the First Amendment. Just as we'll talk about in the Twitter case with Trump, Twitter doesn't violate the First

Amendment because they're not a governmental actor. So you have to first starting point for the analysis of this type of case, whether you're kneeling, praying, or flying a flag, is whether the speech is government speech and here and rather than private speech. speech is government speech and here and rather than private speech. All nine justices said under various tests and various analysis that flying that flag on the third flag Paul, given the fact the city had no policies in place, never rejected a prior flag request is not government speech. No one looking up at that poll, even though it's flying in a capital building or a state building believes that's an expression of the government of their position. And if the public doesn't believe

that, and that's what Breyer said, that it's really not government speech. Now, why was there so many opinions written? Because if our legal a furs go on and we'll post it in the legal a f Twitter community, there's literally four different opinions that have been written. The majority opinion is the decision of the court. And that's one that lawyers can rely on until they change the decision, you know, like they change their underwear with precedent. But right now, that's the majority opinion. Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence, but he joined the majority. He just wanted to make one distinguishing issue, which I think the satanic group used

three days later to apply for their application to fly the flag. Because Kavanaugh came out and said, you can't put religious groups on non-equal footing with secular groups. You have to put them on equal footing. And if you put them on equal footing, it's not an establishment clause or a separation of church and state problem. Of course, I think the state and satanic group picked that up right away. The others did not like Breyer's three-part test that he established about when something

is government speech and when it is it. So you have a concurrence by Alito. I'm good with the decision, but I don't like the analysis. You have a concurrence by Gorsuch and Thomas. Same thing. We don't like the three-part test. We think it's an easier analysis. And then, of course, Gorsuch, because this is the season where the Supreme Court just knocks over all of all precedent. They don't like Gorsuch took a shot at lemon versus Kurtzbaum, which is a 1960s case that the city relied on. But a lot of cities relied on, by the way, to say when

something is government speech and when something isn't. And Gorsuch's gorsuch said, he like excoriated the city, why are you relying on lemon versus curtsman? We've said in the past that it's not really good law for any other purpose and you shouldn't be relying on the lemon test. I mean, look, the Supreme Court wants to overrule the lemon test. They can do it. I don't think Gorsuch saying the lemon test is overruled makes it so. But, you know, they're

knocking over all the pins of all these precedents as they finish up this term. So, satanic temp, Satan group, whatever the Satan group is, says, we have a nice flag with a Satan symbol on it. We like to fly over the Capitol. So they applied for it. And Mayor Wu, the newly elected mayor in Boston. And I want to leave it on the get your opinion on this. She said, we're evaluating the decision of this Supreme Court and our flag policies as to the third poll. Now, Ben, couldn't they, if they wanted to, eliminate the third poll rather than fly flags? They can absolutely eliminate the third poll and they can take a broader interest through a permitting process, through a kind of a government led and controlled process where it would then fall into the ambent of government speech.

Why would Breyer write this opinion? Because what Breyer's opinion, even though it's fairly lately, it basically waters it down to this was a very unique set of facts here in Boston, where for whatever reason, the Boston government didn't itself kind of micromanage, or even manage, macro manage, the flag. They just like literally ran a calendar where people could apply, and there wasn't really even a process of rejecting an application. It was just, okay, is it in this day?

Is it not like inappropriate content, but otherwise go fly whatever flag that you want? So what Briar said, well, if the facts change and circumstances change and the policy change, this decision would be different. And like you say, Popok, what Gorsik basically would say is fly the religious symbol, the religious symbols that he likes.

I think it would be a very different decision if it was, and this is why the satanic temple is doing it, and why their whole kind of entity is a troll of kind of religious forces trying to insinuate themselves in government, because what Gorsuch is really saying in his concurrent opinion, take away this lemon test so that we can basically have the Christian cross on government buildings. Like he doesn't see that distinction at all, and he thinks that governments really,

the establishment clause and the free exercise clause were there's tension, Gorsuch says free exercise clause. Stop stopping religions from expressing their religion in schools, in public buildings. That's what Gorsuch is saying in his concurring opinion and the satanic temple while this sounds like an absurd example, they're pushing back at the,

they go, oh, really? You want to see the slippery slope that you open up there. But here's my ultimate point, DuPo. It's like the city of Boston, I think was just trying to do something kind of cute and fun in like community building. And for like 12 years, they were like, all right, take the third flag, everybody, the

little league team, the this, the that, you know, and then you have this like, you know, radical right, like religious group that kind of comes in and goes, we want to fly the cross. And then it raised the question, the city of Boston had a response. And now the satanic temple comes in, but you see why you have to have these distinctions and why our founders were so smart in the Constitution because you do want to really separate, you know, church, it's they, you really don't want to go past a municipal building and see and see someone else's religion saying this is the official religion.

Well, let me, let me leave it on this because we move on to the next segment. The, the, the, the, the spokesperson for the satanic group said, they're not sure which flag they're going to fly. One of them that they're, that is in the, in the, uh, proposal is the, uh, pentagram with a goat head, you know, all the classic symbols of Satan flying over the Boston State House. This is what they've created now with this 9-0 decision. And I sort of like this group now that you've described it better to me. It's like a national ampune of,

in favor of First Amendment rights. And Jordi Mysalis better get going on a legal AF and or might have touched flag because I want to see that in Boston before they pull down that policy. So remember, for legal a furs, first amendment says, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, establishment clause, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, free exercise clause. Those two things

come into tension, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, right, to freedom of speech, right, to freedom of the press. And where the Supreme Court ruled on, on this case, where Breyer ruled, private speech, free speech, right, basically, was the key there. But we will keep you posted on more updates, because what we're going to see with this radical right extremist cortho is their view where it says the free exercise thereof that basically religions have the ability to exercise those religions not just in their private quarters but in public spaces and how that ultimately impacts the separation of church and state in the establishment clause. Moving on to the Trump versus Twitter and Jack Dorsey case. So it was actually so Trump and a few other groups filed this.

It was President Trump, the American conservative union that has co-opted the term conservative, but they're just a bunch of radical right extremists. And five individuals, they sued Twitter and Jack Dorsey. And they also sued a putative class of Twitter users on behalf of themselves and deputed if they try to make it a class action. It's a very strange thing.

And basically they sued because they claimed that they were quote, deplatformed and censored by defendants. And so we had talked about this in the past, the legal AF, because we dealt with this issue on venue and the forum of where it was filed. It was originally filed in Florida federal court. And there there was a forum selection clause in the Twitter Terms of Service. And so when you go to those terms of service, whether it's your Apple Terms of Service or your Twitter Terms of Service,

and you read it, and here in the Twitter Terms of service, it says, if users want to sue us, you have to sue us in San Francisco. And Donald Trump's argument to that forum selection clause was basically, as the president of the United States, that forum selection clause applies to Americans, but it doesn't apply to people who were the president of the United States. And another arguments that were, and also that he almost implied that he was not smart enough to read the terms of service and that the terms of service, like we're tricky to

him and that they were coercive to him. Anyway, the Florida court rejected those horrible arguments. The case was transferred to San Francisco, one's transferred to the federal court, the Florida court rejected those horrible arguments. The case was transferred to San Francisco. One's transferred to the federal court, the Northern District of California, which sits in San Francisco. Twitter filed a motion to dismiss, which under the federal rules is rule 12b6. Twitter filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under 12 B6. The court granted the 12 B6 motion, so it dismissed Donald Trump's lawsuit and the lawsuit brought by American conservative union and the five individuals.

They did grant what's called leave to amend giving Donald Trump one final chance to try to correct the errors in the complaint, which is, we'll talk about that after your analysis, Popok, over the ruling, just about what leave to amend is. But why don't you break down, Popok, what the, this order dismissing Donald Trump's lawsuit stated? It's, it's amazing how long ago and how all of these things, this river of knowledge that you and I in this conversation we've been having for almost two years, how that river just twists and turns and comes back around. So we can have another conversation in May about the case and follow it closely.

He files, as you said, in Southern District, Florida in front of a judge that I know, Judge Skola, Judge Skola looks of terms of service and says, go take this to another court. It gets, it gets refiled or transferred Northern District of California, as you know, to Ben to a judge. I'm not sure you know this judge, but this judge Jim DeNato, James DeNato,

appointed by Obama, very strong judge, very strong lawyer before he ascended to the bench, practicing antitrust and class action law for major Wall Street type firms, primarily on the defense side. So he's sort of defense oriented. But this was relatively straightforward for him. He looked at the, it's not even the first complaint. We're on the second complaint already. We're on an amended complaint. They already had one shot. What normally happens procedurally is that the other, you'll file your complaint. The other side, if they think they have a good faith argument that some aspect of your complaint fails the state of claim under the federal rules

or state law, whatever you're bringing it under, because you haven't met the test, you haven't stated the elements, the laws against you about what you think supports the claim and what doesn't. And as a matter of law, you think the case should be or the claim should be dismissed, you file a motion to dismiss. The other side has an option. They can either say, no, we stand on our pleading. We think the pleading is strong. And then the complaint is strong when you say, the complaint, right? I our pleading. We think the pleading is strong. And the complaint is strong when you say, the complaint, right?

I said pleading, the pleading is a broad term. The complaint is strong and we'll stand on it. Or they can say, well, there are some things in the motion to dismiss. We could improve our pleading. So you get sort of one bite at the apple without asking the court for relief.

And you can amend your case yourself. You can say, yeah, I could tweak this claim a little bit better. I could add a few more facts here and there. Thank you for giving me the roadmap and the motion to dismiss papers. Will heed your recommendation. Here's a new complaint and that's called the amended complaint. That's what they did here. They filed a minute complaint having already seen the earlier, I believe, motion prep. And this pop-Pock for everyone listening, before the judge ever even ruled on the Twitter's first motion to dismiss, Twitter filed a motion to dismiss, and Trump's response before this ruling

that we're talking about now was, all right, I'm gonna edit my complaint. I'm gonna change some of the facts, and under the rules, he had the right, he didn't even have to ask court for a permission based on the timing. He's allowed to just... Right, and we've done that in our practice.

I've done that in my practice. You're like, I can fix this a little bit better just to avoid an argument to avoid the motion practice. And then then the Twitter looked at it and said, no, that's no better. They filed a second motion to dismiss that gets fully briefed and then it's before the judge. And if there's two fundamental issues that were up on this motion. One is, did Twitter violate or can Twitter as a private entity, a private firm, violate the First Amendment rights of a U.S. citizen or not? And some people may be scratching their heads because, sure, we always throw that term. First, my First Amendment, I have the First

Amendment right. My company is violating my first amendment rights because they won't let me do something on the email server or whatever. Well, let's make this clear. The first amendment is against government intrusion in your right to freely express yourself under the first amendment. Not your next-door neighbor, your employer,

or in this case, the social media platform that you've privately chosen to join and they've allowed you to join under terms of service. That's not first amendment violation when you're de-platformed, when Twitter edits you, when we block you, or we block control, or whatever. That's not first amendment because we're not the government. And that was the first thing you think, well, doesn't the president, former president of the United States understand how the first amendment works and his lawyers, apparently

not, because that was a big subject of judge to not know is ruling. Twitter is not a governmental entity. And therefore, them de-platforming you and banning you from communicating with your 88 million God-bent. I forgot how many followers he had. 88 million followers is not a violation of the First Amendment. What else you got? And the next claim that they had was under Section 230 of the Communications Act, that that provision,

which insulates and provides liability protection from platforms, from doing things like de-platforming and doing, you know, what would be viewpoint-based discrimination if they were a government, but they're not. They're a private entity gives them protection from lawsuits and he claimed because he wanted to get around 230 Trump did. He said 230 of the communications act is unconstitutional. And Judd said, no, I'm not declaring Section 230 the communications act is unconstitutional. And Judge said, no,

I'm not declaring section 230 of the communications act unconstitutional. Now, he did give him, I'm not even sure why because he didn't really have to, gave him one more opportunity to file a, another second amended complaint or a first amendment complaint to fix these problems. But he also gave him an admonishment, pen. The judge said, I don't want to see any new claims. Fix your first amendment claim. I don't know how you're going to do that. And fix your 230 claim, but I don't want to see anything else. That's it. You're that's your pleading. I'm going to give you a one more shot. And then let's make predictions because we like those. What do you think's

going to happen? Where they try to see here's the thing. There are some predictions where you where, even at the beginning where I'm like, I told you so. Here's where it's a little bit of a cheat, because it's very hard to predict certain things. First of all, this case is an easy case to predict because it's a really stupid case by Donald Trump. Like, it goes against the most basic, fundamental first amendment law.

So it's really easy. There are other cases that, so 100% the case is going to be dismissed 100 100%. Don't hold back. It's a hedge a little. No, I can do 110%. I would go 110% the case getting spiced, but there are more complicated cases though, you know, as we're going to talk about later, like the dobs Mississippi case, which is going to overturn Roe v Wade, it's very hard to, you can know the general trends, you can know the composition of the court, but after I see the oral argument

and I see what the judges are saying, and you've been doing this long enough, like the lawyers there likely see the writing on the walls too, you know, and lawyers who know the space will generally know. So it makes the prediction easier. So, Pope Bach though, let me tell you why the walls too, you know, and lawyers who know the space will generally know. So it makes the prediction easier. So Paul Buck though, let me tell you why the judge granted a leave to amend, even though you're right, the judge probably didn't have to. This was the first time this judge was actually ruling on the paperwork because the other

amendment made by Trump was his own amendment after Twitter filed before it got to the judge. So this judge knows that Trump is going to appeal. And one of the grounds for appealing could be the judge should have granted me at least one opportunity to amend. And that would be what Trump would hang his hat on on the appeal. And then if Trump won that argument on appeal, that I could have just made this one change and now give me that, and then Trump wins in the appeal, then Trump drags this on longer, claims a victory. The court of appeal, he'll misconstrued

what the court of appeal said, and said, I won in the court of appeals on this case, this district court judge was wrong, and this district court judge, I know, was wrong. And this district court judge, I think, wants to avoid knowing, avoid that, knowing who his plaintiff here, his, his, you're exactly right. I, I, people know because it's public, I represent John Melendez that are in John and Censurious XM.

I just had an argument at the second circuit in which the judge below judge,, judge, um, uh, forgot, forgot my underlying judge, uh, the judge below the trial level did not give me leave to amend, um, when this judge just did for Trump, and that is a grounds for my appeal, um, related to that. So you're, you're, you're so right about this judge just dot nazis and cross it as teased to avoid, you know, making, making whatever appeal happens, not be because he didn't give Trump enough rope to hang himself. And the difference, Pope, your case is a, is a complicated case, a complex case with unsettled law, potentially. This case with Trump, though, is a case with

settled law where the judge could clearly just dismiss this outright. the first amendment argument is so clear but he just doesn't want Trump to make that argument and as this judge says in his ruling plaintiffs main claim is that defendants have quote sent a censored plaintiffs twitter accounts in violation of their right to free speech under the first Amendment in the United States Constitution. Plaintiffs are not starting from a position of strength. Twitter is a private company, and quote, the First Amendment applies only to governmental abridgments of speech and not to allege the governmental abridgments

by private company. Plaintiffs only hope of stating the First Amendment claim is to plausibly allege that Twitter was in effect operating as the government under the state action doctrine. So that in other words that Twitter was co-opted by the United States government or by federal officials to operate its system and that clearly is not what take place. For those super geeky legal a-affors, notice the court uses plaintiffs only hope of stating a first amendment claim is to plausibly alleged.

That's because the pleading standard to get past a 12v6 motion is called plausibility under a line of cases called ikbal and twombli. Whereas in state cases, there's something that's just called notice pleading, where you just have to place the other side on notice of your claims to get past a motion to dismiss and start the discovery.

In federal court, it's a higher standard called plausibility. So with the plausibility, Trump just can't alleged it like with bare allegations in accusation. You have to make it plausible. And you can't just say, you know, hey, the government controls Twitter. You have to explain why that is.

And Trump's failed miserably here. This case is 100% getting dismissed. Moving on, Popeye, I want to talk about the next case, the seditious conspiracy claim now has its third individual who's pled guilty to seditious conspiracy. We've talked about it before on the pod how rare seditious conspiracy

charges are in the history of vicious conspiracy charges are in the history of United States jurisprudence that a group of people has conspired to overthrow the United States government, how rare it's been applied in our in the history of the government. This is now the third oath keeper terrorist to flip on steward roads pleading guilty to seditious conspiracy and throwing steward roads under the bus. And why is this incredibly important? Because even in this plea, you see that there are statements in the plea that this individual who was named as William Todd Wilson, he's from North Carolina, he actually wasn't in the plea that this individual who was named as William Todd Wilson, he's from North Carolina.

He actually wasn't in the initial conspiracy indictment. He was recently charged. And then we're going to comment about that, what that probably means. And then he pled guilty right away. But he says in his plea that the night of following the insurrection. So after the insurrection, fell. Stuart Rhodes was calling someone and appeared with a connection directly to Trump saying, get Trump on the phone. And at that point, the person wouldn't put Trump on the phone, which begs the question. He seemed to have access to Trump. And at the night, when it failed, Trump wouldn't take that call. But earlier in that day, was there direct communication with Trump? Was Stuart Rose, Rhodes directly linked to Mark Meadows?

Was Stuart Rose directly linked to Steve Bannon? Was he linked to someone with direct contact with Trump at that time. And that's why I think they're very focused also on the Stuart Rhodes piece of this. And now they have three people who flipped on Stuart Rhodes for seditious conspiracy, you know, for overthrowing attempts to overthrow the government.

So Popo, one thing I wanna mention here too now, before I forget when we talk about the Marjorie Taylor green case. Speaking of seditious conspirators. When I was reading through the administrative law judge's statement of facts and defining the incident of insurrection, the Democrats did something very, very smart right after the insurrection by putting in actual law, putting in legislation, the declaration that what took place on a bipartisan basis was an insurrection past that both the House and the Senate and they used the terms insurrection actually passed and affirmed by the Senate and the House. I had never really real. It was always a footnote, but the fact that the House and the

Senate have confirmed what's taken place is an insurrection as a matter of law is something that is interesting. We'll talk about the Marjorie Telly in case though about whether it's what the judge found. But that fact was important to me because now you have these seditious conspiracy cases. You have what's taking place is called by lawmakers to be affirmatively an insurrection. I think the walls are closing in on thiso and Trump too. So what I liked about this result among many things is the timing of the indictment on the same moment as the plea and demonstrating cooperation by William Todd Wilson, who is not a low level of the 20 Oathkeepers that have been indicted. After Stuart Rhodes, William Todd Wilson,

who we never heard of, because he was not a part, as you mentioned, of the original indictment, maybe the most important witness against the oath keepers that the government has. And the fact that they kept him under wraps, of course, he knew he was staring down the barrel of an indictment. His lawyers knew that. I'm sure he's been cooperating and they struck a plea deal. You stand in that court, you plead guilt, we're going to indict you at one at 1201 at 1202, you're going to plead guilty. And that kept a very tight reign on the information and leaks related to William Todd Wilson. What is he going to testify to? Because he said it in the allocation or the statements that the government filed in their in their

filings about his indictment and about his plea. He was, as you said, he was in the room with Stuart Rhodes. When Stuart Rhodes on a speaker phone had a call with somebody who indicated to William, William Todd Wilson to the listener had direct access at line of sight to Donald Trump. Now, he didn't know who it was because he didn't recognize the voice. Who knows who it was? Stuart Rhodes, because he made the phone call, but whoever was on that phone, as you so eloquently put it, indicated to everybody else on that phone call that he had a direct line of sight

to the president and was rejecting Stuart Rhodes's request for direct conversation with Trump to do what? To ask Donald Trump to give the oath keepers the order to unleash their violence to stop the peaceful transfer of power and allow him to cling to power. And that implicates Stuart Rhodes, of course, as this news continues to tighten around him. And, and others. So now you've got 10 total that have been indicted for statistician conspiracy. He used to be nine, but now William Todd Wilson is 10th. He also pled guilty to obstruction.

So he's a tofer. What did he do on the day of the insurrection? Well, first of all, he brought in arms, because this was an armed insurrection, notwithstanding what some Republican Congress people have said. He had an AR-15, he had a 9-millimeter, he had 200 rounds of ammunition, and he had body armor, and he and the other quick response team on their golf carts under the direction of Stewart Rhodes

were in the Phoenix Hotel with their ammo cash of weapons, ready to be used at a moment's notice, literally. He's also literally the first oathkeeper into the Capitol. So he is the very tip of the spear in breaking down the door of the Capitol and banging his way in, now knowing that he was armed or had access to arms at the same time, it's amazing that more people did not die as bad as this was. This could have been even, it's hard to believe it could could have been even worse. But now this, for me, been this combination of immediate indictment with plea means to me that he's been cooperated for quite some time. And that Stuart Rhodes is in a world of hurt he was before. And he's

trying to dismiss his case and all this other stuff. But when he's tried and you know, Stuart Rhodes, what are the chances to Rhodes is going to plead guilty zero, right? He's going to put on a trial, whether it's a show trial or not, they're trying Stuart Rhodes. And this, this, this, this most recent one, and the connection possibly to Trump through the Trump intercircle could be one of the most important witnesses of all 750 that we've heard of so far. The whole thing just as you even say it like that, Popok, with the ammunition, the guns that they were ready to go and engage in a mass killing of lawmakers. There were like logistical flaws in the plan, you know, Trump as and as just a leader is as an executive is like a horrible thankfully is just a horrible executive.

But he puts out these signals to try to encourage all of those things to happen. He's clearly in direct communication through at least through one intermediary with a lot of these radical extremist groups, these terrorist groups. And just to even think that you have lawmakers and Republicans who still refuse to call this thing an insurrection who look at people like Stuart Rhodes as being patriots is the most sickening and disgusting thing

that that's out there. And in addition to that, let me ask you something. Did you see we won't talk about it directly tonight until we read it. But you see Mark Esper's the former defense secretary is about to release his memoirs. And you and I went back and forth a little bit about it. He actually puts in his memoirs that, and he resigned three days after the election, the Secretary of Defense.

He had already alerted the National Guard after the election to not respond if Trump tries to use the military, just as he did to clear the park behind the White House as he made his way to the church. If he tries to do it again and use the military to cling to power, they are to call him the Secretary of Defense first, and he would either try to persuade Trump not to do it or do a press conference on the Capitol steps in resignation about it. I mean, these memoirs that are now coming out like Mark Espers and others, I mean, how close we were to a dictatorship and an overthrow of our rule of law and the Republic is, is, we're going

to, we're going to be talking about this for a long time. We were a lot closer to it than we even thought the night of chance six. I go back to after the election was called for Biden, there's that press conference with Mike Pompeo and they ask Mike Pompeo about cooperating with the transition of power. And Mike Pompeo says, there is not going to be any transition of power. Trump won and Trump's not leaving office. I just remember at the time I was in my car, I was driving back, I watched the elections

from another location. I just remember hearing those words and it was just so chilling. And it set in motion all of the things that we then saw through January 6th and that we're talking about now on the podcast. We have a lot more to talk about on legal AF. Today's program is bought to you by Athletic Greens, the Health and Wellness Company that

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It's been great, great, great for me. Popoq moving on, I want to talk about this Marjorie Taylor Green administrative ruling came out in Georgia. You and I have been following these hearings under the 14th Amendment Section 3. It's the clause that basically bars insurrectionists. People engaged in insurrection, those are important words, engaged in because that was a major part of this administrative judges analysis.

But a group of voters in Georgia challenged a Marjorie Taylor green from being on the ballot. They said, quote, she was engaged in insurrection, and under the 14th Amendment, section three, she should not be allowed to even be on the ballot. So they challenged her through this administrative process in Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Green challenged it in federal court to get an injunction, an emergency injunction

to stop the hearing in the administrative hearing from taking place. And she alleged that there was a clemency granted to insurrectionists in the Civil War, and that that clemency basically applies to her so that it's a for all insurrectionists in the future, this law from the 1870s, giving this clemency to the Confederates, applies to her. The federal court said, no, no, no, that doesn't apply to you. So go through this administrative hearing. And we streamed this administrative hearing where Marjorie Taylor Green took the stand. She couldn't recall anything.

I don't recall, I don't recall this. I don't recall that. She said a lot of things that were contradictory and that we knew, we know it made no sense. But you and I ultimately predicted, I think, for two reasons we thought that Marjorie Taylor Green was not going to be taken off the ballot the first,

is an overriding kind of constitutional issue. There is no thing in the constitution that says how you enforce the 14th Amendment Section 3. Like, can you just go to this administrative judge who listens to like, you know, your driver's license. Exactly. You know, is that the forum for something this way or

do you have to be convicted of being an insurrectionist like we talked about? Or at least declared by the Congress where she resides. You talked about a joint statement declaring what is defining what was January 6th. With all due respect to the Congress, which is in currently in the hands of the Democrats, you know, I'm not even sure she was censured particularly for that. She was censored for other things, which I do not believe there was a center for chasing survivors of school of Stoman Douglas Elementary School. I know they were actors, right?

Right. Or right, the school, the other, the high school in, in South Florida and chasing those people, but she was not centered for this. So they didn't even have that to hang their hat on. Like, look, here's a piece of paper. Says she's an insurrection assigned the U.S. Congress. We don even have that to hang their hat on. Like, look, here's a piece of paper. Says she's in insurrection, assigned the US Congress. We don't have that. And then the other part was,

because you don't get discovery in this process, like you couldn't take Marjorie Taylor Greene's deposition and the DOJ still, you know, doing what it's doing very methodically, we don't really have, like a smoking gun text yet, or all these other witnesses who would come in to basically testify, you know, under the words engaged in insurrection, for purposes of this specific hearing of disqualification, would you basically show that she was giving the commands and that she was giving the orders or that she was actually the person who

you know, was one of the people who stormed the Capitol and attacked the cops and you know destroy Nancy Pelosi's office or was she just in the Capitol at the time now if you had the evidence for example that she was giving the tours of the capital to help them plan and plot, and that was something introduced as admissible evidence, to me, that actually would be enough evidence to say she engaged in it. She helped lead in and helped plan and plot it. But what this judge basically said is that engage is a very specific term. The term engaged means to like literally command or participate in as in attacking the cops and like destroying the actual building. He said like basically advocating disloyal things.

It's actually in the ruling advocating disloyal things would not constitute engaging in insurrection. And the judge basically said, I'm going to preserve Marjorie Taylor Greene's objections on the constitutional grounds, but I'm also ruling that in terms of the engaging in the insurrection. And the court said, you know, we'll accept it's an insurrection based on what Congress said, based on the facts. They called it like an invasion and the invasion is an insurrection. It was a weirdly worded opinion in that sense, like why kept saying the word invasion and insurrection. But anyway, he acknowledged it was an insurrection, but said that she didn't command it. And I think people can say, well, she clearly gave

the signals all of her past conduct clearly inspired it. And I think people can say, well, she clearly gave the signals. All of her past conduct clearly inspired it. And I think with this administrative draw saying, inspiring it with disloyalty is not engaging it. Yeah. Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. And to be honest, I'm not sure he was wrong. The he said there was not enough persuasive evidence to even get to the argument, the constitutional argument of whether the Insurrection Act was overruled by the Amnesty Act of the came out later in 1872. So I don't even have to get there because the burden hasn't been met to show me persuasive evidence that green took an action about the insurrection on Jan 6th. He said there was no direct physical effort by her. In other words, she wasn't on the ramparts.

She wasn't tearing down the bicycle racks. She didn't contribute personal services or capital. There's no evidence that was presented to him that she paid for Stewart Rhodes to come to Washington or that she let some of her people work for him or some of these other on the ground insurrectionists. There was no evidence that she issued commands like standing on the Capitol with a bullhorn on Gen 6 saying, do it, hit the doors, go for it, none of that. He's right about that. He said, even statements of encouragement were not presented as evidence. And he didn't take the tweets as being statements of encouragement at the time of the insurrection. If you define the insurrection, not as the environment that led to

the insurrection, if you don't define it as the big lie, and I think he's probably right about that for this purpose, for the purpose of the Constitution and who was an insurrectionist. If you only define it in the box of Jan 6th, what did she do on Jan 6th was his point. And there was no evidence of that. In fact, the evidence was really contrary to that. She apparently was inside the capital, you know, cowering under her desk with the rest of them of all political persuasions while the attack was going on. I think at one point she said, you know, nobody believes anything she says, but at one point she says, I'm a victim of the capital attack. They were trying to hunt down

Congress people. So he went through methodically all of that. And in any end, did he end to the decision which will post with her heated rhetoric which he acknowledged the 1776 comments and all the big lie and martial law and all of that may have contributed to the environment that led to the, as you said, invasion or insurrection. he had a weird verbal tick about the terms. I don't know why he kept doing that. But he acknowledged that they may have done that. But he capped that under that is protected free speech. You can have these opinions.

Should we use martial law? Did the election really happen? The Biden really win. You can do all that as crazy as that sounds and that doesn't rise the level of insurrection under the Constitution to take you out of your seat or your primary. And then Raffisberger, which we talked about,

within hours, I think like two hours, adopted completely the 17 pages of Judge Boudreau and said she's on the ballot in May now this month in the next two weeks. Now, a little bit of background, we know we talked about Rafford's burger as being the recipient of the phone call looking for the extra votes and threats and threats and extortive threats by Trump and Meadows made to Rafford's burger. But Rafford'sburgers also a politician, and he's running for office, and he's drawn a challenger right now,

which is a Trump-endorced former Congressperson, who he's up against, Joni Heiss, in a very contested primary. So say what you want about Brad Raffinsburger, but he wants to win election, and I'm not sure finding Marjorie Taylor Green for the 14th Congressional District off the ballot helps his chances to stay in office.

Yeah, Raffensberger didn't want anything to do with this. Even if the ruling by the administrative judge happened to go in the other direction, I tend to think that Raffensberger would have said, well, I appreciate the recommendation. I still don't think as a matter of constitutional principles that this is a decision that my administrative judge can make is what I would have thought Raffensberger would have done anyway. But as you said, Pope, I mean, Raffensberger is a Republican. Raffensberger is someone who is trying to truncate, limit, severely cartel voting rights

in his state. That's who Raffensberger is. Raffensberger just wasn't going to go along with the fabricated accusations and the big lie that Trump was spreading. That's where Raffinsburg drew the line, but right before that, in terms of disenfranchising people through nefarious methods of taking away voting boxes and cutting down the hours of voting and limiting mail voting, Raffensburgers all for all that other stuff. You know, and then the other piece that's worth just a little bit of commentary though,

is ultimately, you know, okay, so does Marjorie Taylor green win this? I mean, I guess on the paperwork she did, but I mean, to me, for her to win kind of just exposes the cowardness of her and people of her ilk, that they use this rhetoric. They use this disloyal rhetoric to even quote the words of the judge. Then when they're put under oath, the very first thing they do was play the victim. I was the victim of it. They were trying to attack

me. The people that you inspired and encouraged were trying to attack you. That's what you're saying. Or even as we start talking about the leak of the decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, what's the first thing? All of these Republicans, all of these radical right extremists who have wanted this to happen forever. What do they do? The leak has hurt me. The leak has damaged me. Oh, the leak, the leak, the leak. This is the they cower and play the victim role versus embrace. This is what you fought for, Marjorie Taylor grain. You fought for the insurrection. You got the insurrection that you wanted. Now you take the stand and then you act like you didn't want that insurrection to take place. So you can win this case. You have no principle. Same thing with

the overturning of Roe v. Wade. You fought for overturning Roe v. Wade. And now you're going to whine about how the leak somehow harms the privacy rights of the United States Supreme Court. But even even and your brother, you and the brothers will talk about us on your podcast and about the politics of it. There's already been a leak from the Senate Republican Republican group about how they're going to spin Roe v. Wade being overturned. And it is really just like they're going to spin Roe v. Wade being overturned. We're going to spin Roe v. Wade. We're not against the mothers and the babies. It's not the mothers and the babies. It's those mean abortionists and doctors. And we're going to criminalize them,

but never the mommies and the babies. I mean, this is what they're going to do to rip away. We'll talk about it next. Rip away for the first time in the history of the of the Supreme Court, a right that was extended to a group that needed protection, which are women, and having ripped that, ripped that right away. But not the Mommies and the Babies. I mean, it's a really disgusting party. You know, I've told people, be a member of your party. It's fine. My morality and my politics happen to align perfectly with the Democratic Party. I don't agree with everything they do, but that's where I, that's my house. That's where I sit.

Republicans do the same thing. I have more respect for a Republican who acknowledges that if they are in their party, they're against a woman's right to choose, that if they support their party, they're against Roe versus Wade, and they're against reproductive rights and bodily autonomy and privacy.

Just say it. Don't, don't be a coward as you said, Ben. Absolutely. And say, no, but I'm in my party, but no, I'm really four women and I'm really four their rights. No, I'm four women. I'm four democracy. I'm four.

No, you're not. You're not. And if your views are, you want a fascist leader and you want to take away reproductive rights. That's your view. Say what? Yeah, exactly. Say, fly your flag. Be proud. Say what your view is. I want to break down that ruling popuck. It's implications. First, I just want to give a quick shout out though, again, to one of our partners, policy genius. If someone relies on you financially, a child, a parent, or even a business partner, life insurance gives you peace of mind that they have a financial accution of something happens to you. And having

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That's policygenius.com slash legal a F. Now I want to talk about the Supreme Court ruling that leaked just to give you some background about this. This relates to the case involving dobs and the state of Mississippi. This was a case that was briefed and oral argument took place before the court several months ago. Popok was it in early December of 2021. I think it was December 1st or 4th. It was that week of December 1 in 2021. And that case related to a 15 week ban on abortions in Mississippi, that case had been working. It didn't just arrive in the Supreme Court that day. It had worked its way up through the courts through a concerted effort by the radical right extremist Republicans to overturn Roe v Wade through various means and various

machinations. And we've been seeing that, for example, with the bounty hunter law, SBA in Texas, turning private citizens as bounty hunters, which was as I've always, you know, described that law, Pope, as kind of a intermediate measure while Roe v. Wade was working its way to be overturned by the Supreme Court, this SBA created this way where private citizens would sue each other. And the reason that Texas invented that scheme is because kind of going back to these ideas of state actors and what the government authority is versus private citizens.

And in order to challenge a private citizen suing another citizen, that lawsuit has to kind of work its way through the court system. So whereas if the government in Texas were to enforce SB 8 itself, that at the time would violate Roe v Wade and be struck down. So in Texas, they invented that scheme for private citizens to sue each other at the same time in other states like Mississippi, you know, 15-week bands on abortions, which would be removing a lot of Roe v. Wade's constitutional privacy protections, provisional privacy protections, which protected a woman's right to have an abortion on her own before viability.

And after viability, the government would have some interest in that. That's what the Roe v Wade and Casey line of cases had. And so if you actually go look at states, there were some states that basically adopted the viability, you know, that had the viability standard and just didn't have a set like number of what the amount of months were, where government was regulating abortions, but they just said at viability. And then there were actually a number of states that would say like 22 weeks or or actually give a set amount of weeks, but then the states to try to challenge or overweight also try to lessen what those months are where the government can get involved.

And when we say the government get involved, or pull women out of their home and arrest them and charge them with homicide, charge them with murder, and possibly in states that have the death penalty, give women a death penalty. That is when we're saying what the government involvement is, the government involvement is arresting women and charging them with murder. That's what we're talking about when governments being involved, punishing the woman and the provider who provides the abortion. So this case in Mississippi, which had the 15 week ban, that went

before the Supreme Court. And rather than even just kind of address the 15 week ban, what the comments and questions by the radical right Supreme Court seem to suggest, where they were not just going to uphold Mississippi's 15 week ban, but that they were actually going to overturn Roe v Wade in this case as well and say Roe v Wade and Casey and the line of cases that recognize this fundamental privacy, right, of women and child bearing persons that that is bad law and should never have been passed. And so you and I had said on past podcast, unfortunately, it looks like the best result that could come out of this case is that Roe v. Wade's going to be partially overturned, you know, with the 15 week band being appalled, but what it looks like is they're going to strike down Roe v. Wade. And you and I said, no one's talking about that. They're going to strike down Roe v. Wade. And we kind of

have echoed it on each pod as we've talked about SBA and all these other measures. And sure enough, this decision that's written by Alito, the majority decision, Pope Aki talked earlier about a majority decision of the court, and this is Alito plus four other justices, who are the most extreme right. So kind of a five to four decision that would strike down Roe v. Wade. Now John Roberts, the chief justice in the opinion that we see, he says that he would have upheld the 15 week ban, but not overturned Roe v. Wade, which is also exactly what you and I said that he would likely do there. But this decision, this draft decision leak, the Supreme Court

confirmed its authenticity. And Democrats, independence, people concerned about reproductive rights, people with basic decency were horrified by this ruling and the implications that the government's going to start arresting women immediately. Once this actually becomes the law of the land. And so to be clear, this is not the law yet. The decision has not officially come down yet, but the decision looks like that's gonna be coming in the next month or so. And this is gonna be the decision.

And you have people on the radical right who start blaming the leak. They're not even celebrating the ruling. They're blaming the leak. And obviously, it's been totally quiet. No Trump press conferences about Rovue. And, you know, that's, that's the state of Plano. So Pope Pock, what's your thoughts? What? And I'll just say this before I'm thrown into Popeye. The decision that Alito wrote to is just a horrific and disgusting and sickening opinion like. And intellectually dishonest. Intellectually dishonest, but that almost makes it sound smart.

Like this is a sick decision. You could use the word intellect. This is a sick decision that you would expect to be like written frankly by like the Taliban like that's how sick it is and the quotes are not even to like the United States Constitution. The quotes are to people like someone named Matthew Hal who's like a 17th century jurist who believe this is who they're quoting. He believed that a woman is property of a man. This individual Matthew Hall oversaw the executions of multiple women for witchcraft.

I'm not making this up. And that this Matthew Hall believe that men should beat women, men should hit women, and that women have no rights whatsoever. And a little relies on him and his analysis. Yeah. The majority opinion quotes Matthew Hal and basically says that we do not have a tradition in the United States of providing reproductive rights to women, but that the tradition is the tradition of Matthew Hal.

That's what it says. I almost fell out of my chair. Yeah, okay. So we also have a tradition of slavery in this country. Here's the implications, and we've talked about it. You've had a really great podcast with Mary Trump, recently, where you went over this decision. And in the midweek edition, we had Robbie Kaplan, constitutional litigator,

extraordinaire with Karen and me going over it in detail for a full hour. But let me see if I can I can summarize and bring some new information or new perspective to this. Firstly, the reality is this draft, draft majority opinion indicates that there are five votes that those votes were taken in February. That's the date of the majority opinion two months after the oral argument and that and that unless there is a change and somehow one of those votes gets peeled off and of those votes gets peeled off. And whether that's Kavanaugh or Gorsuch, because you know it's not Amy Coney Barrett, Alito or Thomas, that this is going to be ultimately, it'll be polished more, there'll be some back and forth more, some language that's in now will be taken out, but the fundamental basis of this 80 page opinion, overturning both Roe versus Wade and Casey as the settled law of the land for 50 years. The first time a Supreme Court has given a right to a minority and women are not

minority by number, but they are a minority by the way they are treated by society in terms of rights, protections, and power, giving a right to them and then taking it away first time in history. And the basis for that is his attack on the law of precedent, the principle of precedent, what we call starry decisis, which is what the Supreme Court is constantly supposed to be using in their analysis. And now you have both Alito saying in his opinion, and Clarence Thomas saying earlier this week when he was addressing the 11th Circuit in Georgia, giving a speech that we don't use starry decisis in precedent on constitutional principles when we're the Supreme Court and we shouldn't ever do it. There shouldn't be settled law, Clarence Thomas just said, when it comes to constitutional press, is precedent, we should always be looking at it fresh. That is a reversal of 200 years

of precedent about the role of the Supreme Court in interpreting the U.S. Constitution. That is, that would be heresy if it were declared 20 years ago by Sandra Day O'Connor, 30 years ago by Renquist, by Blackbin, by Brennan, by anybody else that wore that black robe and called themselves a conservative. That would be heresy. But now that is the legal principle upon which they are now clearing the shelves of all of the things that they want to get rid of, that they've been chomping at the bit, the Federalist Group to take care of, now that they have the numbers, and they're going to do it first by killing

the concept of starry decisis and principle. And now going back, as you said, Ben, and looking at, let's look at the history and whether abortion was legal or not legal in history. What does that matter? What they're supposed to be doing in interpreting the living, breathing document of the Constitution, which is not a code book. It was intentionally by the framers made to have flexibility and to have the mores and the social norms of the day and evolving mores and morality read on to the document. Well, this group of right-wing

federalists don't want to do that. Well, this group of right-wing federalists don't want to do that. They want to go back and look at our and bring our country back to the 1700s and the 1800s and back to witchcraft and women having zero rights and being chattel and property and society. Why don't we go all the way back to slavery? Why don't we reinstall slavery? And the other scary result so that we can manage expectations and we don't want to be and I told you so position but to manage these expectations. What are the implications of this majority opinion if it becomes law which it will be in the summer? It is that any right that is not expressed literally in the US Constitution from a woman's right to choose to sex between

gay people to other women's rights to other rights of disenfranchised people in America that have been established through the right of privacy that's not listed in the US Constitution, but it's been part of constitutional precedent. Anything that comes from the 14th Amendment, from the due process clause, from the 5th Amendment that was expressed by one court at one time is now up for grabs and could be changed at a moment's notice without even respect to starting to size this or precedent because they have the numbers. So today, it's woman's right to choose in a bodily autonomy.

Tomorrow it could be the right for you to love who you want in your bedroom. All the things that were established in the 1980s, the 1990s, Doma, the Defense of Marriage Act, gay marriage up for grabs, transgender rights. Those that small are rights now with the Supreme Court. And I'm not, I'm sorry, I'm not making, I'm trying to make this apocalyptic,

but this is the result of the legal precedent that five or four other justices have signed on to in their analysis in the Alito decision. And Roberts shamed on John Roberts because he gave the decision over to Alito. He could have chosen who he wanted to write the, once he realized he was not in the majority, he could have chosen anyone to write that decision. Anyone would have been better except for Clarence Thomas in writing the real. I know what would have been better. Possibly who knows? I mean,

I have an awe is the biggest coward because I know a lot of people on our Twitter feed are saying they were liars. They lied under oath. They said they wouldn't overturn Roe v. Wait, not quite. They were very they had a they had a canned speech ready that if you go back to the tape and listen to it, what each of them said is they recognized that Roe v Wade was quote unquote, settled law, meaning a decision that had already been made. They did not take a blood oath and swear allegiance to Roe v Wade that they would never overturn it.

But wait, the one that came closest and the one that the Collins Susan Collins is all upset about is Kavanaugh did come closest to saying that he would not overturn Roe v. Wade. The other one's just recognized settled law. That's not the same thing as saying I'm not going to overturn it. Yeah. It gives him a pass though, Pope, I mean, it's settled law that I can't go out on the highway right now at 120 miles per hour, you know, and then when I get pulled over by a cop and then the cop arrests, me, I go, I, that law is unsettled. What are you talking about? Like, the, when you say as a Supreme Court that it's settled law, the implication is that

you're going to follow the law, you know, law. And for the Supreme Court to be so sneaky and be like, well, I just acknowledged that's the law, but Gatja, Gatja, I'm going to change it. But Trump said he would only put on people that, that Genu-flected to the concept of reversing Roe. Psych. Psych. I said it was settled law, but that's not.

I mean, in Popok, when we talk about today, it's this, and tomorrow here are the things and you paint that dystopian picture, and commentators do. I still want to focus on the today because what this is doing to women, childbearing persons is absolutely horrific. And here's what Republican legislatures have immediately started to do. So this comes out of, for example, this is just a Louisiana bill passed by a Republican legislature there, which defined person includes a human being from the moment of fertilization and also includes a body of persons whether incorporated or not.

And what Louisiana did was it actually crossed off in that language already. So not just the moment of fertilization that's in there. So if you take kind of an emergency pill at a zygate stage or whatever, you now have committed a murder under Louisiana law. But Louisiana law specifically took out language that says, end implantation. And so what Louisiana Bill has done, not only does it define a person as right upon the moment sperm meets egg, but it also criminal,

the criminalization covers ectopic pregnancies by striking the words end implantation. And so think about how horrifying that is. And so what does this mean of what's gonna happen? When this becomes the law of the land, we are going to see what happened in Texas where the woman was arrested and she was charged

with homicide and then the prosecutor dismissed those charges because that wasn't the law. You are now going to find on a daily basis, women are going to be arrested for murder. Every single day they're going to be pulled from their cars, from their homes on the streets, by police officers arrested and charged criminally with homicide. And then you're going to also have the providers arrested for homicide. You're going to have prosecutors try to get the providers to flip on the women, the women to flip on the prosecutors

to charge one with murder and the other with murder. This is what happened before the before Roe v Wade was the law of the land. That is what's going to happen. And what's going to happen now though, especially with social media and phone cameras. This is going to be broadcast. And we're going to see this every day play out in very public ways of states prosecuting women. That's what's going to happen every single day. Yeah. So let me stay in the moment. I agree with you.

23 states will ban abortion, either entirely after Roe v. Wade is overturned this summer, or a practically ban it. 13 states have on their books, trigger provisions that as soon as that literally says as soon as Ro as Roby Wade is overturned, sometime in the future 30 or 40 years from now, we go to a total ban in our state. And that is Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky. And we have legal aaffirs in all of those in all of those states. So you've got 23 that are going to ban it of that 13 will do it almost automatically. The only place you and I disagree is because of the leaked Senate Republican talking points,

I don't think they're going to criminalize the mother. I think they're going to criminalize everything around her. Who's daily? The person that takes her to the clinic, the clinic operator, the doctor, the hygienic. Who's day in your example, the federal court or the state courts? Oh, the state is going to do it. The state is, I don't think the federal, yeah. I'm saying you think that the state is not going to criminalize the mother? Yeah, I'm saying you think that the state is not going to criminalize the mother. I correct. I don't think the state is totally just I totally I know, I know you do.

I know you do. I think I think it's terrible. These crazy Republicans, they're going to go after you kidding me. They're going to go after the mother's first. They hit women. They're going right down to they're going right after. But they don't have to, but my point is they don't have to in order to accomplish their goal. They can say, oh, the mommy's in the babies. I'm going to write after that. But they don't have to. But my point is they don't have to. In order to accomplish their goal,

they can say, oh, the mommy's in the babies, and we're going to go after every other instrumentality that relates to abortion. And the one that's really going to come up back before the Supreme Court is going to be when the handmade tail states, the 23 states, start criminalizing anyone going to the other states to get an abortion, the Texas woman who

goes to New York, either because her company pays for it. And some have offered to do that. Family members or she drives or charity or whatever. There's going to be now a future. We're going to talk about this one day. Texas versus New York, literally, Supreme Court case where the Supreme courts get a have to rule. Is that a violation of the

commerce clause? Because of interstate travel, is that a travel, travel clause violation of the U.S. Constitution and travel analysis? How can one state stop somebody from going and taking benefits in another state in this, in this, in the, in the terms of abortion? I mean, the, and the callousness in which Alito ends his decision with the real world implications of our decision are irrelevant. Really, the real world of the 1700s and 1800s seem to be important to you. So why are the real world of what's going to happen outside that chain link fence that's now sits around the US Supreme Court and all of the women and people that support women.

Why is that not important to you as you sit in your ivory hermetically sealed tower as a middle-aged senior citizen white man? Why does that not bother you about what you have just ruled? And if you're right, Ben, I'm not saying you're crazy, I just disagree. If you're right, how does he let that happen by his field to the textualist, originalist, federalist approach to the US Constitution? I'll tell you how I know that I'm right, though, Popeyes, and how you're wrong. Because it's already happened in Texas without Roe v. Wade being overturned.

They were so quick to do it that they didn't even wait until the case happened before doing it to a woman. That's what they want to do and they did it before the law even changed where the prosecutor had to be like, okay, you did this, you did this too quickly. That's not even what the law is yet.

But that's where they're going. That's what the laws say. But we will, we will keep everybody informed on what's happened in there. And if you just want my one, I'll give you my 10 second perspective on who I think leaked it. If anyone leaked it, it would be the right wingers who would want to link it to try to keep the opinion as is and to and one to signal to states this is coming to start passing the legislation that they need to be ready for it. Number one, and two, if there were any judges who were wavering, now everybody knows who the judges are that we're going to vote for it so that the opinion doesn't change at all to freeze

the opinion as is. That's who likely we do it. There's no doubt in my mind that it was a conservative clerk or somebody working for one of the right-wing justices. There's no way in hell it was a liberal clerk or justice that did this because it makes absolutely no sense. And only as you said, it only takes the wet cement from February and makes it a hardened cement now. No votes are gonna change, and everybody's just gonna dig in on the Republican side. Well, if it was, you're one hundred percent correct. If it was going to be someone who is not on the radical right, who would link it, one of the judges who support democracy and support women,

women, you would leak it if there was gonna be a leak right after the oral on February, right before the, before there's a written opinion, you wouldn't do it after there's an authentic written opinion that's been circulated, that's about to be published. Okay, let's be clear. I wanna thank everybody for listening to Legal AF.

The stakes couldn't be higher right now, which is why this podcast is so important as we break down the key legal issues of the week. I wanna give a special thanks to our sponsors, athletic greens, policy genius and Smith. AI, one thing I can promise you is this, Michael Popok and I will keep doing these legal AFs every week. We're adding more shows.

We've got the midweek with Michael Popok and Karen Friedman, Agnifalo, SiVance is number two. The number two at the Holman Hatten D.A.'s office before she started at private practice and practicing with us here on legal AF. I want to thank all of you for your support. We're going to keep fighting with you each and every day. We will see you on the next legal AF, Myself, is Michael Popak signing off. Shout out to the MidasMidig.