Legal AF by MeidasTouch - The Intersection with Michael Popok Full Episode - 12/2/2025

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Trump has officially lost it, bragging about passing “cognitive tests” that masquerade as dementia ones, while going on racist rants, interspersed with sexists ones, and then finally admitting that “affordability” in Trump America is a “con job!” When bored, he throws Administration officials like Kristie Noem, Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel under the bus. And now federal appellate courts are firing back like never before, as Trump begs his favorite Federal Judge not to release the Mar a Lago Jack Smith report. Popok is at The Intersection to cover it all only on the Meidas Touch Network. Magic Spoon: Save $5 OFF your next order when you go to http://magicspoon.com/LEGALAF OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code LEGALAF at https://oneskin.co/hair #oneskinpod Check out The Popok Firm at: https://thepopokfirm.com Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@LegalAFMTN?sub_confirmation=1 Legal AF Substack: https://substack.com/@legalaf Follow Legal AF on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/legalafmtn.bsky.social Follow Michael Popok on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mspopok.bsky.social Subscribe to the Legal AF by MeidasTouch podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/legal-af-by-meidastouch/id1580828595 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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please contact ConX Ontario at 1866-531-260 to speak to a week. an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Welcome to a travel edition of The Intersection. I'm Michael Popock, and you're on the Midas Touch Network. As many people may know, I'm celebrating a holiday, a big birthday. If you want to put something in comments tonight, tell me which one you think it is, be kind. In any event, I couldn't miss getting together with our fervent audience here and brief them.

the only way I know how without blowing smoke or sunshine about what's going on with this administration, what's going on in the court system, and curating for you things that you need to know at the intersection. So let's dive in. Well, with one footnote. As a special treat, forget Black Friday, forget Cyber Monday. Let's do Poppock birthday Tuesday, 30% off paid annual membership for legal AF substack going on right now until noon Eastern time tomorrow. come up step up and get it membership you've been waiting for to help support all things legal AF and and the intersection so I got that going on for you all right let's start it off let's kick it off already so Donald Trump how do I put this kindly he's losing his shit there's no other way to put it between his his three thrice a day rant

and meltdowns on social media. Two latest examples. Going after the Somalis and people from Somalia, he's already called that country or that region a shithole in the past. And now he's going after the people of Somalia that are living in places like Minnesota, right? He's going after all people who hail from Afghanistan because of the tragedy that happened in the District of Columbia.

And then putting that aside for a minute. And I got news for Donald Trump. There is fraud in federal programs and funding up and down, mostly perpetrated by everyday Americans. So you can pick on the Somalis and say, oh, they just committed food stamp fraud or whatever you want to call it. Again, this is just Donald Trump's racist dog whistle to go after a downtrodden black or brown community

to try to make himself the better, to try to activate his base. It's really disgusting. Second example of his dementia or his cognitive disability, he's already admitted he just took a cognitive test. For what reason? At 79, you don't just take random cognitive tests. Who told you to take it? Who ordered that you take it? What type of test did you take? Was it for dementia? And what were the results of that test? And who administered it? That's the real question. The other indicia of cognitive decline just in the last 24 or 48 hours is Donald Trump coming out during a cabinet meeting in the last 12 hours and saying that affordability is a hoax. This is his answer to the Democrats winning strategy of focusing on kitchen table politics, the economics around the heart and home, right?

Checkbook politics. It's the economy, stupid. It's been the economy stupid in America for all modern presidencies. But he says in a cabinet meeting surrounded by billionaires that affordability is a hoax, that it's just the word that the Democrats use

and he doesn't believe in it. It's a con job. This is the way he's trying to wallpaper over the failure of his economic policies by saying that there's no such thing as affordability in America. Thank you for admitting the obvious that in the Trump America and the Trump economy,

there is no such thing as affordability unless you're a billionaire like him. Look, there's new reporting that's out that actually says it's worse than I suspected that Trump and his family are well on their way. They've already made billions of dollars and they're well on their way to making between $50 and $100 billion

before Donald Trump leaves office in one term. You know, they didn't make that money in the first term, because of their warped AI policies, they're warped national security policies, they're warped cryptocurrency policies, all benefiting, all tailor-made to benefit Trump, Trump family, and his cronies. But let's just call it for the way we see it.

This is a president who is in the throes of some cognitive decline that he doesn't want to admit. When the New York Times ran a story a couple of days ago that said, the obvious, he's working from 12 to 5 every day, if that. Factor in the hundreds of hours of golf every month and the guy's barely functioning. It's incredible how much damage he does

in such a short amount of work week. But that's the reality. So what does he do? He attacks in a mass. misogynistic racist way, a misogynistic sexist way, sorry, the female reporter for the New York Times that wrote the piece, goes after her, calls her ugly inside and out, just like a week before he called a reporter, a female reporter, Piggy, Miss Piggy, you know? And I feel, in a way, I feel sorry for the female reporters, but they're also made the devil's bargain because they know that if

they speak up and demand as they should, that they are treated with respect. and dignity, that they'll be barred from having any access to Trump. But, but, and I also bemoat and criticize the male counterparts. Where are they? They should be, when that happens, the female reporters should say, Mr. President, that's inappropriate. That's inappropriate. That is disrespectful.

That is, that is demeaning. It's beneath your office and certainly beneath my profession. So we, we collectively demand that you stop the personal attacks, especially on female reporters. That may be hard to articulate. I'd like to see the men stand up for the female reporters and say, Mr. President, that's inappropriate to be attacking my colleague based on her gender or to use comments about her physical appearance or other things. Let's get down to the questions that matter to the American people, shall we?

and stop insulting my colleagues. That's one way. Another way would be for the press corps to not show up. You know, let's do a sickout at the White House press room. So when Caroline Levitt goes out there, you know, propagandist in chief, she looks around nobody's there. Or it's only the right-wing media. That's what they're afraid of.

That it won't be an empty room. It'll just be the... But so what? At a certain point, you have to take a stand. history will tell us which side you were on if the mainstream Donald Trump to Donald Trump press the media is like oxygen he needs it

and if you stay out of the room and it's only Fox reporting that's not going to be good enough for Donald Trump so or stand up and turn your back on Caroline LeVette I mean I am getting so tired of the lack of courage, the lack of political convictions. Maybe it's because on Legal A.F and on Midas Dutch, every day,

we are demonstrating what it takes to oppose the Trump administration. Trump just ran a comment about Eric Holder, who we're going to have on Legal A.F. soon, who's running a organization with Barack Obama related to redistricting, making sure congressional maps are not tilted in favor of only the white upper class. And he took a Midas touch video of Eric Holder and re-truthed it, or whatever it's called. So we are certainly piercing the inner sanctum, the hermetically sealed world of Donald Trump. All right, let's put aside the dementia of Donald Trump and the decline of Donald Trump for a minute.

Let me move on to the war crime and murder charges that should be brought against Pete Hegseth. And if it's not now, it'll certainly be when tribunals are formed at the end, the cessation of the Trump administration. See, his lackeys and sycophants and bootleckers and enablers don't seem to have gotten the message that the Supreme Court only provided the superpower. of immunity, criminal immunity, to the president, not to those under him. I'm looking at you, Pam Bondi, Attorney General, Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General, Pete Heggseth, Department of Defense. I'm not going to call it Department of War, even though you changed the stationery and photoshopped it, because Congress didn't approve that.

and the FBI director, Cash Patel, and the rest. There's going to be tribunals. Now, I have no doubt in the reporting that on September 2nd, Pete Hegsef gave the command to fire a fourth or fifth missile from a drone and to hit two men clinging to the side of a fishing boat in one of the first, the first strikes. There's been 20 strikes so far. More than 80 people disappeared by the Trump administration without due process in the Caribbean. And the reporting that just came out in the last couple of days is that Pete Hagseth, this is Wall Street Journal, sorry, Washington Post. Pete

Heggsap ordered the double tap. He ordered the code red, seeing the people clinging there. Now, we've seen the video that has been heavily edited just to show the initial hit. Now, people are going to testify against Heggseth. It is obvious from within the Pentagon that he gave the order once they saw that they were like in shock that people were still alive to hit it again and leave no survivors.

Donald Trump doesn't even like that look, the optics of that. And he said, no, I only saw the video of the initial hit. I didn't see anybody clinging it onto the side. And Pete Hexton thought, yeah, me too. Me too, boss. I only saw the original. original video, that's a lie. That's a lie. And the people are going to be compelled to testify

against Pete Hegsef, as he's busy trying to drum up a court-martial for Senator Mark Kelly, because he reminded the troops, and now you see why, right? He reminded the troops from brass down to rank and file that it is illegal and unconstitutional for you to follow an illegal unconstitutional Order of the Commander-in-Chief, along with a series of other elected officials. They're trying to recall him back to the Navy to court-martial him. Pete, you've got bigger problems. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are now looking into whether a war crime and a murder was committed by you, for which you have a very flimsy Office of Legal Counsel memo

that tells you it was okay to do what you did. it's not okay, even if you had a memo that said it's okay because we're in a non-land war with Venezuela or whatever it is, it's not okay to while people are clinging to the side of a boat, fire on it again when there's no threat to the United States. And now members of Congress, including those that served in the military and in the intelligence community on both sides of the aisle are weighing in. This may finally be the end of Pete Hexeth. I think it's certainly the end of Pete Hexeth. I think it's certainly the end for other reasons of Cash Patel, which I'll talk about next. I would not be surprised if in the over the next six months, we don't see a changeover. Pam Bondi may lose her job. I think that goes to

Todd Blanche. Cash Patel loses his job. I think that goes to the former Missouri Attorney General, who's now the deputy FBI director, who's friends with Pam Bondi. I think, think that Pete Heggseth loses his job, and somebody in the military, or maybe somebody like Joni Ernst, who's retiring from the Senate, gets that position. You're going to see changeover as Trump throws these people under the bus. Christine Nome also. Gone. Now, let me switch gears and talk about somebody else who's on a very short shelf life, and that's Cash Patel. I saw all I needed to see when Miranda Devine, the podcaster of choice for Donald Trump, who's sort of the captured podcaster, who runs her stuff under the New York Post Rupert Murdoch banner,

but all the administration goes on Miranda Devine. Suddenly she, under her headline, two days ago, said there's been a leak of 115 page FBI memo critiquing and basically calling for the firing of Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, the other right-wing podcaster, who's his number two. And it's effectively a call to fire him. And Miranda Devine reports on it. Oh, I've got a copy of it. I have a copy of a two, by the way. It's up on legal a half substack. You can read it has 10 major findings, mostly against Cash Patel. But the fact that it went to Miranda Devine, this is an, I'm telling you, this is an insider job by the Trump administration. Donald Trump is notorious for having used the New York Post and its gossip columnist and the Miranda Divines to leak information to make him look better.

All through his real estate career, he would constantly call Cindy Adams, who I think now is like 95 years old, gossip columnist on page six of the New York Post. And he'd call as himself as his own publicist. He'd be like, yeah, this is Bill over a Trump organization. And then he'd leak something about some woman he was dating. or some real estate deal he was doing or some award that he got and then they'd run it. He did that throughout the 80s and 90s and 2000s for the New York Post. This is another conjured up, not the report. The report has been done by 29 people both inside the FBI writing anonymously and outside

to tear down Cash Patel. But the fact that it went to Miranda Devine, I'm telling you, Cash, I don't know which is going to happen first. Some documents that we're going to get on December 19th in the Epstein matter related to the law that was signed by Trump that has to be released, is it going to be December 19th that we're going to get some documents or Cash Patel is going to get fired. There's no way, I'll come back and I'll admit if I'm wrong.

There's no way they're putting Cash Patel up in front of the House and Senate Judiciary Committee again to be reamed and, and have a live autopsy performed by Jamie Raskin and or Cory Booker or others after this report's come out. This report was done to give Donald Trump cover to fire Cash Patel, right? Patel's already got his own. You know, he's got to be on his PJ. It's not even his private jet. It's our private jet.

He's on a Gulfstream romancing his 20-something-year-old girlfriend. I thought I was like, when I first read the report, I thought I was reading a new update on Bill Belichick and his girlfriend. I'm like, he's got a 20-year-old girlfriend. He's running around on our taxpayer dollar, whining and dining her. He needs a SWAT team because she's singing the national anthem. But there's a joke in there somewhere. I'm just not going to make it.

So he's already had all of that reporting going on. And then Miranda Devine of all the reporters and all the people in America, she's the one that happens to get the leaked report that completely calls for his firing. He's not going to make it. Let me turn now, so as long as we're at the intersection, or let me do it when I come back from a quick commercial break. We're going to talk about developments, big developments in the James Comey, Letitia James prosecution, including a new motion under the Fourth Amendment that was filed just today. Alina Haba, of course, got bounced, and that had a cascading effect with the Third Circuit firing her as the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey has had a cascading effect on the Department of Justice's decision-making in Letitia James and James Comey's case. We'll wrap all that together. There's a new filing in the Mar-a-Lago case, of all things, where Donald Trump, apparently needs to remind Judge Aline Cannon, has a reminder that he's still involved with the case and he still doesn't want volume.

volume two of Jack Smith's report about Mar-a-Lago released. I want to talk through all of that. And I knew, as we await the decision by the United States Supreme Court, about whether Trump's tariffs are legal or not, or unconstitutional or not. Costco, of all things, perhaps sensing that Donald Trump is losing his grip on reality and on his faculties and on power has decided to file a lawsuit with the Court of International trade to get their tariff money back. Costco, of all things. We'll wrap all that together at the intersection. A couple of things I want to mention before we take our first commercial break or our

commercial break for today. I'm running a sale. It's the Popak birthday sale. From now until 12 o'clock p.m. Eastern time tomorrow. We've had a few hundred people take advantage of this already, which is amazing. On the legal AF substack, which is the way we sort of pay our bills, keeps us on the air, pays for the editors and all sorts of other things. Come over to legal. A.F Substack and for, I think now it's going to be about $5.50 a month, you can support all of our reporting commentary, live reporting over on LegalAF Substack with a 30% off Popak birthday special going on right now. Okay. So there's other ways to support what we do in my world at the intersection. Legal AF the podcast, we're doing great. Top 20 in YouTube podcast on a weekly basis. Top 50 or 60 on

Spotify and Apple. But we need your help and support to continue to watch and listen to us there. Legal AF, the YouTube channel, is where I do most of my work during the week. I mean, I do about 40 videos a week. I do about 15 or so on Midas. I do all the rest over on LegalAF, YouTube channel, along with a dozen other contributors. Now is the time. Find out if you are a member. If you're not a member, now would be a great time to do it. We're trying to get to $1 million as we roll into $20,000. 26. The bigger we are, the more your voice is heard. Come over to LegalAF, the substack and LegalAF, sorry, the YouTube channel. And it's all, that's free. Legal AF, YouTube, free. No paywall, no outside investors, but we need your help. So now we're going to hear from a word from our

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face moisturizer, the brand new peptide lip mask, and a sculpting GUA shot tool. It's luxury, but backed by serious longevity science. Now listen up. This part matters. For a limited time, try OneSkin for 15% off using code Legal AF at OnSkin.co slash legal AF. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. Welcome back to the intersection and thank you for being here and being such a fervent supporter of what we do. Let's dive into the James Comey, Letitia James Matter. There's some new newsworthy and breaking news stories around their indictments. You'll remember in the last several days, Judge Curry dismissed without prejudice, meaning the indictments could be brought

back under certain circumstances, dismissed the indictments against James Comey and Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, because she found, as other courts have found, that Lindsay Halligan is illegally appointed under Section 546 as the interim. U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. She'd never been a prosecutor before. She'd only been a prosecutor several hours when she went after James Comey, et cetera, et cetera. More importantly, she could not have been appointed as the U.S. attorney because

Donald Trump had one opportunity to appoint somebody in that role. He spent it on another person, and then it goes to the district court judges to pick that replacement. That's the argument. But the underlying indictments could be brought back under certain circumstances. So the new reporting is that there's grand juries that are working in Norfolk, Virginia and Alexandria, Virginia to bring new indictments against James Comey and Letitia James. So don't be surprised when I come back with updated reporting about it. Now, on Letitia James, I'm hoping that a grand jury will see through this charade,

will see the weaponization of the Department of Justice and the vindictive prosecution and not indict. I mean, there's enough publicity out there right now, including on legal AF. Don't indict if you don't believe the evidence supports it. That's one. But I think she'll probably get re-indicted. That doesn't change the fact that the prosecution is vindictive and her judge, Judge Walker is going to have to decide whether the whole criminal case needs to be dismissed regardless of who the prosecutor is. James Comey's a trickier, there's a trickier side to that story.

Because if they're going to re-indict him under the perjury count, the lying to Congress under 1001 of the Code, the statute of limitations has run. Judge Curry ruled that the indictment that Halligan obtained was never an indictment because everything she did was, illegal and void it. If that's illegal and void, it did not stop the clock on the five year, sorry, on the two-year statute of limitations, which ran on September 5th. Now, purportedly, there's some argument that they're going to bring another charge against him, not related to his testimony on February 5th, 2020 to Congress. All right, listen, I'll have to see what the charge is going to be. Certainly, it's not going to be Lindsay Halligan getting the indictment. It's going to

be a new grand jury. It'll likely be the new number two. She has a new first assistant. a guy coming out of semi-retirement from Kentucky to work with her that'll probably try to get this indictment. And I think the reason they're trying to get the indictments is because their world, the Department of Justice's world was rocked when four days after Lindsay Halligan was fired by Judge Curry, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in a unanimous decision 30 fired Alina Haba for similar but not identical reasons

to be the U.S. attorney for New Jersey. There's another case involving John Sarkoney up in the Northern District of New York that's being heard, just to be confusing, by a judge in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, about whether an investigation started by John Sarkony against Lettician James's New York Attorney General Office for violating Donald Trump's civil rights. There's a hearing that's coming up actually on Thursday this week in front of the judge there. about Judge Friedrich, about whether the John Sarkoni was illegally appointed as well, much like Alina Haba. Stay tuned on that one. But it's been a bad run for Donald Trump on these U.S. attorney appointments because he's not picking anybody that can get through the confirmation process with the Senate.

He's picking all these partisan political hacks who he knows will never get confirmed or will be blocked by the senators in blue states. and therefore he doesn't care. You know, he got his pound of flesh. He really, he doesn't, he really doesn't care about Lettisha James and James Comey. He already got their pound of, he's got his pound of flesh, because it was announced that there was a criminal investigation, and then there was an indictment, and then and then. And he's already moved on in his micro news cycle.

But the strategy appears to be, they're going to, Department of Justice with a new prosecutor, new grand jury, is going to try to indict both. while the lawyers argue that it doesn't matter who's doing the indictment, it's all vindictive prosecution and try to get the indictments dismissed with prejudice forever. So we'll have to see what's going to happen next. And then in the next 25 days or so, they'll file a one-page notice of appeal to appeal what just happened to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which then goes up through, I think it's Judge... I think Judge Roberts takes care of the fourth before it goes to the United States Supreme Court.

This is all heading to the United States Supreme Court one way or the other. But that's the complicated developments. The last big development was that earlier today, Daniel Richmond, a Columbia law professor who used to be a lawyer, or still is a lawyer for James Comey when he worked to the FBI and otherwise, who is the announced leaker. We all know he leaked on behalf of James Comey. a series of memos to the New York Times when James Comey wrote C-Y-A memos when Trump ordered him to stop the criminal investigation of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, which he wouldn't do. He then leaked it to his buddy, Richmond. Richmond leaked it to the New York Times and the hope was, according to Comey, that a special counsel would be appointed. So that has always been the role of Richmond. Richmond had search

warrants executed on him and had his email account of Columbia looked at, all of his electronic data looked at, and it was sitting in a giant box, including information that was attorney client privilege for James Comey, that he couldn't waive, information about other clients, and it was part of another investigation involving Hillary Clinton's emails. Fast forward seven or eight years, they turn that box that has all of the attorney-client privilege information and other private information in there, and they give it to a new FBI person to work with Lindsey Halligan in 2025. He runs roughshod over all of the documents, right, and violates the Fourth Amendment of against illegal searches and seizures of Professor Richmond and of Comey. Judge Fitzpatrick, the

magistrate judge in the Comey case said so on November the 17th in an order that he issued that they had violated the Fourth Amendment rights effectively of Richmond. Now Richmond has filed a new motion to get back all of his material, which is all the evidence they have against Comey, apparently, and to have it not be used against James Comey because it would violate the Fourth Amendment privilege of Professor Richmond. That's now been assigned to a D.C. judge, Judge Kolar Katelli, who's a Clinton appointee, to make the final decision. So if the government loses on that motion and they can't use the Richmond materials, I don't know how they're going to ever bring an indictment unless it's about something

completely different, which may be, and then, of course, we'll report on it here. And that's the link. Let me turn now to Alina Haba, right? Because that links to, we had Halligan thrown out by Judge Curry because that violated Section 546. She couldn't be the interim U.S. attorney because that position had already been filled by somebody prior to her. You only get one shot at that, and then the district judges pick after that. That's relatively simple. Alina Haba got her position a different way.

She wasn't the interim U.S. attorney. She was the acting U.S. attorney. they went up a different statutory way with her that position can only be filled when there's a vacancy by the first deputy the first assistant uh u.s attorney for that office there's a first assistant it's the number two position in the office whoever is in that seat when a vacancy arises under the vacancy reform act gets the job trump can fire that person but then he's got to pick somebody else from within the office at the time of the vacancy who's got a year experience or you know at least in that office and 90 days of

experience in the position that of first deputy that's all he can do so that's not what he did he fired there's a there's a series of people including a guy named john jeered down who made it three weeks in new jersey then they finally got around to appointing alina abba they also nominated her She got blocked by the New Jersey senators with blue slips. Donald Trump pissed off Donald Trump. So he had Pam Bondi also make her her own first assistant and then try to elevate her as her own first assistant

to the vacancy created by her being removed and then also try to make her a special attorney without Senate confirmation to serve in the role of special attorney of a U.S. attorney. Confused? The Third Circuit figured it out pretty quickly. Three judge panel. We had a Bush, a Reagan, and a Biden appointee. And they were like, no. This is the simplest thing we're going to have to deal with. If you have a first assistant, you have to use the first assistant, and you can't be your own first assistant. So she's out. And then on the, can you a special attorney be created with all the powers of the U.S.

attorney? They said, no, that violates the exclusivity provision of the Vacancy Reform Act, which says this is the exclusive way to fill the vacancy. Same problem that John Sarkoni has up in Northern District of New York. He's the pit bull picked by Ed Martin and Pam Bondi to go after Letitia James in her official capacity as the New York Attorney General. claiming that she somehow violated the civil rights of Donald Trump because she brought a $400 million fraud case, which she won against Trump.

There's still a, no one wants to talk about this. There's still a monitor, a court-ordered officer of the court over all of the Trump Organization business affairs. To this day, former federal judge Barbara Jones, because of the work of Lettisha James. So she's now moved to quash his subpoenas, John Sarkoney subpoenas, arguing, Letitia James is arguing that Sarkoni, like Haba, is illegally appointed under the Vacancy Reform Act for the exact same reasons that are in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision making. Now, the Third Circuit Court of Appeal decision, while it's not necessarily binding on the judge that's handling the matter in Manhattan.

See, they took it out of the Northern District of, um, the Northern District of New York and put it in the Southern District of New York because if Sarkoni gets bounced, the judges of the Southern District of the Northern District have to pick his replacement. So they don't want to, they see an ethical conflict with the Northern District. They moved it down south to Manhattan. Okay. So we have that. So the judge there, if they determined that he was illegally appointed, what I was trying to say is on the Third Circuit, while it's not binding necessarily on the Southern District of New York judge because her bosses are on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals

that sits in New York up the street, not the Philadelphia-based Third Circuit, it is the only appellate ruling that's out there. So it does have a certain amount of binding precedent, a certain amount of persuasiveness that I think will be used by the judge. And she's holding that hearing about Letitia James' motion to quash the subpoenas on Thursday, which we'll report on. There's a lot of activity going on this week. There's a Brago-Garcia hearing that we're going to update you on on legal AF. There's, as I said, things related to James Comey and the rest. So I wanted to kind of bring you all up to

speed. Finally, let's talk about Mar-a-Lago. Mar-a-Lago back in the news. Judge Eileen Cannon, back in the news for all the wrong reasons. She's been sitting on Volume 2. the Mara Lago report of Jack Smith, which he issued at the end of his investigation, forever. She doesn't want to release it. She found that Jack Smith was illegally appointed because he was a special attorney that didn't go through Senate confirmation. Sound familiar?

It's the exact same position that Trump administration is using for Alina Haba and John Sarkoni. But in Trump world down in Mara Lago, they got Eileen Cannon to bite and to find that Jack Smith was illegally appointed. So the volume one about the D.C. election interference evidence was already released by Merrick Garland through Judge Chutkin. But, you know, Aileen Cannon's been vetted over backwards to help Donald Trump for a long time. And now we've got a new filing just today where Donald Trump, I guess, what needed to remind Aileen Cannon that he appointed her to that job, and he filed with his personal lawyers a new motion

to intervene in the case because it's been brought by two First Amendment entities, public interest groups, one being American Oversight and the other one, the Knight Foundation. And he wants to intervene and he also wants to adopt

the arguments of his co-conspirator defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliva who helped him hide all of the documents in Mara Lago, right? And helped him try to erase the video showing that they were all the documents. Oh, it would be terrible for them because they would be tried in the court of

public opinion. Look at Donald Trump caring about the court of public opinion and how it would treat somebody. Are you effing kidding me? The public spent tens of millions of dollars for Jack Smith to do his report. We need to see the final work product. Pam Bondi's never going to release it. It's sitting with the judge. It's fair game for a freedom of information act request. The 11th Circuit has now put canon on the clock as of today. 60 days. You get 60 days to make your ruling or we're going to make it for you. And I'm not sure, you know, they already reversed her twice, the 11th Circuit, dealing with her trying to interfere with the prosecution the first time around. Well, I'll have to see what they're going to do now. But if it comes back up to the 11th Circuit, I think there's a good chance

we're going to see Volume 2 about Mara Lago before all is set and done. But, I think it's just remarkable to me still that Eileen Cannon does not recuse herself from matters involving Donald Trump. I mean, it leaked out before the transition of the new presidency that she was on the shortlist to be the attorney general for Donald Trump. How does she not recuse herself and let it roll over to Judge Rosenberg or Judge Middlebrooks in the Southern District of Florida? I just don't understand it, except that you do the math. You do the math. But it's wrong. It continues to be wrong. I'm glad you're here with me on the intersection.

As you know, I'm traveling. It is a birthday week for me. My family and I decided to go away for it. You can be kind and tell me what you think the birthday is below. But in the meantime, I'm running a sale, folks. Legal AF substack, 30% off annual membership for my birthday. Forget, you know, the Black Friday or Cyber Monday, whatever it is. Popak birthday Tuesday.

30% off it runs till noon tomorrow. become a paid member that's what pays the bills that that's what keeps the lights on that's what pays for the editors the commentary and all the rest legal a f substack and i promise you will overwhelm you with amazing content over there and then of course legal a after youtube channel we're still trying to get to one million we need to do it before 2026 really now more than ever the bigger we are the more your voice is heard become a member it's for free a legal a f youtube channel and thank you for supporting the intersection and all that we do here. I'm Michael Popock. Until my next report, I'll see you around Midas and Legal

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