Legal AF by MeidasTouch - The Intersection with Michael Popok Full Episode - 9/16/2025

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Kash Patel flames out and Fox News throws him an anchor not a life preserver during his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing testimony. Pam Bondi forgot that “hate speech” is just protected first amendment speech that she can’t prosecute, and Justice Sotomayor tells her so.  Why hasn’t Brian Kilmeade been prosecuted by Pam Bondi for “hate speech” for calling for the “lethal injection” of unhoused Americans? Trump is on a fast track to another federal court sanction for bad faith lawsuit filing with the new “$55 billion dollar” defamation suit filed by Trump against the New York Times.  And will the Epstein pedophile scandal take down 2 Administrations, as Trump visits the UK Prime Minister at the worst possible time.  Michael Popok is at The Intersection to provide his unique brand of commentary. Uplift: Elevate your workspace and energize your year with Uplift Desk. Go to https://upliftdesk.com/legalaf for a special offer exclusive to our audience. Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. 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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Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling Problem Call connects Ontario 1866-531-260-19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. Welcome to the intersection. I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network. So much has changed since last Tuesday when I did my last episode. I don't know if it's a turning point moment or a hinge moment, but we have a before the murder of Charlie Kirk moment in America and an after as the Trump administration and its leadership, including Donald Trump, including Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, including Cash Patel of the FBI, all of which I'll talk about on tonight's show, said the quiet part out loud that they are going to. going to be targeting and going after people because they don't like what they're saying

about their administration. They don't like what they're saying and they're trying to constitute that and recast it as hate speech and therefore they're going to use the power of the Department of Justice, the State Department, the military to go after quote unquote people who don't speak the way MAGA wants you to speak, go after constitutionally protected First Amendment speech. So I want to talk about all that. I'll be tying a lot of different strands together. If you give me long enough on this podcast, I promise you, I will tie it all together. Let's start with what we just watched with Donald Trump, which I've referred to as the sealed team six moment.

Are we at that moment that was anticipated by Justice Sotomayor in which and Justice and Judge Pan that now Donald Trump believes having gotten criminal immunity for his constitutional president? functions from the Supreme Court two years ago, that he can use the might of the military to take out his political enemies, his rivals, anybody that he designates an enemy of the state, including apparently 60% of America that doesn't agree with him, is that the dress rehearsal that we just watched in the Caribbean as not one but two ships have been fired upon and destroyed killing a dozen or more people without due process because Donald Trump pushed the butt? is this the SEAL Team 6 moment that we were dreading? Is it now upon us where Donald Trump believes that he has the power to, quote, unquote, use SEAL Team 6 to take out as political rivals?

That was the question that was posed to his advocates at the D.C. Circuit, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals at the United States Supreme Court, same person, John Sauer. Now the Solicitor General of the United States, they never could answer the question. And now you've got people who are about to be confirmed to be. on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, them saying, well, it's a, it hasn't been determined yet. It's a case of first impression whether Donald Trump can use the power of the presidency and the military to kill somebody on domestic soil that he politically disagrees with. That's in question? No, no.

And then you have Pam Bondi, who says out loud that the, she's definitely going to use the power of the Department of Justice to go after her. speech to which even Fox news anchors had a reminder and do a double take and say that's First Amendment protected speech even if it makes you uncomfortable. That's the point. Charlie Kirk said almost everything that came out of his mouth made me repulsed me, made me angry, disgusted me, violated my morals and my principles and made me putting it mildly uncomfortable. But as I said, and I've said before, I will defend with my breath, my last breath, the right for him to have said that out loud and make me uncomfortable. We win these battles in the soapbox, the soapbox, right?

In the marketplace of ideas, in the public square, in the electronic. public square and social media for the hearts and minds that we're battling for, the hearts and minds of the American people. At bottom, we are all Americans and patriots. That should never be denied or prosecuted or lead to your arrest just because you're on a different political aisle than somebody else. So in response to Pam Bondi saying she's going to use the powers of Department of Justice to target people. Here's what Justice Sotomayor had to say. See if you can figure out who she's talking about. Let's play the clip. And the thing that gets to me is every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in

some way, I think to myself that law school failed. All right. If any student, who becomes a lawyer hasn't been taught civics, then the law school has failed. It should be as critically a part of the curricula as your first year courses. We've got, what do we just watch in the last 24 hours? The vice president of the United States, the vice president of the United States

used the White House and the West Wing to conduct a political rally masquerading as a podcast to sit in the chair of the late Charlie Kirk from the White House on my taxpayer dime in order to rail against liberals and Democrats who he says is the root cause of this murder while he's the vice president of the United States. may I remind J.D. Vance, just for a moment, that a guy who looked an awful lot like you

before he was running for office, I think he was even beardless, said that Donald Trump was America's Hitler and that he would never vote for Donald Trump if his life depended on it. And then, of course, he had to defend those. Here's a clip of, just as you can remember, J.D. Vance calling Donald Trump America's Hitler, which is sort of a little bit of irony, considering Donald Trump from the White House said that one of the reasons Charlie Kirk is dead is because the left compares him and others to Hitler. Here's J.D. Vance's clip from our way back machine. This is an evolution, and I know you've been asked about this before, about past comments that you've made about Donald Trump. You've said, I'm a never Trump guy, never like.

him, terrible candidate, idiot if you voted for him, might be America's Hitler, might be a cynical a-hole, cultural heroin, noxious and reprehensible. Those are things. And then he has the brass ones to sit in violation of the Hatch Act, by the way, against politicking and electioneering while you're on the public dole. And so you have the Bondi, J.D. Vance. And who's J.D. Vance? One of his first guests, right? Direct from the crypt

is the Grim Reaper, Stephen Miller, who comes on because he's a perfect presentation of all that's wrong with MAGA, right he checks he checks all the boxes they're just all the wrong boxes and then he goes after america from the bully pulpit there's one thing to call it the bully pulpit there's another thing to to to transmit a podcast and conduct a podcast from the uh from the west wing from the from the white house and he comes on and starts attacking me and you and everybody that's interested in the Midas dutch network or legal a f or anything like that um and then i want to fast forward a little bit to Cash Patel.

I said I thought that was going to be an S show of epic proportion before he went on. But I could not anticipate how badly it would go for Cash Patel. And there's no hiding it. If he's not fired in the next 30 days, I would be shocked. I'll come back and tell you I was shocked because of what led into this performance and the performance itself today, and it's all performative at the U.S. Senate, Senate Judiciary Committee and their oversight over the FBI and the questions and the sharp questioning and grilling of Cash Patel by Senators Blumenthal, Senator Schiff, and Senator

Cory Booker. And the approach that Cash Patel took to responding to these questions that he should have known we're coming. What about Epstein and the Epstein scandal of the cover-up and things that Cash Patel himself said? About the botched manhunt for the Charlie Kirk murderer, you know, or suspect? That wasn't a man-hunt. That was a mom hunt. The mom saw the photo which any law enforcement officer could have posted up on television.

And between that, the father and administered the suspects in custody. It had as much to do with Cash Patel as it did with me in the capture of that guy. But he comes on there. And even when he gets a softball, a softball question from Senator Kennedy, it blows up on his face. I joked recently, I never saw a man drown before until I saw Cash Patel during the Senate Oversight Committee or the Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hero. In fact, let's start with, I'll show you a couple of clips, just you know what I'm talking about. Here's Senator Blumenthal reminding Cash Patel that he effectively lied to the American people during the confirmation process about not having a retribution list or a hit list that he was going to execute on when he got into office, if he got into office. Watch this exchange.

I'm not going to mince words. You lied to us. In the short time that you've been FBI. director, you've presided over a rash of retaliatory firing. Three FBI agents have recently sued you. They are FBI agents with 60 years between them of distinguished service, rescuing hostages, saving kids from predators, dismantling drug cartels, and their allegations, their civil allegations are a searing indictment of your tenure as FBI director. But it's not just those three. The FBI Agents Association has said that your actions, quote, distract agents from their work, foster fear that their assignments could cost them their careers, either now or under the next administration and increase the risk of criminal and national security threats by undermining

unity and morale within the Bureau. This association, as you know, is voluntary. It represents 14,000 members, 90% of all the active agents. These are your employees saying that your performance has been unqualified and unfit. And there is mounting evidence that these retaliatory firings were the result of direction from the White House. There have been instances in the past history of the Bureau of political interference and political direction from the director's office, but not the kind of institutional interference that we're seeing from the White House. house right now. And it went downhill from there for Cash Patel, if that's even possible. And everything

was a triggering event for him. Epstein, he was triggered. You know, Charlie Kirk, he was triggered. And then he said some really stupid stuff out loud to Senator Kennedy from Louisiana about Epstein. First of all, he admitted that he doesn't know what's in the files. He told the American people, Cash Patel in February, that no stone would be left unturned, that he would release everything, every shred of paper, full transparency to the American people from the Epstein files. That was February. We are now in mid-September. None of that has happened, except for more cover-up and more conspiracy of which he is a complicit part. Privately, he's been trying to leave the FBI. It was either, you know, and there's a rumor out there that both Todd Blanche and Pam Bondi want Cash Patel gone.

Fox News, by the way, itself threw him an anchor instead of a life preserver. By the way, they're reporting Cash Patel. Knives are out for Cash Patel's one headline. Cash Patel grilled by Senate is another headline. That's not a paper that's trying to help you out, if you know what I mean. So he's thrown this, what was supposed to be a softball question, where he effectively admits he doesn't know what's in the Epstein files. So he's buried his head in this hand.

But that what he does know about what's in the Epstein files, here's the non-sequitur, here's the internal inconsistency. What he does know about what's in the Epstein files has led him to the conclusion that nobody else was involved or benefited from the sex trafficking ring of children except for Jeffrey Epstein. That's not the talking point he was supposed to come up with. He was supposed to come up with a talking point that Bill Clinton was involved, right? Isn't that what's supposed to happen? So we have the, let me show you the clip now

of the exchange, which again was supposed to be a softball, but ended up being a live hand grenade. Let's play the clip. You've seen most of the files. Who, if anyone, did Epstein traffic these young women too besides himself? Himself, there is no credible information. None. If there were, I would bring the case yesterday that he trafficked to other individuals. And the information we have, again, is limited. So the answer is no one? For the information that we have. In the files.

In the case file. Okay. Then we go into the hard slide of the two most, I would say, bombastic or just completely inappropriate. You know, Cash Patel thought for a minute there, that he was Robert Duvall in Godfather. He was demanding an apology from the Senate. I demand an apology, senators.

He starts fighting with Adam Schiff about a simple question about the Epstein files, completely triggered. Somebody taught him, maybe Stephen Miller, that if he fights back like Kavanaugh did during his confirmation hearing, maybe it'll come out fine. You be the judge, who won this exchange?

Let's play Adam Schiff. to believe that? Do you think they're stupid? No, I think the American people believe the truth, that I'm not in the weeds on the everyday movements of inmates. What I am doing is protecting this country, providing historic reform and combating the weaponization of intelligence by the likes of you,

and we have countlessly proven you to be a liar in Russia, in January 6th, you are the biggest fraud to ever sit in the United States Senate, You're a disgrace to this institution and an utter coward. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised that you continue to lie from your perch and put on a show so you can go raise money for your charade. You are a political buffoon at best. Well, you can take an internet troll. Take it to the bank that the FBI is protecting this country and the state and citizens of the California.

We have been historic reform. Internet point of order. But all you care about is a child sex predator that was prosecuted by a prior administration and the Obama Justice Department and the Biden Justice Department did squat. And what did President Trump do, bring new charges courageously, and what have we done? Chairman, take control the most transparent FBI director in history. 33,000 pages of information to you. I challenge you to say anything credibly to the truth.

Go ahead and run to the cameras where you want to go now. And then if that's not enough, you know, you're a buffoon, you're a fool. The American people will be the judge here. I think Schiff was smart not to have grassly gaveled down Cash Patel and reserve his time. Then we move on to Cory Booker. And Cory Booker, I love for many reasons. One of them is he says out loud, I'm not afraid of you. But more to the point, more pointedly, he says that, um, You are not long for your job. I don't believe you'll be here at the next hearing. This will likely be the last time you and I will be together at a hearing like this and the rest. Let's play Cory Booker ripping out Cash Patel's heart

and showing it to him on live television. Here we go. And it really makes me wonder who you're looking out for. It makes me think we can't trust you as a nation. You swear to release the Epstein files, but now you're withholding the Epstein files, but now you're withholding the Epstein files. You claim that you have a suspect in a serious assassination.

Whoops, then you don't have a suspect. You know nothing about plans to remove FBI agents yet. You're directly involved in those plans. In the words of an ex-FBI official, you are overseeing, and I quote, generational destruction of the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Mr. Patel, in just eight months, you have assaulted the institutional integrity of the FBI.

But I know FBI field agents. I've worked with them in Newark. No matter how truly bad you are, you can't undermine the legacy of agents who fight every day to keep us safe, but you can tarnish the integrity of the agency and undermine the agency's capacity. I believe you're failing as a leader

and that your failure does have serious implications for the safety and security of Americans and our families. We're more vulnerable to domestic and foreign attack because of your failures of leadership. I don't think you're fitting him to the Bureau. But here's the thing, Mr. Patel. I think you're not going to be around long. I think this might be your last oversight hearing.

Because as much as you supplicate yourself to the will of Donald Trump and not the Constitution of the United States of America, Donald Trump has shown us in his first term and in this term, he is not loyal to people like you. He will cut you loose. This may be the last time I have a hearing with you because I don't think you're long.

for your job. But I'm going to tell you this. I pray for you. That you can step up and defend your oath, defend the Constitution, and do a much better job of defending this country. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So let's go through all the ways that Cash Patel should not survive as FBI director, right? He goes down his retribution list and fires people. He takes away the leadership and the brains of the operation of the FBI. and sends them packing. We now have the lawsuits to prove it. He sends 1,500 FBI agents out of the federal headquarters in D.C. And sends them out to places like Huntsville, Alabama.

They're ill-prepared to handle any investigations to protect the homeland or to participate as an appropriate investigative agency. And this is all on his watch. He says he's reforming the FBI. He's hollowing it out, leaving us vulnerable. And it's all on full display for his first appearance, first major appearance anyway, in the last, you know, since the Epstein debacle, since the Charlie Kirk debacle. The timing couldn't have been better. Terrible for Donald Trump as he's parading around the UK trying to get some good photo ops with the royal family. He just wants to look presidential. But things like the Epstein scandal in its stench follow him around. Let's talk about now the back, we'll leave the country for a minute, we'll go to the UK. This Epstein scandal could bring down two governments, including Starmer's government in the UK

about how he handled and how he hired his ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson, or Peter Mandelson, who was also known as the Lord of Darkness, Prince of Darkness, because of his role as a media spin doctor. He was like one of Epstein's best. friends. He's all over the birthday book. But the birthday book didn't get Lord Mendelsohn canned, the photos of a half-naked guy, you know, hanging out with Epstein. It was the emails. It's always the emails. The emails that came out in the last week that Bloomberg got their hands on with 18,000 emails that nobody knew existed inside of Epstein's inbox. And in the

inbox were correspondence between Mandelson and Epstein, in which Mandelson is the telling him you're like my best friend and I think the world of you and fight hard against the prosecutors. This is after he was already in negotiations with prosecutors about taking a charge for soliciting sex or soliciting prostitution from a minor, which completely turns the equation upside down. He wasn't like a voluntary transaction. He was raping girls. That's the pedophile. That's the child sex trafficker for which Galane Maxwell was convicted because he took the coward's weight out

or whatever way out and died before the trial. It's the emails that brought down Lord Mandelson and then it questions whether Starmer whether he and his government properly vetted Lord Mandelson. I mean the guy lost his job

under Tony Blair twice in the prior administration, prior cabinet, but they wanted a curry favor with Donald Trump, and they knew that Donald Trump and Epstein and Trump and Mandelson were friends. So there we go. So Mandelson either lied to the government of the UK during the vetting process, hoping the emails would never be found, or the right questions weren't asked. Now you kind of collide it all together because Donald Trump tomorrow is going to be meeting with the UK Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street and other places. And now you're going to

you've got two guys who are drowning in the Epstein scandal coming together while Cash Patel is not done, by the way. Senate is only the first stop. He's now got to go to the House. Cash Patel is off to the House Oversight Committee where he's going to have to face the Inquisition of Jamie Raskin. Isn't that going to be fun? So whatever Donald Trump thought he was accomplishing by leaving the country on a short trip and trying to look presidential in a tuxedo and walk around and meet the king and queen, yeah, it ain't working. It's not working, you know, but we're going to see what comes out. We'll continue to follow what's happening in the Trump, UK visit and the impact of the Epstein scandal. At least, at least the prime minister had the courage to fire the ambassador after he turned up in the birthday book. Donald Trump's excuse for being on page 157 of the 237 page leather-bound birthday book, to Epstein is, was it me? Everybody else has admitted that that is their submission.

And some of them were as bad as Donald Trump's or worse, basically confessing that they knew that Epstein was chasing after young girls and women, including hand-drawn cartoons. Nobody else said, well, that's a forgery. I didn't do that. That's not my submission. Nobody, except Donald Trump. Somebody forged my signature and made that. stuck it in the book. Who? Epstein? Who? In the middle of the book? Yeah. I'll do a handwriting analysis. All right, do a handwriting analysis. We've done our own analysis, as has the Washington Post in the New York Times, and it's pretty clear that it is your signature on there and words that you have used in the past. So good luck. And then they'd ever explain. I love the White House. There was a, there's a forgery.

That means there's a forger. Who's the forger? Why did they forge? Why would they just forge Donald Trump's name? Why would they shove it in the middle of the book and then have it sit around for 30 years, including in the hands of Epstein? And then with the Epstein estate to be surfaced now, to embarrass Trump in 2025? This is gibberish. This doesn't even pass what we call the straight face test because you can't keep a straight face telling that story. Speaking of stories, a straight face test, let me turn to the New York Times. I love the New York Times for many, many reasons.

I don't agree with everything that's written in there. But I've been reading The Grey Lady since I was, as my mother, my late mother would have told you, since I was eight years old. And I've been following the Scholesberger, the Ox Schultzberger family. I've read every book there is about the New York Times and its founding family or the family that took over later and who currently owns it. You know, they're privately owned, they're privately controlled anyway by the Schulzberg Ox family.

And now Donald Trump has, this has been his arch enemy for a long time. And so because he's had a bad news cycle, and as I've said, this is my doctrine, every time Donald Trump has a bad news cycle about Epstein or the economy or both, it's time to blow up human beings in the Caribbean and in the name of some sort of warpower without due process, or let's file another lawsuit against the political enemy of Donald Trump. In this case, the New York Times gets sued for $55 billion, which is like five times the amount of money that the company is worth in Tampa, Florida, because again, he's avoiding Eileen Cannon. He's avoiding the judges he doesn't like in Miami, but he wants to keep it in Florida. And one of the most conservative areas of Florida, although I would argue Jacksonville is more, is Tampa. So hoping for the Tampa judge. to help them out. But then I read it. Defamation, which in order to sue a newspaper, a media outlet for defamation or liable, meaning it's in print, so therefore liable,

you have to prove not only that the thing is false, the statement made about you is false, and that you've been damaged as a result, although there's certain types of defamation, we call them deformation per se, that you don't have to prove damages. You can, a dollar worth of damage is enough, like about your reputation or loathsome disease, something else, you know, like somebody accuses you of having AIDS or that you're a terrible business person, that's enough to be defamation per se. But you still have to get over the hurdle. Even if you prove that the New York Times knew it was false to criticize your business dealings or your father's business dealings or your role on the apprentice. This is all in the lawsuit. Or, you know,

how you operate your projects kind of thing. Even if all of that were false, Donald Trump still has to allege in the complaint and prove at trial that the New York Times knew or should have known that what they wrote were allowed to be printed in their paper or in their books was false or they recklessly disregarded whether it's true or false.

That's not what the complaint says. the first 18 pages of the complaint is just a publicity poster for Donald Trump. It starts literally, we'll put it up on the screen. It starts literally with a picture of Donald Trump's electoral victory over Kamala Harris. And every other paragraph is just some sort of narcissistic. I'm the greatest person in the world. I'm the greatest business person in the world. I have the most charisma.

These are his words in the world. I made Apprentice what it is. I've written books. I've been on WrestleMania. I've been on Home Alone, too. Yes, he wrote that in the complaint. But the problem is when you get done with all of those allegations and I go, all right, where's the meat?

I see the bun. Where is the beef? And I get to the part where he's supposed to tell me not only where everything is defamatory, but how the New York Times has recognized. recklessly disregarded the truth or falsity of these things or knew that they were false, I get there, there's nothing there. I mean, literally, there's nothing there. Sure, he lists about 50 things the New York Times has said about him or his business dealings or his father or the apprentice over the last 10 years.

Many of these things, I think, are outside the statute of limitations. And then he says, but they're false, but they're false. But they're false. How are they false? Well, I am a great businessman. Well, who says that? I do. At one point, they actually reprint.

a just Donald Trump bragging about the other defamation lawsuits that he's brought against the Washington Post and the, or against ABC and CBS and Paramount and the Washington Post. And I'm like, what does that have to do with the case against the New York Times? See, this lawsuit violates many aspects of the pleading requirements under the federal rules of civil procedure. particularly that you have to have a concise statement of facts. You can't include impertinent, immaterial allegations. You can't drone on and prattle along in a prolix faction, in a shotgun fashion, throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the pleading, bragging about your ego, bragging about how big your electoral victory was, bragging about other cases that you won,

and your own self-congratulatory text mess, I mean, social media post about it. that is no place in a federal pleading that's filed. I don't care who the judge is going to be. And when you get down to it, there is a Supreme Court case. Now, some of the right-wing MAGA may not like it, but it's been on the book since the early 1970s. It's called Times v. Sullivan.

It's the New York Times case. They know their own First Amendment law. And that established that for public figures like Donald Trump, you have to go one extra level in order to sustain. a defamation case and win a defamation case. You have to show it. And so when I read this to show reckless disregard or what we call actual malice. So when I went to the actual malice paragraphs, I'm like, where are they? So I go to the section of the complaint where it's supposed to list actual malice. And all it says is they've got effectively trumped arrangement syndrome

and they hate me. I'm like, that's not, you have to show facts. You can't even just allege it in a legal conclusion. You have to show how you know that they have actual malice, right? That there was an email, a telephone exchange, a comment, something that establishes it, nothing. So this suit followed by Alejandro Brito is doomed for failure. But that's not the reason they filed it. They filed it to have a talking point and to be able to attack the Times and hope that they'll get them into a settlement posture. And the Times has fought back. I mean, the publisher of the editor and the owner of the New York Times came out and said right at the time the suit was filed, that we're not going to back down, that we're going to protect our journalism. We're going to defend our reporters. We're going to defend our rights under the First Amendment. And everybody should also. I don't see them back and down. Now, they don't have as much money as Paramount or CBS and the rest of them were ABC. But I don't see them back and down on this. And of course, they shouldn't. They should win. court of law, a motion to dismiss, and more importantly, a motion for sanctions. Because remember,

Donald Trump got hit with a million dollar sanction when he and Alina Haba decided to do a very similar thing, what one judge called, Judge Middlebrooks called a political screed masquerading as a lawsuit. Same thing. And they're doing it all over again. So they should bring what's called a Rule 11 motion to demand that this be retracted and withdrawn, or they're going to seek attorney's fees and cost and other sanctions. And that's how Alina Haba and Donald Trump got hit because they sued the Democratic Party.

They sued Hillary Clinton and Middlebrooks ripped them a new one. And they paid the million dollars. Same thing should happen here at the New York Times. And the New York Times is not back and down. I just did a hot take on this. They just reported a new expose, a brand new scandal

in which Donald Trump has effectively used the White House to line his pockets on his cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, to have the United Arab Emirates pay money into his company by way of buying $2 billion worth of stable coin, which is a cryptocurrency that's tied to the U.S. dollar. In return, it looks like he brokered a deal using the same people on both sides of the transaction

to send the UAE high-end AI artificial intelligence computer chips. So in other words, pay my company to benefit my family and me and Steve Whitkoff, my special envoy, and my golfing buddy, and in return, we'll get you the AI chips that you want. Quid pro quo should be illegal. I'm sure there's going to be a lawsuit over it

now that the Expoise came out. But the New York Times is fighting back. Just like the Wall Street Journal fought back. You know, the Wall Street Journal got sued for its $50 billion or whatever the number is down in the Southern District of Florida in Miami. And they fought back the next day writing a worse article against Donald Trump about Epstein. So you never pick a fight with somebody who buys ink by the barrelful. And the reason that Donald will give you the legal litigation reason, the reason that Donald Trump sent the case to Tampa and away from Miami is he didn't want to get another judge in Miami to handle the case

and he's afraid of having Eileen Cannon get the case because I'm sure he's considering elevating her to some appellate court position or maybe the United States Supreme Court. And he doesn't want her to have the Trump case in front of her to foul that up. That's my working theory. I'm going to stay with that until the very end. Speaking of working theory, no segue, there's so many ways that, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank each and every one of you for helping us with the build over on Legal AF Substack. We just crossed 800,000 people were at 805,000 subscribers, and our one-year anniversary for LegalAF substack is tomorrow on Wednesday.

One year ago, Wednesday, we had one subscriber, it was me. Now, actually, I think Brett Micellis was my first subscriber, to be fair. And now look what we've done. 265 million views, over 12 contributors. We've got our own resident historians. We've got our group looking at federal corruption up to the, through the federal court system, to the U.S. Supreme Court. We've got some amazing people there. Come over to Legal AF YouTube.

And then help us here with this podcast. Tuesday nights, 8 p.m., make it a date. Meet me here. Legal AF, sorry, intersection here on the Midas Touch Network. And then you can help, and I got great news about this show. You can help on the audio, which is on, you know, like Spotify, Apple, that kind of thing. Download it, listen to it. Leave a comment, five-star review.

And then watch us here on YouTube and send it off to other people. YouTube does a ranking of the top 100. YouTube, a podcast of any genre, could be anything. And we cracked the top 100 again last week. And that's because of you. Really it is. I do my part, but without this fervent support of the audience, we don't have anything. And then, of course, we've got the new Legal AF substack, where I'm doing two lives a day,

10 other pieces of content, amazing reporting and analysis. Come to Legal AF substack and join us there. and consider becoming a paid member. And then we've got our pro-democracy sponsors who also support what we do. Main ways to support us, subscribe, paid subscription, legal AF substack,

legal AF YouTube channel, and to keep legal AFB podcast and intersection at the top of the charts. That's what keeps us on the air. Okay? And now a word from our pro-democracy sponsors. The weather, it's heating up in your nighttime bedroom,

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That's U-P-L-I-F-T-D-E-SK.com slash LegalAF for this exclusive offer only available through our link. Welcome back. Let's pick up where we left off about Lisa Cook on the board of governors. Two people barely got into the room to consider rates and interest rates at the Federal Reserve Open Markets Committee meeting that's scheduled for tomorrow. The rates are announced at about 2.30 p.m. Eastern time. One of them is Lisa Cook. It took a ruling by Judge Cobb, which found on a preliminary injunction that, Lisa Cook's firing for purported mortgage fraud, more about that in a minute, was both a violation of her Fifth Amendment due process rights and was improper for cause to remove her from her 14-year seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. That particular decision went up to eventually got affirmed just late last night, two to one by the D.C. or the, the United States District Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, two to one with Judge

Childs and Judge Garcia, siding with the Lisa Cook position. There, because it was an emergency appeal, they didn't really get to the substance, what we call the merits of the appeal. So instead, they made a relatively straightforward ruling and said, we don't have to get to whether the mortgage fraud allegations are true or not, or whether they're sufficient to remove a Federal Reserve Board of Governor, no. We'll just focus on due process. See, I've been saying since I heard the hearing, the evidentiary hearing conducted by Judge Cobb, I've been saying that the due process, the lack of a hearing, an ability to defend against the allegations of mortgage fraud was the most glaring and most striking aspect of the entire case. Because I didn't know as

much as I do now about the quote-unquote mortgage fraud. I said, she's going to win on due process. Cob went further and said, I don't see how under the case law, even if it was mortgage fraud, that's not the type of misconduct in office that's required for removal. The three-judge panel, two to one, Katzis, the Trump appointee in dissent, of course, said the following. We have jurisdiction over this case because we have the right to do oversight as federal judges. over Donald Trump's decision-making process about who's on the Federal Reserve. Secondly, the four-cause protection that the United States Supreme Court has placed over the firing, you can't fire except for good cause or for-cause, that creates a property right under the Fifth Amendment,

which says that you can't remove a person's property interest without life, liberty, or property, without due process. Now, the due process is not often defined. It's usually a version of the ability to fight. file a written response and some sort of hearing. But none of that happened here. As Judge Cobb, as her findings determined, the most that Lisa Cook got was a mean tweet from Bill Pulte,

who's the Nepo Baby donor to Donald Trump that runs Freddie May and Fannie Mac, effectively bought his job there, who started doing mean postings against Adam Schiff and against and against Letitia James and against Lisa Cook accusing them all of mortgage fraud. Now it turns out it wasn't fraud at all, at least as it relates to Lisa Cook, because she told her lender that the second home she was buying was a second home,

was a vacation home. What they did after that is not her fault, whether they gave her a lower rate, but she certainly didn't claim it on her taxes or her property taxes as her primary residence. And that's the whole case. That's the whole framing of Lisa Cook. So she wins two to one. Now, we're still waiting as we went on the air today for this live for the filing at the United States Supreme Court for Donald Trump on an emergency motion. I mean, he's winning 84% of his emergency motion applications at the U.S. Supreme Court.

84%. If you're bad in 840, you're going to take a shot at this, right? And John Roberts is going to have to make the first decision. Now, it may happen while we're up on the air, and if it does, I'll report it to you. but the and then I'll do a substack live to bring everybody back together but the uh I expect that they're going to appeal but already Wednesday's upon us and that's when the other person that barely got in the room Stephen Mirren got sworn in fast yes today on Tuesday he's not been briefed at all to be on the board of governors to make the major decision and vote on interest

rates he's one of 12 that gets to vote he's not prepared what he's his day job that he's apparently keeping is to be on the White House, to be the head, the chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisors. He's not even giving up that job. He's staying in the White House while he's on the Federal Reserve, an independent central bank. Because he doesn't want to lose the job, because if he gives it up and it gets filled by somebody else, he won't get it back. And this position is only for six months because he's replacing somebody whose term would have been

up in about six months. So Lisa Cook is going to be there. tomorrow, unless John Roberts at a midnight tonight takes her off. And he could. They're going to meet in the morning at 10. They're going to announce their decision at 2. To the world, 2.30. Stranger things have happened. If I'm wrong, or if it happens, I'll, of course, update you. But Mirren is going to be there. Again, not prepared. Awkward moment with Mirren, whose boss is bashing Lisa Cook left and right, maybe sitting next to Lisa Cook. I don't no. Now, they make their decisions before they even enter the room, and it's done by majority.

So you need seven votes for the rate cut. And no surprise, rates are going to get cut tomorrow, probably a quarter point. That's what the Fed has been signaling for the last three weeks. It's just that Mirren and Waller and Bowman on the Trump side want deeper cuts. They want like a half a point or a point. Not going to happen because it's bad for the economy. Because putting too much money into the economy leads to hyperinflation. And hyperinflation means you're paying 20, 30% more at the supermarket, at the gas pump for your health care, for your rent, for your everything else than you were before. And if you have hyperinflation and a stagnant economy, you have stagflation. And the Fed is trying to avoid that with the blunt instrument

of rate setting. Lisa Cook was going to vote for that rate cut anyway. And not because Donald Trump has been bashing her. She's going to keep her job, I believe. I don't think the Supreme Court, even with the precedent that they've established, is going to remove Lisa Cook, especially since due process has been violated. They may send it back and make the Trump administration give her due process and have her let her the ability to defend herself. And all this evidence I just told you about, which Reuters broke, Reuters new service broke, about she properly told her lender, the credit union that this was going to be a vacation home or a second home, all that'll come out. She'll be able to defend herself.

But now that she's been completely undermined reputational by many, many people, you know, just let her do her job, right? She's the first black woman on the Federal Reserve. Just let her do her job. That's where I come down. So you've got the financial segment of the intersection. I'm glad you're all here. joining us. And then I want to talk about Brian Kilmead and why he still exists as a broadcaster

because he was on Fox News and Fox and Friends when they were talking about a homeless man or an unhoused person who killed a young woman. And while they were debating what to do about the unhoused or homeless problem in America, including many veterans that are on the streets, unfortunately. When they were batting around, well, we got to take them, you know, take them into custody, we've got to put them into treatment. And if they won't have treatment or whatever, and then Brian Kilmead on Fox said out loud, just give him a lethal injection. Just kill the homeless people. That is not only a violation of the decency provisions of the Federal Communications Commission, led by a Trumper, led by a Project 2025er named Brendan Carr, that should lose Fox its license

and put Brian Kilmead out of business. But it's a crime. It's a crime in New York and in most places to solicit murder. It's also a terrorist act or a hate crime. And he should be investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and prosecuted for it.

No doubt. You can't say that out loud. You shouldn't even think it. That a group of, disadvantaged, fragile population. They're already without homes. They're on the streets. They're vulnerable.

And you just told your mass audience in the wake of what just happened with Charlie Kirk and how unhinged people are on that side to go out and kill the homeless, kill the unhoused. And that's okay. Pam Bondi's talking about,

I'm going after hate speech. I did it at the top of the show. I'm going to go after hate speech. You got hate speech. right in front of you. It's in the form of Bryant Gilmead calling for the extermination of homeless people. I said on a recent video hot take, why don't we just do what Nazi Germany did? Is that what you want, Brian? We'll just tell them we're taking them to the showers and then they never return. Is that what we're going to do? We're going to gas them because you don't want to look. As you come out of your

fat cat limo, you don't want to step over the homeless that are in front of Fox Plaza, whatever it is on 6th Avenue. Is that it? Brian Kilbyn is a disgrace. He's everything that's wrong with MAGA and the Trump administration, and he should be removed from my eyesight and taken off the air permanently and prosecuted. And I know the feds aren't going to do it, so I'm looking to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to do it for us, which is what they should exactly do.

But they're not going to. Not when you've got J.D. Vance who called Donald Trump America, as a Hitler, now hosting the Charlie Kirk Show from the comfy confines of the West Wing, along with his sidekick, is Ed McMahon and Stephen Miller, while Cash Patel goes on and starts attacking U.S. senators and saying that they're buffoons and fools while he flounders and drowns before the American people and is likely to be the scapegoat that gets fired by the Trump administration, and for good reason.

we are now unsafe because he is in charge of the FBI. And we just saw a living, breathing example of it with the manhunt and the investigation. And him going on Fox News, Cash Patel, and talking about DNA and evidence and undermining this suspect's ability to get a fair trial in America. He just handed a gift to the defense. What FBI director talks about the evidence? before the investigation is even concluded. This one, this one. What attorney general goes after people who don't agree

with the MAGA proposition in America and says they're going to be prosecuted for hate crimes? The Trump administration, Pam Bondi. What state department says they're going to go after visa holders or people that want a visas who are exercising their First Amendment rights about Charlie Kirk, and have their visas pulled,

Marco Rubio, Trump administration. What Maga Congress holds a religious vigil holding candles and continuing with the consecration and the exaltation of Charlie Kirk as a martyr in the halls of Congress, Maga Congress. And the way that you know, we can fight back is not with bullets, but with ballots. To paraphrase Lyndon Johnson, to compete in the marketplace of ideas, to reach the American young people that felt

disconnected until they found the siren call of Charlie Kirk. We've got to get them back. We've got to get the youth back. We have to educate them and value inculcate them. and train them right and connect with them. It may not be me. I'm not sure a 50-something white guy is going to be the one to break through with what used to be the young Republican club or the disaffected American youth

that are on college campuses, but we have to find a way. We've got to get those voters. I may not agree with most of what the leading candidate for the mayoral T in New York stands for. But if we don't get his voters over to the Democratic Party and find a way to connect with them, it'll be very difficult for us to succeed as a national party. Now I'm waiting for the governors and mayors to stand up and senators who are fair-minded, mainly Democrats, to stand up

at this moment of crisis and fight back and find their footing and find their voice. We all struggled with it. You know, minutes after Charlie Kirk's murder, you know, I was struggling with tonality, what I would say, what I could say, what I thought would be helpful to say. Not because I was worried about being taken off the air, because that's one of the reasons I'm committed to the Midas Touch Network, to the intersection, to legal A.F, and to this community. Because nobody censors us, right? We know the law. We know what's, when we, we know what we can say, that's appropriate. But I was struggling personally with how to communicate to the audience at that moment, because while there was a whole group of people that were grieving

over the death of Charlie Kirk, there was another group of people, a much larger group of people, grieving over the destruction of American values and crying about not having a president that knew how to unite or had any interest in uniting the American people in the light of this murder. And so there was two sobbing groups in America around the same event. And that's where leadership has to step forward. We'll do our part here on the Midas Dutch Network. I promise you that. As most people know, this is what I do for a living full time. 35-year legal career. I have the Popak firm. I'll talk about that in a minute. But my 99% focus every day, morning until I get up, in the morning when I get up until the evening when I go to bed,

is bringing to you the commentary and the solidarity that you're looking for without blowing smoke or sunshine on this platform, on legal AF YouTube channel, on Midas Touch, on Legal AF Substack, all these different places, right, to bring this group together because once we are empowered with the truth and knowledge and strength and numbers, We will overcome the Trump administration. We have to. We're watching them flail around.

This is one of the most corrupt. This is the most corrupt and divisive presidencies we've ever experienced. And that is everybody in his cabinet is at fault for that. And we'll be held accountable one day at the polls and maybe beyond. Yeah. And maybe beyond. So I'm glad you're here on Intersection. Thank you for making the intersection a top 100,

among all podcasts on YouTube. Thanks for supporting legal A.F and getting us over the 800,000 threshold before our one-year birthday tomorrow. And thanks for all of the legal A-Fers and Midas-Mighty and supporters of me who have come together and also working with me through the Popak firm. The Popak firm I formed, it'll be a year in January, but we're already representing hundreds of Legal A.F. and Midas-Mighty. Around the Pauk firm, I formed. It'll be a year in January, but we're already representing hundreds of Legal A.F. and mightest mighty, around the country in your most personal and important of matters, catastrophic injury, illness, medical malpractice, car accident, truck accident, a ride chair, Uber lift accident, things that have turned your world or those of your loved ones

are close to you upside down. God forbid, wrongful death. And then also sexual abuse, sexual harassment, civil rights violations. We're handling the big cases for you. We do it easy. Call 1-877 Popak AF, or you can reach somebody also live by texting or by going to our website, thepopak firm.com. And we have people available to screen. If we take the case, then we will not get paid unless you do.

It's a contingency fee arrangement, no hourly rate charged. And, of course, if we screen the case and don't take the case, then that's another story. But if we take the case, we will be by your side every step of the way for justice at the Popak firm. Thanks again for being here. We'll see you next Tuesday on the intersection. We'll see you Wednesdays and Saturdays for Legal AF, the podcast. Until then, I'm Michael Popok, and I'm reporting. I'm Michael Popok, and I got some big news for our audience.

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