Legal AF by MeidasTouch - The Sexual Misconduct Allegations against Gov. Cuomo

Episode Date: August 8, 2021

The leading weekly law and politics podcast -- LegalAF -- produced by MeidasTouch and hosted by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, is back for another hard-hitting, thought-provoking look at this week’s most compelling developments at the intersection of law and politics, aka Episode 17. The hosts first bring their healthy-brand of skepticism to the $10mm “wrongful death” suit to be filed by the family of January 6th insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt. Next, Ben and Popok bring the LAF listeners fully up to speed on the trials and tribulations of New York’s “Love Governor” Andrew Cuomo accused by 11 (!) former (and current) female employees of sexual misconduct. Then, the hosts explore SCOTUS’ recent attack on the CDC’s nationwide residential eviction ban, and the Garland DOJ’s intervention to oppose the Realtors’ efforts to overturn a limited CDC eviction moratorium based on rising Delta data. Talking about the Delta variant, Ben and Michael first examine the legality of Florida Governor DeSantis’ ban of vaccine passports and its impact on the cruise industry, and his ban on mandatory masks for school children even in the face of rising infection and death rates among children in his state. The Analysis Friends then drill down on Texas’ Governor Abbott’s attempts to interfere with the federal government’s “supreme” power to regulate immigration and transport (and detain) immigrants by claiming some feigned concern with the spread of COVID by immigrants, while simultaneously banning face masks and undermining vaccination in his state. Episode 17 ends with a sobering discussion about the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (“JASTA”) federal case filed this past week in New York by 115 “Gold Star” families against major global banks for allegedly profiting from terrorist organizations and governments banking with them, and thereby helping to fund attacks on Americans. Special Easter Egg and Programming Note: Ben gives Popok and the listeners the good news that “Legal AF” is leaving the “MeidasTouch Podcast” nest and moving to its own Medias-produced podcast channel starting with next Sunday’s episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Midas Touch Legal AF podcast. If it's Sunday, it is legal, a F. And I'm not worried one bit that we are going to get sued for that tagline over there because it's true. And you really can't sue over something that is factual, that everybody knows that if it's Sunday, it just is legal AF. I think in fact, they've been saying it before we even started legal AF, Pope, I think hundreds of years ago, people were saying, if it's Sunday, it is legal. AF, I am Ben. My cell is joined. As always, by my co-host, your favorite mightest brother, Michael Popak, a Zupano Patricia, a Popak.

How are you, Popak? I'm doing really great. Did we get a cease and desist letter I didn't know about from some media giant? No, I'm just preempting the fact that human civilization knew if it's Sunday, it's legal AF, and our mark preceded any other marks. And in the United States, you might as well get into a little bit of trademark law from the outset. It is not the first to file the mark for intellectual property rights in the United States, although that is important proof and ind indicia of use of the mark.

But first use is the gold standard of American intellectual property law. Unlike you go to other countries like China, the moment someone gets famous in the United States and I represent a lot of individuals with great deals of notoriety here in the United States. The first thing they do in China, because it's first to file, is they run to the courthouse to try to file, you know, someone else's name over there. And you have to have all of these contested

disputes over everything, which is a lot of disputes between American Chinese over intellectual property and the Chinese government over intellectual property. But how about that Pope, how about throwing, coming out hot, throwing out law right from the intro? I was, I was as eager to hear your analysis on that as our listeners. That was good. I just don't want to, I don't want to get sued over it, but I, I like it. I think it's accurate. I think since we moved now, it seems like a lifetime ago from Wednesday to Sunday, the

suits shoved us off calendar and moved Wednesday to Sunday. The suits shoved us off calendar and moved us to Sunday. Everybody likes Sunday. It kicks off their week. We're not competing with anybody else in the space. We've got nothing but bravos about the move. And the slogan, you know, fits the times. It's right. As many of you recall, Michael Popak took a eight-week vacation. And so he's unclear. He went to backpack through Italy and Europe and is unclear of what letters we may

or may not have received during that time period, but no Popak, we have not sent a cease and desist letter because I would have sent a carrier pigeon to find you in whatever mountain top you were climbing to let you know that we needed your help at that moment. Another might as touch legal AF procedural announcement. I think all of you are going to like, we are going to eventually be moving over. I think it will be next weekend. You'll hear more about it on the brothers's podcast, but might as touch legal a F will have its own home on its own podcast

channel. And we know how much you love to listen to legal a F on the might as touch channel. But I think might as touch legal a F has grown now or Popeyes, is this episode 17? 17? Episode 17. And I think it's time that Midas Touch Legal AF has its own channel. Still be able to listen to it every Sunday. The same way Midas Touch recently executive produced a podcast called Cremlin file, which quickly shot to number eight of all podcasts for news and 53 of all podcasts in the country across all categories. And I think just watching how successful that was with its own channel. I think we should have our own channel. We have our own identity,

Popeyes, for the show independent of the Midas Touch brother podcast. And so you know, it gets done. I think ready. You know what this means? I don't mean listeners are going to be really excited. I have a feeling it means a logo. And it may mean merch. I like it logo. Merch. So take those training wheels off. Midas Touch legal a f and find your new home on the podcast charts, I want to go start talking about an area of law. I'm very familiar with civil rights litigation section 1983 claims, excessive force claims. It's an area of law where started pretty much. I worked for a partner at the firm when I started out as a lawyer

over a decade ago. She became a judge and her specialty was civil rights law representing victims of police shootings and police brutality. I found my own niche there. I started doing lots of police brutality cases in Bakersfield, California, in the Fresno area, in California, which is an interesting area of California. You know, I live in LA, it's about two and a half hours north of LA. But it's Trump country. People call it the Oklahoma of California, just in terms of just the demographics and where it votes.

But at the time I was practicing there, Bakersfield and Fresno had the highest per capita shooting death rate from police, of anywhere in the United States of America. So more people per capita were shot and killed by police in Bakersfield and Fresno and any other city in the United States of America, which is a startling statistic. We ended up having a great deal of success, helping families, one family I represented became two, became five, became 10.

I started leading marches out in Baker's field. That's actually how I ended up getting connected to Capernick, just an interesting backstory on myself was that I was doing police brutality cases in Baker's field. And then when Colin took a knee in 2016, he saw the work that I was doing. And then we developed a friendship,

which turned into a legal representation when he was treated the way he was by the league and to this day. And so I know a lot about police brutality cases. So when I read the headline, Ashley Babet was quote, ambushed during Capitol riot. Her family lawyer says, as Ashley Babitt's family is about to file a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit for excessive force, for wrongful death, for being shot by the Capitol police

officer as Ashley Babitt and the other insurrectionist terrorist stormed and tried to kill our lawmakers. And the fact that they have filed a wrongful death case against the police officer. I want to say this too, Ashley Babet and her ilk would be the people who when I would represent an unarmed black or brown man or woman who was shot and killed by police unjustifiably would tell me they shouldn't have touched their waistband, they shouldn't have walked that way, they shouldn't have looked, they should have just complied, they shouldn't have said no to the officer. They shouldn't have been snarky with the officer. They got what they deserved is what the crazy right wing always told me in my career. So the fact that you could lead an insurrection, we have the video of Ashley Babitt climbing into some of the most within our sacred chamber of democracy

that is the Capitol building. Her literally trying to get onto the floor, her going into the area where Vice President Pence was being hidden by secret service and our other top lawmakers, breaking through that barrier. And they filed her family, filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Is the height of hypocrisy, the height of,

frankly, anti-democracy. If you don't understand that when you storm the Capitol building with a mob that's chanting, kill the vice president, kill Nancy Pelosi, and there are consequences for that. with the mob that's chanting kill the vice president kill Nancy Pelosi and There are consequences for that Just makes me so angry Yeah, we talked a lot about this one a couple of months ago and and now that her family is decided they haven't yet filed But they're they're they've had press conferences their lawyers to, but they claim to be a $10 million

wrongful death lawsuit in federal court against the US Capitol police, probably in the District of Columbia. Let me remind everyone what Ashley Bab had a 35-year-old force veteran and her ilk did that day at that door. That door that you described then was the last barrier before the speakers lobby, which is a 20 or 30 foot long lobby that leads directly to the chamber of the House of Representatives.

Moments before Ashley Babet and a mob of a dozen people stormed that door, broke the window, and started banging at the door and yelling at the police officers that were assembled on the other side and screaming at them at their face to stand down, to leave, to abdicate their responsibility as Capitol Police to protect the representatives on the other side of that door, which of course they did not do. And got in their face and used flagpoles and used fire extinguishers and used helmets to attack that barricade. If they had broken through that just moments before there was an assembly of about five or six leaders of the House standing in that very lobby. On the other side were

House members that had not yet been able to be cleared from the chamber to safety. If they had broken through with murderous intent, there would have been deaths, I have no doubt, assassinations of sitting house of representative members. So they were warned to get off the door. They were warned to back off. Behind them was riot police. In front of them were were uniformed in clean clothes, capital police, who's one mission and one mission only, as we've learned from the recent testimony on Capitol Hill, is to protect at their own risk of life and limb,

members of Congress, which they did. When the uniform police backed away from the speakers lobby to allow the riot police behind Ashley Pabbett and others to move in. The last line of defense was a plane close officer with a pistol. When Ashley Pabit refused and was screaming that they were going, let me make it clear,

they were not on a tour. They were not civilians just frolicking for the day in the capital as some revisionists have disgustingly portrayed this as. She yelled with her group that they were there to murder, to do violence, to attack. This is what you said about right-wing people saying, well, if they move for their waistband,

they're the right to shoot and kill them. A police officer who has a reasonable belief people saying, well, if they move for their waistband, they have the right to shoot and kill them. A police officer who has a reasonable belief that both he and that, what he's been charged with protecting is that risk has the right to use lethal force to stop it. No one told Ashley Babitt to climb through that broken window with her backpack to lead the charge of others behind her. She made that decision voluntarily and that she got shot in the neck or in the shoulder. The press has been a little bit murky on that.

And it was fatal. It was her fault. And to now sue for wrongful death because she claims that she should have been given other non-leaf ful stop orders or she should have been apprehended in some way. She gets through that 20-foot speakers lobby and we are going to be talking about not just the Gen 6 insurrection and five people dying including two police officers by suicide, we're going to be talking about a dozen elected officials shot and killed on site. A tale of two quotes, let's look at the quote by Terry Roberts, the lawyer for the Ashley Babitt family.

He says quote, it's not debatable. There was no warning. I would call what he did an ambush. I don't think he's a good officer. I think he's reckless, referring to the still unidentified officer, although the GQP members out him at all of the hearing. So his name's actually out there because the GQP political leaders say his name frequently, but we're not going to say here. Mark Shammel lawyer for the unidentified Capitol police officer says quote, it's a false narrative that he issued no verbal commands or warnings. He was screaming, stay back, stay back, don't

come in here. Now, I want to be slightly critical for a second of Mark Shammel here, only for this. You don't need to respond to the crazy fake narrative that Terry Roberts, the lawyer for Ashley Babitt's family, is saying the just whole idea about the officer ambushing him and not giving, ambushing Ashley Babitt and not giving verbal warnings. Mrs. the biggest point here, which is Ashley Babitt is a terrorist. She is a terrorist who tried to kill political leaders. She is a terrorist who tried to overthrow our democracy and with her group of other terrorists stormed the most sacred building of our democracy.

The focusing on the commands, I think, is not insignificant, but let's not lose the forest for the trees here of what took place where a terrorist tried to storm our capital building and What this officer did was effective in Stopping that group of people because the moment he did it the moment they crossed that bridge those basement dwellers Those people those cosplay fascists who were out there saying the

things that they see in video games and saying the violent stuff, they became chicken shit. The moment they realized, oh shit, we're, this is an insurrection like we, there are consequences for what we do. And we see all of these basement, dwellerller gq peers, you know, crying in court now and whining and trying to. But the leaders with the leaders saying holding press conferences like Marjorie Teller Green and Lopez Brooks and all the rest of them free the January six insurrection as they're being horribly mistreated in jail. They should be sent 11 worth for the rest of their life and in solitary confinement for

doing that which they did which was attack our democracy. And the Midas Touch podcast this week I compared the GQP to just a stupider version of alkyda and the same way alkyda has its martyrs. Our stupid GQP has its stupid martyrs. And that's just what we're seeing here. But the people who were actually ambushed during the insurrection were the capital police officers. Those were the people who were ambushed. they gave compelling testimony which has been analyzed every which way. Let me ask you this question, Popock, after watching the testimony of the brave and courageous metropolitan police officers from DC, the capital police officers whose job solely is to

protect the capital and its surrounding structures, which is significant, which is a significant infrastructure, is prosecuting Trump for the role that he played, that Trump played, in the January 6th riot, easier now, thanks to the capital officers, or did nothing really change. I mean, you and I always thought that he should be held accountable. But was there new information injected that says, you know what? I think this is more of a reality now. Yeah, I thought I think it makes it to answer your question upfront. I think it makes it easier for the prosecutors to bring the case.

I we had seen bits and pieces of this testimony before, but when it was just compiled altogether, under oath, the compelling testimony of the people who were protecting our capital and were victims themselves. I just want to remind our listeners, I know they know this because they follow this stuff closely. We've had two suicides of capital police directly related to the impact. This is at the same time that there are 12 or 20 members of the House of Representatives who voted against awarding the Congressional Medal to the Capitol Police for that day because they didn't like the language in the proclamation. I mean, that's how

outrageous it would become. If we didn't have Eugene Goodman having a group of people terrorists follow him away from away from representatives and senators There there would have been mass blood on them on the hands of all these insurrectionists in addition We didn't have the unnamed officer who shot and killed Ashley Babet. We would have had a dozen dead In the house chamber to listen to the testimony of the officers, many of them in tears, talk about what was screened at them by the Trump supporters, not Antifa, not false flag, Trump supporters, telling them that they were sent here by Trump, that they came off the rally as a result,

that they were here, you know, because they said they were, you know, libertarians, that they were trying to protect liberty, and they wanted the police to stand down and let them in in order to overthrow the government, to hear those words and the linkage back to Trump, who lit the flames, who got that crowd up to a fever pitch, a murderous mob, and then pointed them directly at the Capitol, like sending a missile, a loaded missile into that crowd. I think prosecutors should be seriously considering whatever they can do, and let the defenses fall where they are.

Let the executive privilege, the fences fall where they are, but bring the suit. Other than the executive privilege claim, it's probably the easiest case in the world to bring like, let's not even sugarcoat this. If this was in any other context and a terrorist leader was in front of a mob of people. And you've seen that image that the New York Times so brilliantly recreated of after the speech where the cell phone towers literally show the mob then storm the Capitol building. But if you have a terrorist leader who's telling people,

I'm going with you, we're gonna go in there, we're gonna give them hell. And then you got everybody else around, everyone else is part of your core terrorist team, basically saying, trial by combat, get ready. And then you go and attack the capital building, you would be charged with treason and you would be put in jail for the rest of your life, probably times three or four life sentences is what you would be sentenced to. So let's be honest, this is the easiest case in the world to bring against Trump and all the others that inspired that insurrection that day. I'm not just inspired who literally encouraged it and who were active participants

in it that day. I understand there are these overarching considerations of executive privilege. It's the president or the former president, which just makes me puke to even say, but it's not a difficult case to bring it's not a term in any other context. Right, switching gears. I want to talk about the recent department of justice, defense of the Biden eviction ban in court in light of the Delta threat. Delta variant, no joke, no joke. I know a lot of people who are sick from

the Delta variant and who had been to locations and been to places where there were in states, particularly, where there were unvaccinated people, where there was an unvaccinated friend. And, you know, the people I know are so angry and upset that others are not getting vaccinated. They've done what they had to do, and they were in a location where there are people who may have been unvaccinated. And the whole situation is incredibly frustrating

with the disinfo that's been out there. We're going to talk about this in a little bit on the show with death, Santas banning the cruise industry. We've talked about this on the last one, but we're gonna talk about it in the context of a new lawsuit filed by the cruise injury against the Santis saying, hey, we want vaccine cards on our ship because we wanna not have death ships.

We wanna be in the business of cruises, death, Santis, you may wanna be the death governor, but we wanna be a cruise ship, not the death ship, please. And so this issue about the Department of just defending Biden's eviction ban in light of the Delta variant is a very complicated and complex issue. The eviction ban has been in place for quite some time and the national realtors in various states, particularly

here it was Georgia, it was Alabama who brought a lawsuit against the CDC for being responsible for imposing this eviction ban, say and look, the association we represent, homeowners, rent, you know, facilities that rent are losing money, you know, and a lot of money and are going bankrupt because we aren't able to collect any rent from people. And I say it's a complicated issue too because Popoq, like, And I say it's a complicated issue too, because Popok, like, I am aware of stories where there are people who this law really wasn't meant to protect, who though abuse the law, who live in places that- Billion dollar hopes. Yeah.

And so there is a broad sweep to the law. And Biden, there was a Supreme Court decision that didn't address this specifically, but where the Supreme Court questioned whether the CDC had the right to impose the ban. And Biden's instincts seemed to say, all right, I think it's time that we phase out this eviction ban, but that's changed with the Delta variant and the DOJ basically said on balance The problems we hear you national realtor's association, but if we have a homeless crisis that is significantly exacerbated because we have a homeless crisis right now. If we have a homeless crisis that is significantly exacerbated

Plus a Delta variant Guess what national realtors? You're not going to even have people who could rent in the first place because our economy is going to be so destroyed and people are Going to be dead. So you're not even gonna have business that way. So on balance, this is what we have to do given the Delta variant, hope. Yeah, this one's complicated, but we're gonna do what we always do. We're gonna simplify it and get it down to its essence.

And as a way of background, my dad, my late father was a realtor for 50 years. I got my real estate license when I was 18. I sold real estate when I was in high school for 50 years. I got my real estate license when I was 18. I sold real estate when I was in high school and in college. So I kind of get it. But here's what happened. The Biden administration passes the moratorium through the CDC as a blanket eviction moratorium nationwide. That goes up to the Supreme Court and in a very interesting ruling and now our listeners are very sophisticated in Supreme Court analytics, the way that we present it. You get a decision where four of the most conservative or right-wing justices, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch,

Amy Coney Barrett, and then Kavanaugh, but put an asterisk next to Kavanaugh, we'll talk about him in a minute. They say CDC overstepped its boundaries, and this is back in June, and can't issue a nationwide moratorium on eviction. It goes beyond their powers, and they would have ended it. Four of them would have ended it right there in that in June. Kavanaugh remarkably sort of saved the program at least till its sundown until it ended recently or about to end. And his argument in concurrence was, I'm in

favor of ending it too, I think the CDC overstepped its powers. However, let's let the federal monies make its way through the pipeline. Let's make sure all renters are properly protected. I'll give it more time. So his vote alone actually stopped the more toward the nationwide moratorium ban or moratorium on eviction from being ended back in June. Now, two of the chapters of the realtors in Alabama and Georgia

have brought suit at federal court in District of Columbia, arguing that the more limited moratorium that the CDC has rolled out, targeted to states that have very high delta variant numbers, is also a relative of the Supreme Court's decision in June. And they point to Kavanaugh's concurrence basically saying, listen, this what you don't have the power to do this, it would have been five

four against you. And if we read the T-leaves and add together the concurrences with the dissents, you know, we think the precedent is as follows. The district of the Department of Justice, the DOJ, has come forward and said, no. That ruling was very specific to the CDC's ability

to do a nationwide, non-discriminate ban on or moratorium out ofictions. And we get the law in that area. But that's not what the CDC is doing now, the Department of Justice is saying. What they're doing now is targeted specifically to a health crisis of the Delta variant in those states that have rising cases like Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Florida, which we'll talk more about in the podcast. Or every state. Or every state that's red. That's right. That basically has, I mean, I don't know if you saw the stats,

I'm sure you have been, 98% of current, of new cases of coronavirus, 98% are Delta variant. Two months ago it was 10%. So it's completely taken over as a dominant strain of coronavirus, and 98% is also the percentage of people that are hospitalized that are not vaccinated. So do the math. I don't get why red state people haven't done the math. And the most amazing thing is a public service moment on the legal AF is that it is leading

to a uptick, substantial uptick, and unvaccinated getting vaccinated in red states, including in Alabama. Alabama just recorded its highest number of daily doses, you know, daily jabs of vaccine in the last week, because even the Delta variant is scaring the crap out of right wing people. You know that disinfo, and this is nothing to do with the law, although maybe one day there'll be some lawsuits about the disinfo that certain people spread, which I hope, and I hope there are certain people who are not as immune

who spread the disinfo of Fox News, who will be sued for really being COVID's best friend and and and COVID's engine in this. But this whole disinfo chamber, what I feel like it's done, Popoq, is there's been a lot of people who even smart people when the way that this info hit them is it just caused them to say, you know what? Let me just wait and see. Let me wait and see. I'm being told a lot of things right now, which is why if there was genuine and true leadership, those people would have got the vaccine. I heard it on Facebook. It became the predominant theory of why I'm not getting that. And they're a wacky people with their views. They're the GQP views, but they're actually a lot of kind of

smarter people who are like, you know what? I'm hearing it from a governor, DeSantis. You know, I'm hearing it from like a Ted Cruz. I'm hearing it from smart people that maybe I shouldn't get this. So let me hold a little bit and see what happens. Then boom, then we hear the stories about these people diet. And now people want to start getting the vaccine after the proliferation. Anyway, sorry for interrupting.

No, this is, this is like one of those, those heart movies or one of those catastrophe movies where people ignore the science. And then there has the planet to disintegrate. They're racing to get to the spaceship and fighting over each other to get off the planet. I mean, it's, it's become that. but if anybody doubts, and I know our listeners and followers of Midas Touch don't, but if anybody doubts that Facebook is the number one place people get information, when Biden announced last week, or earlier this week, that their goal for their administration, which will happen because if they get two terms, it'll take it right out to 2030, is to have 50% of American vehicles, cars,

the electric 50% by 2030, which is just around the quarter. It's at the end of the second administration. The immediate reaction was hundreds of millions of dollars of Facebook ads being placed by fossil fuel companies, Chevron, BP, all the oil companies rushed. And where did they put their money? Well, they didn't put it on the Midas Touch or Legal AF podcast, for sure. They didn't put billboards. They pumped it into Facebook because that's where people are getting their news and information

from. And the other thing that's disgusting and really, the only reason that the right wing is using COVID in the way that they're using it is for fundraising purposes. If there was no money in it, Fox News wouldn't be running their stories. If their ratings didn't reflect an uptick, every time they ran a COVID scare story or a liberty,

don't, we don't wanna be muzzled and masked or whatever the current BS is. If there wasn't money in it, we don't want to be muzzled and masked or whatever the current BS is. If there wasn't money in it, they wouldn't be running those programings. If there wasn't money in it for DeSantis, and we'll talk about it later, to fight back against Biden and his biomedical control or whatever this phrase that DeSantis has come up with. If he didn't then use it for his fundraising purposes, there was no money in it. He would be a normal civil servant and tell people to go get vaccinated.

Yeah. And so as you were saying that I was coming up with a framing in my mind, my mind sometimes works. And what, what, what, or how can we connect this to people in a way that maybe they understand? It's kind of like zombie movies. And perhaps we should look at the Republican Party and what's taken place as like the zombieification or the zombification of the Republican Party, where, you know, in the movies, in the kind of parody zombie movie, like the zombie bites or eats the other person and it turns them into a zombie. Here the GQP is spreading their deadly virus. Both in terms of their disinfo and the actual virus and converting and trying to convert people into these walking, talking crazy zombies who are literally amongst us. And it's a

fight really for the living against these zombies, against this death cult that's really that's that that's out there the problem with zombification is you killing people there's on these you know and that's not a good thing to be but you in this rhetoric that's why they spreading the rhetoric this false rhetoric because they're trying to convince more people to go into their death cult to solidify their own power. Should we talk about Andrew Cuomo? And I think we have to talk about Andrew Cuomo. And the struggles that I have both as a lawyer and as a progressive Democrat pro democracy is that the power of your pen to hold people accountable is one of the most important things you can do. As a lawyer, it's one of your most sacred responsibilities.

And the Republicans have completely abdicated their responsibilities. Not only have they abdicated their responsibilities, pedophiles like Matt Gaetz and sexual predators like Donald Trump literally are the face of their party. They don't even investigate their own. They hoist up all of these individuals as their leaders and they make a mockery of every aspect of our law. And we have an obligation to call out wrong conduct. We have an obligation to hold people like Andrew Cuomo accountable. And we do that on the Democratic Party. And

I say why it's frustrating for me to talk about is because I know on the one hand, I have an obligation to talk about it, Popoac. But on the other hand, I know an obligation to talk about it, Pope, but on the other hand, I know that what I'm doing is allowing the GQP with a party of sexual predators, a party of pedophiliates, what they are, to make inroads into voters, and that's problematic for me. So I just share the detention in my mind, but I feel like we have to talk about it. I do too. I'm not going to join you in the Republican Party as a part of your pedophiles, but I get your point. On Cuomo, who you know, everybody knows I'm in New York, I followed

Cuomo for a long time. I mean, I was just commenting yesterday, I remember the beginning of the pandemic when he was doing his daily press conferences that were going worldwide. I have friends in London who would tell me that their mothers were in love with Cuomo and that in London they would get up whatever time they needed to get up to watch his press conference. I saw people walking around the streets of New York with a eye-hard Cuomo shirts. I mean, when he was at the height of his popularity, what we're talking about now, I don't think would have been conceivable, but it's serious charges,

and he's got at least four different major problems against him, both personally from a liability standpoint, and politically, so let's unpack it, and first kind of catch our listeners up on this. You've got Latisha James, the attorney general of New York, who was charged by Cuomo, okay, to conduct an independent investigation of the charges against him, brought by female staffers and others around his inter-sanked them, who claimed that he had touched them inappropriately, made inappropriate comments, or what I like to call, at least in this context, groping and grooming.

He's either touching them or he's grooming them for sex. This was the allegations, and they were pretty shocking and scandalous. He was pushed politically to do the right thing, which was to turn it over to the attorney general who's an elected official, Latisha James, and her team. She then hired two supremely credible investigators from the private sector, who were well-known in the areas of employment law and criminal investigation to conduct the investigation, which they did over several months, interviewing dozens and dozens or a hundred people. At the very end of the investigation, only a few days before they issued the 165-page report with exhibits, they interviewed Cuomo.

It went for 11 hours. Now it was at the end. I'm sure most of the report was already in the can. They were just getting his point of view about the serious charges, brought by not one, not two, not five, eleven women. I mean, this is taking on Tiger Woods proportions. One of the number of them were executive assistants working directly for the governor. One of them was a female state trooper, who was on the detail, the protection detail for the governor, who claims that the protection detail for the governor who claims that he would walk

buyer and run his fingers down the front of her uniform and her abdomen and comment about her fitness and all sorts of other inappropriate things. Now, in response to this, there's been a number of things. The assembly, the government in

the state is starting impeachment proceedings based on what's in the 165-page report. That's one. Five separate district attorneys around the state of New York are opening investigations as to whether crimes, sexual crimes happened in their county by Cuomo as the perpetrator, based on allegations that have been made.

So you've got an impeachment proceeding. You've got five potential separate criminal probes brought by five separate district attorneys. You have one of the executive assistants, these are all females, who filed an actual criminal complaint. She's unnamed. She's anonymous. She was anonymous in the 165 page report as well, claiming that during an interaction with the governor in his office or in his conference room, he reached under her blouse and cupped her breast. He sexually assaulted her.

And she has filed a criminal complaint in Albany where the seat of power is from New York, claiming that that is a Mr. Meener with a one-year potential prison sentence if proven So we've got that open and then you've got The defense which is now started. He's hired a former Obama Prosecutor who's now in private practice She's handled some pretty notorious other cases. So she's got the chops to handle this kind of defense, but they came right out of the box and did what you and I expected,

which is they attacked the victims, or the potential victims, and claimed that all of them are lying. None of this happened, and some of them are doing it for their own political gain. One of the members of his staff actually ran from Manhattan, Burrow President. At the same time, she was tweeting allegations against

being cropped by the governor. So there's some claims there. They filed their own 65 page or so response with pictures. Some of that I thought was sort of compelling about laying out some of these people's agendas. I thought a lot of it was actually silly. I mean, to attach exhibits, Ben, did you see the photos that they attached

to their response of just a series of photos of Cuomo hugging and kissing people and other people? Yeah, it was a better part. It was a fine. There are some things that you can do, even if the report that you're doing is good that will cause you to lose all credibility. And so when you're doing photos of political leaders

who were hugging people during national crises and then saying that, see, look, this is what hugging is, like, if people know what hugging is like people know what hugging is and people know what groping. Politicians are known to kiss babies on election or to cause you said to comfort people during national crisis. They're not supposed to take somebody in their conference room and fondle them. And by the way, you can say what you want to say in the report, but showing a picture of President Obama hugging

someone is just makes you look, it just isn't the smartest argument. It just loses that. Well, the other one that I thought really struck me badly made me scrunch up my nose and say, oh, this is the best they have because it detracts from their main argument, which is without too much corroborating evidence other than Cuomo's word, these people are liars. I mean, that is the fundamental thread throughout the entire defense. But they had a footnote where they thought it was compelling and I thought it was actually

just not only silly, but detracted from their position. When the woman who claims that she was broke to under her blouse, who's now a criminal complainant against them, they say, well, that couldn't have happened. And first of all, it certainly didn't happen in his office, at best it happened in his adjoining conference room. I'm like, okay, who cares where the group happened? And then they go on in a footnote to describe all of the memorabilia

that's in the conference room as if that matters. Like, he wouldn't possibly grow up in there. There was something from his father, Mario Cuomo. There was a piece of 9-11 artifact. There's a memento. I'm like, are you kidding me? Who cares what the room looked like?

Is that the best you got? So look, 70, they did a re-simple. He had the support of the New York got? So look, they did a recent poll. He had the support of the New Yorkers for a long, long time. 70% of New Yorkers now tell them that he should resign. 70, almost every political leader that matters in New York, including ones that were as close-coffinants, have told them to resign publicly,

of taking podiums and said, the governor's got to go. So whether he resigns, I don't know. I think he should, at this point, to be honest with you, I don't think he could be an effective leader any longer with these charges. He needs to defend himself, five, and should do it as a civilian. I'm certainly shouldn't run again, because he has the opportunity to run again for office.

And I think that's what you said. I think that he has the right, um, absolutely to defend himself as a private civilian. There was an independent investigation by another Democrat, the attorney general of the state that Andrew Cuomo, uh, made the decision to participate in and and whether it was because of political pressure, the right thing to do or however you want to frame it, he did it. The findings of that investigation, not just came out against him, but very much against him.

And it's a distraction during this time, especially in 2022, that is not needed. Switching to another governor and Pope, I thought you just broke that down, great, and provided real, clear, concise insight into everything that's going on with Cuomo in a way that I think our listeners, they know what's going on, but I think you broke down all of it, great. I want to talk about the cruise industry in Florida. We keep coming back to it because death, Santas continues to enact measures as Florida becomes, has been the, well, has been the epicenter of the COVID pandemic. And now is also the kind of epicenter of Delta, not the airlines, the deadly lethal variant that's spreading and killing all of its people. I think it was like 135,000, 140,000 cases in Florida last week alone.

And they don't really, that Santas doesn't accurately report. So if that's the number that's being like out there in papers, it's probably significantly higher than that based on everything that Santas did. But here we have the Norwegian cruise line, one of successful cruise ship companies that operates across the world, but out of the ports in Florida and Miami, asking a judge to

block Florida's vaccine law, which would prevent the cruise ship for asking for vaccine cards from its passion. No region cruise wants to say to its passengers, you know, the same way when we grew up, we'd have to we have to tell people that we were vaccinated for smallpox like this isn't a new concept. People like my entire life when I went to college, when I went to camp, when I went to certain events and group settings, I'd have to show proof that I was vaccinated against diseases that would kill other kids.

You're not allowed to have mumps, rubella, or smallpox because it's your personal liberty, which is the argument that people are using about not getting vaccinated against COVID. You don't have that right. Somebody wrote on one of our feeds, don't, what happened to free well in personal liberty? And I wrote, you also don't have that right. Somebody wrote on one of our feeds, what happened to free well and personal liberty? And I wrote, you also don't have the personal liberty

to contract smallpox or polio. Yeah, and it's incomprehensible to me. And sometimes I'm at a loss of words. When I think of the GQP when they can't get crazier, they champion as their major civil rights issue, the right to contract COVID, the right to contract and spread the delta variant, that they think that wearing masks is this invasion of their liberty. When in fact, this is why they can't be called conservative anymore. This is why there's nothing conservative about them. Like the conservative decision is where the mask,

the conservative decision is where the vaccine. The conservative decision on paper is to have people responsibly right down on their vaccination cards, the date of their vaccination so that they could go and watch sports and go racing and you could go to the golf course, whatever you do as conservatives, that should be a conservative position. But they've gone so far wacky that they're out there literally championing death. And you go back in history and you look at these governors who are on the wrong side of history.

And you look at what's going on now and someone like someone like a death Santas is so far on the wrong side of history that if he was in just imagine what our country would be like if someone like that was in charge of it right now You would have Delta variant everywhere. We'd have to be wearing like full-fledged, you know, medical body suits to go outside Like things would be that horrible if someone's like that, which is why I really want to tell everyone But I'm gonna pass it to you about this. There's no region cruise line, Popeyes in a second, but everyone listening out there, why is Midas touch doing a podcast called Kremlin file? Why are we doing it? The rise of Putin and the end of Russian democracy is mirroring what Trump wanted to create. It's mirroring what DeSantis wants to bring here. It's not a savvy, sophisticated government over there.

It's actually an idiotic run by an authoritarian who just kills opposition and there's no real logic. Things aren't good over there. We just have crazy GQP members here and they're enablers like Tucker Carlson going to Hungary who's got a total GTP of $163 billion, whereas California's trillions of dollars in GDP and Republicans hoisting up far right governments across the country. And it just, it's just infuriating, but sorry, Popak, I digress. Norwegian, Norwegian, Norwegian cruise line, the governor of the state that you lived for some ambiguous period of time wants to force cruise lines to have apparently pandemic outbreaks on their cruise ships.

I sometimes get so caught up in listening to you that I forget I'm co-hosting. So, glad I came back. Also, one observation. I never thought I'd say this. I never thought I'd say that Ben Micellis is underestimating the ability of the Republican party to be even crazier than they are right now. They have an infinite supply, apparently. There is no line that they will not cross.

We saw that with the presidency of the last president. But this one is, I think we can sum up relatively quickly. And I think we have finally for our Judge junkies out there and we've talked about the federal system and the state system and Obama pointies and Trump appointees and all of that. We got a good judge now for the stir region case of judge that I know from my time in Miami. So just to recall because you know even though you and I move on with different episodes of the legal AF, the cases that we talked about still progress through their procedural postures.

So we still have at the 11th Circuit administration claiming that the CDC mandates on cruise ships about vaccination, wearing masks, test cruises, hygiene, cleaning up and all that. That's still being considered by the 11th circuit full panel about whether that CDC has the power to enforce that on cruise ships, and that would be an opposition to the Sanis policies. The Sanis has a separate policy, which is he outlawed vaccine passports. I know them well. I don't know what's exactly going on in California, but in New York, starting September 13th, if

I don't show my digital vaccine passport, I'm not getting indoors to a restaurant, let alone an event. So it's not just Broadway, it's going to your local pizza place. I know you like talking about your, you're, you got a thing for local pizza places I do too. You won't be able to go into New York inside unless you have a digital passport and the state has rolled out a really easy one to use and we all have them. So, DeSantis and his infinite wisdom and other like-minded governors, right, wing governors around the country have outlawed vaccine passports under what theory?

Under the theory that it discriminates between those who have decided under free will that they don't want to take the vaccine and those who have decided that they're in a public health crisis and they have a moral and political and patriotic obligation to take the vaccine. And so he doesn't want discrimination. So if you don't have the passport, then businesses like cruise ships can't ask for one when people try to cross their borders.

So you know, onto their ships and into their businesses. Norwegian cruise lines has stood up and said, no, no, we want passport facts. We want vaccine passports. But we want to be regulated. Hey, can we have an adult to regulate us? Can we have an adult here regulated so that our people don't die? I want to know as the cruise ship operator who on my cruise ship is vaccinated and who isn't.

And more importantly, the other people on the cruise ship want to know that too. And so we want to be able to use a passport, a vaccine passport, and DeSantis is stopping us from doing it, judge in Miami now. Now filed in Miami. A lot of these suits came out of Tampa, which is on the West Coast of Florida.

This is in the Southern District, right in one of my hometowns of Miami. And a very good judge has gotten pulled by Norwegian through, really, it's just the lottery. A wheel spins by the clerk electronically. And these cases get randomly assigned. But the random assignment has gone to, I know you love rustling papers, has gone to Kathleen Williams, who before she became a federal judge, an Article III federal judge, was the federal public defender for Miami

and the acting federal public defender for Orlando and Tampa. So she is on the defense side of the bar. She's on the helping the poor side of the bar for her career. And she's now been a federal, she's an Obama appointee as a federal judge. If I was a betting person, I would say the Norwegians going to do pretty well. And that judge Williams is going to come out with a appropriate properly analyzed decision saying that the governor's ban against vaccine passports is irresponsible wrong and against the law, and then that'll get taken up to the 11th Circuit already considering a lot of the other de-Santis policy considerations. And it's really an intrusion on to private business. I mean, private business,

cruise ship, they want to, if they want to set a policy, they want to set rules to keep their people safe. At the end of the day, if people don't like the rules, the cruise ship is having, guess what? You don't have to go on a cruise. You don't have to. Don't go on the Norwegian cruise ship. Go on, go on, go to your Trump rallies. Go to Tallahassee and go lick each other's spaces. You whack those stinky GQ peers and spread COVID. Like that's your alternative. Your alternative is go, go, go to the Trump rally. And it is consistent. You're you're right on point with private business having the right to regulate its own operations. And for us to be talking about Republicans taking the opposite view just shows you how they've lost their way. But this

is no different than if you get the travel to Africa and go on, you know, some exotic local that's in the third world, they're not going to let you board the plane or the ship, unless you were inoculated against a whole host of communicable diseases. That's been going on for like a hundred years of travel. Why suddenly, DeSantis gets to tell cruise ships, drop your pants, drop your protections, let everybody in, let the unwashed masses in, who cares whether they're carrying any type of virus on board, is just the height of

hypocrisy. There have been just looking at, in terms of overall deaths of Ebola deaths in America. You know, there's this view that somehow amongst the GQP, when they go, you know, COVID is not that deadly. I never even understand what that means. That something is not that deadly. It says, if deadly means like you'll get injured or something like, oh, like, yeah, if I die, like, you know, I'll deal with it, you know, I'll deal with that shit. And it's like, no, you're going to be dead. How selfish is it for you to take such a complacent view of life and death.

In the American city. Yeah, so, so, so, so cavalier. And COVID deaths in America right now, I just want to pull up the number. Ebola or COVID, which one? I want to put, I want to put, there's, there's not a lot of Ebola deaths as the point in America that I'm making.

But there's been about over 616,000 deaths from COVID, over 35 million cases. And again, I think those numbers are likely low in terms of what the real numbers are. I think there's been a lot of reporting lag. Those numbers are also just what's reported. And we know that there are a ton of laws in that. But the Ebola deaths, I don't think that there's more than a handful of Ebola deaths ever. This is this personal freedom versus mortality

that goes on constantly. But it normally gets decided in favor of life. People didn't wanna wear seatbelts in cars until it was proven that if you wear a seatbelt, it cut deaths from internal collision within the car by like 90% and it saved lives. People won a bulletin. Okay, thank you. People who are motorcycle enthusiasts, a lot of them hate wearing helmets. But you know, the statistics show that if you wear a helmet,

it's gonna drastically reduce death and injury. And then people that don't die from COVID, something we don't talk about, they place an an ordnance strain on the medical system, on the healthcare system, not just from being overrunning ICUs, and what it's doing to our frontline workers there, we're working non-stop.

In Florida, there were 16, I believe, children deaths from COVID, while the Sanctus was giving as press conferences that there's nothing to see here, and there's nothing to worry about. 16 families lost their children in that during that same period that was completely avoidable. The ICUs are overrun again in Florida. That's the other hidden thing that the Santa's Heights, as if he's a dictator in an iron curtain country. They are overrun again.

The ICUs can't keep up with it. And the strain and the cost that unvaccinated people are now placing on our healthcare system falls on the average taxpayer like you and I and our listeners. And it's completely avoidable by just going a free to free vaccinations and you have a ticket to freedom, which is how you've described it. No, absolutely. Just further Ebola context. There's been 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths that were basically reported in the world. Well, the one that I hear in the world.

Yeah, the one that I hear, I think that's what you're alluding to, is, well, cars kill a lot of people and we're not banning them. Like, I don't really get this. Wear a mask, get two jabs, call it a day, reclaim your life. You and I, I know people will find this, I may, it will be amazed by this, but you and I and your brothers would like to stop talking about COVID. We would like to stop talking about COVID deaths and the Republican policies that have promoted death. We would like to stop talking about COVID deaths and the Republican policies that have promoted death. We would like to be talking about other things. We should be after

almost two years of a pandemic that in which, and that's the only thing he did properly as a president was Operation Warp Speed. He didn't get the vaccine at anybody's arms. He had no logistical, but he did through his programming and focus, get a vaccine developed in a year that normally would have taken five. I'll give him credit for that. I won't give him credit for that. I know you're not gonna give him,

I'm not gonna give him credit for it because he, if you have the world-class CDC, if you have all of these things that would have done that, and in spite of having all of the best things, you've completely fucked it up. You've completely destroyed and countered everything that our health, all of our past presidents built up and we're ready for this moment. Literally all all the former guy, the trader and chief, the fucking idiot, all he had to do was literally do nothing but instead hydroxocloroquine and chlorox and all of this bullshit that led to all of these deaths and so and the fucking name is stupid, uh, warp speed. You don't, it's a serious, it's a serious health crisis

that our medical facilities would have been able to address in a way that didn't have to be politicized. We would have had 70, 80% less deaths and this man completely fucked it up. And can I re-adultate my comment? Yes. Okay. I don't give them, I don't get, you know, And can I re-adultate my comment? Yes. Okay.

I don't give him, I don't get, you know, I am on your side with all of that. He could have also to use your vernacular. He could have also fucked up the development of the vaccine, not believing in it, not believing that it was a serious threat. And that's the only God darn thing that he did right is that he put the money and the effort into pharmaceuticals and got that thing created in New York. Everything else after that is exactly the way you described it.

Oh, Pock, our Republicans, the party of pedophiles. No. Oh, my God. Oh, Pock, Pock being very cagey today on. I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to say I would tell all of the might as touch listeners out there. Go look at the petto Trump video and ask you ask that question. I think there are a lot of I think they're out put at this. I think the Republican party has a lot of pedophiles in the party and they project and they are disliked.

Back here, how did I get back on this? And they are dis... Okay. So one other thing about DeSantis, DeSantis is also clamping down on these student mass schools as well. He is pushing forward executive orders that will stop school mask mandates. I mean, this guy is really crazy. And basically, if you're a school and you want a mandate masks, you have to, I guess, in Florida, let the parents opt out of the school. And if they don't have a sufficient opt out of the school and if they don't have a sufficient opt-out

ability then your school has to allow the kids to not wear masks and this is in the name of quote parental choice according to death Santas and so they will not let schools enact their own policies. Here's the split screen. I want you and Brett and Jordy to do. I'm gonna outline it for you, okay? Here's your one minute video. On the left side of the screen is the Santas at his press conference declaring that he wants to see the bright, shiny, smiley faces of his children

as they enjoy the education process. And that's why he's not in favor of mass. Do we have him? Do we have him saying that? Yes. He said, I want to see the smiling faces of children and my children as they're educated. On the other side of the screen, I want you to run the stats

showing that 16 children died in the ICU's in and around Florida at the same time from COVID because of his policies. Because it's easy for him to do these press conferences, but it takes organizations and leaders like Midas Touch to hold them accountable. So I'd like to see that split screen. Hope, I want you to text, Bret and me that specific interview. I will. The second seconds and we'll get to it. And then I want to touch upon this briefly, but I don't want to belabor the point. What are other GQP governors doing? We see

death santa's doing this. We see governor Abbott in Texas doing this. They blame immigrants. They blame illegal immigrants. They it has no like logical bearing because on the one hand, they downplay the threat of COVID these governors. But then when they have to acknowledge that COVID is a threat, they say it's the illegal immigrants fault and that it's the issues the borders. And so the Justice Department recently sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott for law enforcement to pull over vehicles with migrants.

So, it's basically a way that Abbott is once deracially profile immigrants in immigrants in his state. And what do you think about that? Yeah. So, let me give the background that always leads into these litigated political discussions. Texas, like Florida, leads the country in two statistics. One, one of the lowest numbers of fully vaccinated people in the country. 44, only 44% of their adults are fully vaccinated.

New York is hitting 70% as a contrast. California, I'm sure, is right there. So you have that. And then you have 24,000 new cases a day recently of COVID, mainly Delta, primarily Delta variant in Texas. So that is the result directly of his policies, governor Abbott's policies of outlawing masks like the Santas and not promoting properly vaccine, the use of vaccine.

And the result is you have supremely low numbers of vaccinated adults and supremely high numbers of Delta variant COVID in his state. So for him to have the balls to stand at a press conference and say that he is going to be issuing a governor order preventing immigrants from being transported by the federal government as part of their federal right, supreme right to regulate immigration, naturalization and the detention and transfer and transport of immigrants

because some of those immigrants might have COVID is the height of hypocrisy. Again, the Department of Justice has stepped in an El Paso federal court and has argued properly that under various articles of the U.S. Constitution, the federal government alone, without any interference from a state, has the supreme power to regulate immigration, naturalization, and by-ro-resulting statutes, the transfer, transport, and the tension of immigrants. And so when Abbott says, well, I don't like the way they're moving immigrants

through the federal system in Texas, in vans, and in cars, and bringing these people in. He is violating the U.S US Constitution by issuing an order because there's only one government that is allowed to regulate immigration, including the tension of immigrants, and that's the federal government. And for those of our law geeks who are taking legal AF law school, you look at the supremacy clause of the US Constitution, which is Article 6, clause 2. You look at the power of the federal government only in naturalization, which is Article 1, Section 8. And you look at all things related to alien detention statutes. And so I would be shocked even in Texas if the DOJ does it walk out with a temporary

restraining order against Abbott's order because of improper interference with federal power. And one thing to consider is where would we be right now if you didn't have a DOJ that was not doing what a DOJ is supposed to do. What would a Trump DOJ have been doing or not doing right now at this very moment? You know, I recall Popak, my favorite books to read, growing up, although they would be scary at the alternative history books.

And, you know, perhaps what we should do also at minus touch, I'm just going to give myself a ton of tasks, let's do videos, let's create a new podcast. Are you going to do an Oprah, are you going to do an Oprah, Oprah club? Well, what I really like to do, we should do an Oprah club. What I'd really like to do though is do and really well done alternative fiction, just of what the country would have been like right now, had Trump won and had the, well, had Trump cheated and come into power through the means of an authoritarian. And what our country would be like now. Every state would look like Florida. Every state would, we

would not be going to restaurants, we would not be going to ball games, we would not be seeing our families right now. All businesses would be closed right now. And, you know, we would be, you know, listening to Trump go on every day on TV, saying horrible, you know, horrible things. It was a horrible time period in our history, which is why we're pushing back with legal AF, with Midas Touch and with the hubbub. I like the idea. It would be a sequel to the book that you and I talked about an earlier podcast, The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, which became a really chilling HBO series last year

about what would have happened if FDR had lost and Charles Lindbergh, who was a unfortunately, and this is not revisionist history or critical race theory. He was also a virulent anti-Semite and supporter of Nazis and of Adolf Hitler. If he had become the president of the United States and it's the alternate universe that you talk about, yours would be the sequel. It would be plot against America, part two. No doubt about it. I want to talk about our final case, Popok. This is in your area of expertise. I'm going to give you the New York Times headline from August 5, 2021, but this is an area of law that you know better than

almost anybody. Gold star families accused major banks of aiding terrorists, according to a new lawsuit. And this is in that New York Times article, says the banks, including Deutsche Bank and others ignored warnings, that their customers were helping to finance attackers, targeting Americans in Afghanistan. So Popeye, let us know what's going on here. Yeah, thanks for that, for that lead in.

And this is a body of law and an area of law that you and I haven't talked about It's hard to believe it. We've done now 17 podcasts, but we haven't talked about this particular area and the US government following 9-11 and Congress has passed the series of laws to give victims of State sponsored and other terrorism against the United States, the right to sue those that were responsible. And the most recent body of law in 2016 is the justice against supporters of terrorism act,

which is known by its acronym, Jesta, J-A-S-T-A. And it allows victims to bring suit in federal court against supporters and profiteers from direct or indirect support of terrorism against American citizens and the U.S. government. And 115 gold star families, that means that those families have lost a close family member, loved one child, in the military. They've been killed and making them a gold star family. 115 of them

have bound together in a Brooklyn federal court and brought a case not against countries or subsidiaries of bad countries that conduct terrorism worldwide, but against banks, a lot of them, US-based, most of them, all of them, having US operations, arguing that banks like Deutsche Bank and the other banks that have been named aided and abetted terrorist organizations by allowing a flow of money in US dollar that belong to those terrorist organizations or their or their front organizations whether it be charities, phony charities, phony supply companies to transact worldwide business through the bank and the bank profited as a result,

both by accepting the deposits, making interest on the deposits and fees to the tune of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. So in other words, the argument that the families are bringing under this jastic case is that the banks are not turning a blind eye. They know that their banks are being used for money laundering of terrorist funds that are then used to purchase ammunition, to pay terrorists, to attack and kill Americans, and these

115 families represent those people that were killed. So you have the direct attack on the banks, as opposed to, as I said, going after government, foreign governments, or other BS charities that are really fronts for terrorist organizations. Sue just got filed. UNL follow it closely. What do you think about going after banks for money laundering at the terrorist level? These cases are notoriously very difficult. Yeah. And, you know, I am kind of torn with it. The financial structures kind of has become so complex, especially with the kind of digitization of currencies and cryptocurrencies and the ability of criminals, of money launders to very savvy and sophisticatedly hide and move money. And then the need of these financial institutions,

though, to perform certain basic rudimentary functions, create some tension there where if they, you know, we've seen this before where they have literally been bankers, who know what they're doing. They work with the cartels. They work with the druglers. They work with the terroristsels. They work with the druglers. They work with the terrorists, or they genuinely should have known.

And so if they know, should have known, and act, just completely recklessly with no controls, I think it's important that we reinstate controls. We don't want these institutions funding criminal and terrorist acts, but you know, then there's a part of me that says the terrorists are the ones who are responsible. We need to find truly who their inner circle is and who their what the true infrastructure is that's allowing them to operate and sometimes are we looking for Some ability for accountability in the form of money and

Banks have money and You know look if the banks are profiting off of terrorism and we can prove that they are profiting off of terrorism And they know about terrorism and they know about terrorism. Should they just go towards their terroristic profit? Absolutely, but I think for me it kind of comes down to what they knew or should have known. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a very nuanced approach. I'm okay fundamentally with the concept that you have to get these terrorist organizations where they live, which is the pocketbook. They're not, you know, we had theories 20 years ago that Osama Bidladin was in some sort of cave

handing out mixed tapes that were being delivered to Al Jazeera and you know he was, you know, he had money in a canvas bag or he was paying in rupees. He wasn't. As we know now, you know, he had money in a canvas bag or he was paying in rupees. He wasn't. As we know now, you know, from reports and from movies like, you know, Zero Dark 30, he was living in the middle of a neighborhood, you know, basically protected by that government and transacting business through bank accounts and getting money wired out in or out. And so, you know, the theory that terrorists are living under rocks and in caves and aren't participating in either the dark web and in financial transactions is just wrong.

And if you can cut off the head and get their money either directly, which is the preferred method, or if you can prove a case, and that's going to be up to the lawyers in Brooklyn here, prove a case that the banks willfully turn to blind eye in order to profit, didn't have established controls anti-money laundering AML type controls, because it was in their best interest to look the other way and profit from it, then think the bank should should pay But I get your point about let's not lose our focus on the

campaign against terrorists and terrorism by chasing money Yeah, and look if if there is if the person who knew that there was If the person who knew that there was someone from Islamabad, you know, who was transferring unusual amounts of money, and then it was being transferred out to unusual sources, and you're able to prove that the bankers said, you know what, I valued the stream of money rather than trying to put forward our money laundering protocols. And there are strict laundering protocols that are in place that regulate banks right now.

And if they're turning a blind eye to it, then they should be out to countable. But we'll follow that lawsuit and we will keep you updated. So we will update you all as well if might as touch legal AF finds its new home on its new channel next week, but we will of course still be here same time Sunday. If it is Sunday, it is legal AF of course. It's great to have Popeyes back. Popeyes, any vacations coming up in the next few weeks? Not after all of the flock I took. I am going to be, I'm just welded to my chair for at least the next 17 episodes. Well, I am excited to have Popeye back. I'm excited to cut through some of these complex legal cases.

And today we did explore some complex, some dense material that maybe you didn't realize how complex and dense it was, but Popo, whose complex, but not dense broke through it and gave you some incredible insight there. So thank you, Popo. Thank you everybody for listening. We will see you next week on legal a shout out to the Midas mighty.