Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal Experts Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok REACT to Breaking Legal News 10/8/2022

Episode Date: October 9, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look at the wheels of justice in “real time” as they analyze and discuss this week’smost consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s episode, the anchors break-down: The Mar-a-Lago criminal investigation, Trump’s expedited appeal to Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court while seeking a delay of the DOJ’s appeal to the 11th Circuit; SCOTUS’ oral argument on Alabama’s attack on the Voting Rights Act as it defends Black voter disenfranchisement; the first week of the Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial while the first Proud Boy pleads guilty to the same charge; the 5th Circuit’s attack on Biden policies this time his new DACA program to protect children of illegal immigrants; a federal judge rejecting the first effort to undermine the President’s student loan forgiveness policy, and so much more.  Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The wheels of justice turn. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeal grants the Department of Justices motion to expedite their appeal of Judge Eileen Cannon's order asserting equitable jurisdiction in the Mar-a-Lago search case. And Donald Trump goes to the Supreme Court and files a motion to vacate the 11 circuits previous ruling, returning the classified records back to the Department of Justice. Donald Trump is arguing that the 11 circuit had no appellate jurisdiction will break that down. A proud boy leader pleads guilty to seditious conspiracy in a DC federal courthouse.

And down the hall, the oath keeper leadership is on trial for the same charge. A Wisconsin right wing extremist group loses its lawsuit to block president Biden's student loan forgiveness program and the argument that this Wisconsin group was making Republicans appalling. A lawsuit challenging Alabama's racist Jerry Manderd map went before the Supreme Court last week. Fortunately, the Supreme Court seems inclined to permit that map to remain in place. The Supreme Court was a bit skeptical of

overturning the Voting Rights Act, but we will discuss the implications of this potential ruling. And the Radical Right Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's ruling that DACA is unlawful and sent the case back to the lower court to address recent updates to the executive order by President Biden. The most consequential legal news of the week I'm Ben Micellus joined by Michael Popak.

This is legal AF. Michael Popak, how are you doing this? We can look in dapper as always, sir. Thank you. I'm a little pissed off. Tell me about it. You wanna? Yeah, tell me about it.

We've been talking about the wheels of justice for two years now. We even have shirts that say it. And do you know who used the wheels of justice in their filing, Donald Trump, when they filed at the Supreme Court? In a footnote, talked about the wheels of justice. How dare they? How dare they co-opt our wheels of justice, moving in the right direction towards history and bringing all of these bad people to justice. Crazy.

That's what fascists do, Popeye. That entire motion that Donald Trump filed with the Supreme Court was basically gaslighting 101. Because what it was saying to the Supreme Court is, look, all we're trying to do is expedite these matters before the special master and the Department of Justice colluding with the 11th Circuit. The 11th Circuit is a right-wing court without proper jurisdiction as trying to get this Popeye, because this is the argument that they make, are both trying to slow the process down and delay it, but at the same time

trying to get a prosecution before the midterms. I mean, like literally, it's so internally inconsistent and asking that the Supreme Court basically make a ruling on an emergency basis that the 11th Circuit had no appellate jurisdiction in the first place. And the ultimate relief that Trump is seeking in that emergency motion to the Supreme Court is to return the classified records to the special master and make it part of the process where the special master has already said, why would I have any right over these classified records?

I'm a special master, it belongs to the government. That's what he said he was inclined to do in the very first status conference that the parties had. And then the other argument was that the 11th Circuit lacked jurisdiction because, according to Donald Trump, this really wasn't even an injunction what Judge Eileen Cannon did. She just made a special master order, and that's a non-appealable interlocutory order and the 11th Circuit They jumped in and claim this was an injunction Judge Eileen Cannon stopped the Department of Justice from utilizing their own records

Just because she wrote a moronic opinion and doesn't know what preliminary injunctions are or fell to articulated appropriately Popoac isn't that kind of what he argued that her order was so incoherent that was it an even an injunction and the Department of Justice and the 11th Circuit addressed this in their rule and they go, of course, it's an injunction. You're telling the Department of Justice

they can't use their own classified records in a criminal investigation. That's precisely the type of thing we can intervene on as the 11th Circuit. So talk to that Pope Ock and then talk to the motion to vacate and why it's being assigned to Clarence Thomas to make emergency orders as the Supreme Court Justice assigned to that 11th Circuit. Let's start with that one. Clarence Thomas, each Supreme Court Justice is assigned a one

of the circuits. Clarence Thomas is the judge, the justice that's assigned to the 11th circuit, which means when an emergency application for appeal comes up from that circuit, that justice, in this case, Clarence Thomas, can make the decision on his own. That's part of a shadow docket, or he can make the decision on his own. That's part of a shadow docket, or he can make the decision to refer it to the full United States Supreme Court and all nine members.

We don't know yet what Clarence Thomas is going to do because it hasn't been announced. All that's been announced is that he has set a briefing schedule requiring the Department of Justice to file their response on Tuesday. So, we'll talk about it at midweek and we'll talk about it next weekend. We don't know if he's going to refer it. My guess is, and I want to hear your view, Ben, is that given all of the flock that the

Supreme Court has taken and Clarence Thomas, in particular, given Ginny Thomas' role in the insurrection, that he's not going to make this decision on his own. He's going to want all nine people to make the ruling. What do you think, Ben? I agree. I think he's going to refer it to the full Supreme Court, but Pope Mark, the very fact that he even gave this order to the Department of Justice to respond. When all we know about his wife's involvement

in the January 6th insurrection, her involvement in the fake elector slates, her recent deposition or conversation, if you will, before the January 6th committee, by the way, even if it wasn't under oath, you can't lie to a committee. That is by its nature a violation of law. So in some people go, I wasn't under penalty of purgeery. It would still have the same effect if she actually lied to the committee. But with all of that in the background, Popoq, like the very fact that he is saying you need to respond to this where the motion to vacate that was filed is such an absurd and offensive document, to logic common sense, every the most basic legal principles

that this should have just been laughed out and immediately rejected. The fact that it even is getting an audience is somewhat bothersome. Yeah, he could, you're right. I mean, in that role as the gatekeeper for a circuit, a Supreme Court justice, in this case, Clarence Thomas can reject the appeal out of hand. We've seen that in a number of cases in the

COVID policies. We've seen even, you know, right wing Supreme Court justice, like Amy Coney Barrett and others, rejected appeals and it just dies there and that doesn't go any further. He's giving credence to it. Some people are asking why do he recuse himself or disqualify himself. Most judges faced with the circumstance of Clarence Thomas' wife and her role in all of this and her involvement to try to keep Donald Trump in power would recuse himself under the appearance of impropriety. But we know Clarence Thomas is not going to do that. Scotus blog where you and I do a lot of our kind of deep thinking and research had a very good article this past week about it may be Chief Justice's Roberts Court by name, but it is Clarence Thomas's Court de facto. And he spent 32 years to get to this moment. He finally got the numbers with his fellow right wing conservatives being appointed through

Trump. He cares about a handful of things, race being one of them, a religion being another, executive power being another, and he is not going to voluntarily take himself out because you see the ramifications. People say, why doesn't he recuse himself? Let's ask it another way what if he doesn't what it who's going to take him out of power? Roberts doesn't have the power to do that. Roberts doesn't have the power to force him to recuse himself.

So, if he's not going to do it by himself his own volition and he knows he has he's got the power in his hands he's not going to do that. So, we're stuck the power in his hands. He's not going to do that. So we're stuck with Clarence Thomas. I agree with you. I think it goes to the full panel. And the issue, the reason I completely agree with you that it is ludicrous is the posture that Donald Trump's filing finds itself, the internally inconsistent things are not just in the in the Supreme Court. They want an expedited ruling, but in the 11th Circuit filed at the same time, they want delay, delay, delay pardon me, I'm just getting over it.

The other internal inconsistency is they want the court, the 11th Circuit, to have jurisdiction and concede that it has jurisdiction over parts of their order. So, they're not saying that the Department of Justice has to stop its criminal investigation, which of course got the 11th Circuit very hot and bothered and was the basis for their ruling. They're only saying that the special master should also be able to take a look at the 100 classified documents as part of their review,

meaning Donald Trump's lawyers get a copy of it as well. So they like the 11th Circuit in certain aspects and can see that they have jurisdiction. But then in the same breath, argue that it doesn't have jurisdiction under, we're going to get really inside baseball here under a criminal, a rule called 1292 A1, which is when interlocatory meaning before the case is over, you can take certain appeals during the pendency of the case. It's called interlocatory appeals. And there are rules and there are limits related to it. But I don't think you can pick and choose and say court had jurisdiction

to hear this aspect and we're okay with it because we know that'll kill us at the Supreme Court if we try to interfere with the Department of Justice's criminal investigation any further. But we don't like their jurisdiction and we don't think they have any. And you and I on other aspects and you and I pointed this out really early on. We said, this is an injunction hearing. She's not calling it an injunction hearing. She's not making them go through all the factors of an injunction hearing, but she is enjoining, she is stopping the department of justice

from doing something. So by its very nature, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is an injunction. And that is what the 11th Circuit recognized. And I think even this right wing, full panel Supreme Court, finds that the 11th Circuit had jurisdiction over this and properly ruled and they ultimately reject the appeal given their prior rulings about the executive branch and documents, I think ultimately Trump's going to be on the losing end of this, it's just going to take a while.

And look, this just relates to the 100 classified record portion, which was the motion for partial stay, which the 11 circuit granted, which gave the Department of Justice those records back. So the status quo right now was the Department of Justice has those classified records. The criminal investigation continues. All that order would do is have those documents go back into the special master process where the special master has already expressed a great degree of skepticism. But that motion to vacate filed or the application to vacate filed with

the Supreme Court, that preceded something that then happened shortly thereafter, which is the Elephant Circuit granted the Department of Justice's motion to expedite their appeal as to Judge Eileen Cannon's entire assertion of equitable jurisdiction and the Department of Justice's motion for partial stay that they filed to get those records. Back to the look on an emergency basis, the irreparable harm that we are being caused with this great degree of urgency for our national security are these 100 classified records we found. But it's a motion for partial state pending

are overall appeal because appeals take time and the Department of Justice position always was. And I've always seen this in the comments, just even have jurisdiction, how could you even assert yourself? Well, federal judges have lots of power, which is why it's important that we elect presidents who utilize their appointment powers of the federal judiciary

in responsible matters, Donald Trump appointed this horrible hack of a judge, Eileen Cannon, who asserted equitable jurisdiction, which is a type of jurisdiction. And the most rarest of rare circumstances, a federal judge who doesn't belong on the matter goes, here are these extraordinary factors. And because these factors are met, even though this really isn't something like a normal case filed before me, I am jumping in and I am getting involved. And there was a case that defines what are these factors for a judge to assert equitable jurisdiction in the eleventh circuit, which is actually a fifth circuit case,

but based on the way the circuit courts have evolved, it's precedent for the 11th circuit. We'll save that for another time, but it's a case called Richie, and the Richie case has a number of factors, and the very first factor is, did the government in their search exercise a callous disregard for the rights of the person that they were investigating.

And even in Judge Eileen Cannon's initial order, she said no. And the 11th Circuit and they are ruling regarding the 100 classified records. They said, Judge Eileen Cannon, your inquiry should have ended right there. You should have said you had no equitable jurisdiction. If they didn't exercise a callous disregard, but then the 11th Circuit said, we're going to analyze all the other factors under the Richie test as well. Like, is it going to cause Trump irreparable harm?

The department, the 11th Circuit said, how's it going to cause him irreparable harm? The documents don't belong to him. Another factor was the need for the return of the records by the party being investigated. And the 11th Circuit said, he is not classified records. He's not even claiming that there is classified records. So how what is his need for something that doesn't belong to him?

And so they analyzed all those factors already with regards to the 100 classified records. And in the overall appeal, the Department of Justice filed, they say, 11th Circuit, that same analysis that you just did. It's the same exact analysis regarding the 11,000 other government records that aren't necessarily classified records, but are still documents that are part of the crime because you can't steal government records when you leave. We're talking about 11,000 documents, perhaps 220,000 pages that Trump was hoarding, that he stole, that he kept at Mar-a-Lago.

There's lots of other news stories that have just been breaking very recently, as early as this morning and last night, that he's probably also obstructing and hiding documents to this day, had Trump tower and Ben Minster sources familiar with the investigation say that's where the Department of Justice is going to go duh he's keeping it there. I mean the guy is a big criminal. He hides these documents everywhere and he's trying to use them transactionally. I mean, there was one article today earlier today from the New York Times so that he was speaking with his lawyers about trying to do like an extortive trade.

If you give me Russian, Russian docs, I'll give you your classified records back. I mean, how insane is that, Popok? But the 11th Circuit granted the motion to expedite. And here is the most important part about their order, my view. No extensions of time. And so the briefing schedule ends, I think it's like November 17th, 18th somewhere around that time. Yeah, but no extensions of time whatsoever. And as you and I know and people who practice,

although I'm not an appellate lawyer, I work on a lot of cases that have appeals. With the extensions, it can go 12 months, 18 months, it could go really long. So the fact that they're saying no extensions, briefing's done, what do you think the outcome is, Pope, I'll give you my prediction here, is that very promptly the 11th circuit is going to make a scathing order that Judge Eileen Cannon should never have asserted jurisdiction.

And this whole process is going to end sometime early to mid-December. And the 11th circuit's having none of Trump's bullshit to try to speed up the Supreme Court review while slowing down the 11th Circuit review of the overall rulings by Judge Cannon. 11th Circuit is going to get front and center and jump out in front, which by the way, I think the Supreme Court would require anyway. The appeal is not done. Talk about this distinction between interlocatory and at the end of a case, this appeal is not done. Talk about this distinction between interlocutory and at the end of a case, this appeal is not done. The 11th Circuit, having now set a very aggressive briefing

schedule, we're going to talk about the new panel that's going to decide these issues. The old panel that we liked that decided the 11th Circuit issues against Trump that that we've talked about at Nazim on the podcast, is now gone. There's going to be, by way of the order, signed by Adelberto Jordan, who used to be in Miami, who I've tried cases in front of, Al Jordan signed it on behalf of the 11th Circuit in consultation with the Chief Justice

or the Chief Judge William Prior. And they have decided together that there's going to be a special merits panel with classified level clearances that's going to be chosen at random from a log that's kept for those 11 circuit judges that have classified a classification review abilities, powers for by the clerk of the 11th circuits. So we're going to get a whole new panel could have a judge that's

already made a decision on this most likely will not. And that three judge panel is going to be the one that's going to hear the oral argument on this case, the October 14th, which is right around the quarter, the Department of Justice files its brief. The a month later or so, the 10th of November, Trump files his brief and the Department of Justice has until the 17th of November to file its reply. Then it's fully briefed. The entire appeal, to remind everybody, this is the appeal about whether, you know, not the compromise that Department of Justice said, which was, all right, Canon, you want to deal with the, you know, some of these documents or a hundred of these documents,

the special master, the whole thing, the whole, her whole exertion of jurisdiction, the establishment of the special master, and particularly whether any part of their criminal investigation, their ability to use the other 11,000 documents to progress their investigation, to do their interviews, which we know now from some of the reporting that you just identified, Ben, they are still actively investigating. This is an active criminal investigation. They're asking questions of people at Trump Tower at the Bedminster Golf Club, indicating that the government believes that Trump has classified documents to this moment in those locations.

We know that. We know from reporting that the Department of Justice in recent weeks has reached out to the lawyers for Trump. I'm not sure which combination of lawyers for Trump, they're ever changing and has told them that they have reasonable belief, which means they've got testimony from witnesses. That to this moment, there are still classified documents

that have not been turned over, located at all these various places. And giving the Trump organization, the Trump lawyers, the opportunity to come out from the cold and bring these documents with them. We know from reporting that at least one of their lawyers, one of Trump's lawyers has her own lawyer, and she's cooperating with the Department of Justice because she's the lawyer that Trump had signed the receipt that said, this is the entire universe of classified documents in this sealed envelope and nothing else exists. And we know that she has a lawyer now. So this is an active criminal investigation. The 11th Circuit is recognizing that with its final admonition of no more extensions. This is it. We're going to fully brief.

We're going to hear this appeal. We're going to rule on this appeal. Probably quicker than the Supreme Court is going to rule on the side show that Trump has tried to lob in there to have the very narrow issue of whether the 100 documents can go, the 100 classified folders can go over to the special master so they can get a report about it. Whether, you know, I think the 11th Circuit is going to jump The 100 classified folders can go over to the special master so they can get a report about it.

Whether, you know, I think the 11 circuits going to jump way out in the head here and they're going to make their ultimate ruling first. We're going to be very, very aware, very cognizant you and me of who the three judge panel is going to be because that's going to influence the result. We know that six out of the 11 who sit on the 11th circuit were appointed by Donald Trump. So it could be who knows. I mean, if the wheel spins and we get three trumpers as the, as the, as the three judge panel for the 11th circuit, could be a whole nother set of rulings. They don't have to follow what the prior panel did. You know, even though it's law of the case as to that issue, this new panel,

this new special merits panel is going to depend on the composition of that panel and who's actually appointed the prior panel still had two Trump appointees and One Obama appointee they reached a per curium decision, which means it was unanimous decision, which means it was unanimous, 3.0, and they all wrote that scathing opinion together about Judge Eileen Cannon sending a very, very powerful message there. The lawyer who you mentioned, Popaku, is getting her own lawyer is Christina Bob, and the actual document that she signs had based upon the information told to me and upon information, I'm belief, or words to those effects.

She tried to hedge a little bit, but nonetheless it was a materially misleading statement, but that lawyer, Christina Bob, actually claims that she was not Trump's lawyer anymore. She's now a reporter who goes to these traveling cosplay fascist circus Trump rallies. And at a recent one, she said she actually wasn't his lawyer, which is actually very, very, very helpful

to the Department of Justice's investigation, which is not the attorney. There's no attorney client privilege to the extent they claim an attorney client relationship. That's pretty much evidence that that didn't exist. And the Department of Justice is going to be able to get and ask her questions now about when you the Department of Justice is going to be able to get and ask her questions now about when you say based on the information told to you, was that what Trump told to you? One other point I wanna make, Popuck,

before going to you as well. A lot of the reporting that we're getting now as well is that in that January 2022, when those 15 boxes, that first tranche of documents were returned to the Department of Justice or to the National Archives. There's actually Donald Trump himself, who was the one self selecting and cherry picking

documents that he wanted them to see. All of this going to intent, I believe it's a very, very strong case, Popeyes. I want to move on to the next topic, but want to get your final work. Yeah, so also the coming and goings of the lawyers on Trump's side is very interesting. A week ago, you and I talked about Chris Keiss, who left his law firm, a law firm I used to work for, called Folly Lardner, and set up his own shop with a $3 million retainer paid by Trump's followers, basically, because it came out of his political action committee, the state of America committee.

He sort of disappeared on certain of the filings before Judge Cannon and before the 11th Circuit, but now has reappeared and is on the briefing to the Supreme Court. So Chris is sort of picking and choosing which arguments he wants to be associated with and which ones he doesn't. Either that or he's had another come to Jesus with With Trump and his back in his good graces and is able to sign these documents

I also find it fascinating that every time they file a paper for Donald Trump They will never concede because they've got you know Trump standing behind them telling them what to write that he is the former president It's always we represent Donald Trump the 45th president of the United States, Perenn, President Trump. They'll never admit that he's F-Potus, that he's former POTUS, at all. And one last thing, Percurium, we talked about Percurium order, also means that it's unsigned, meaning that we don't know which of the three issued the order in the 11th Circuit. Percurium also means it's the collective decision of the three of them, or how. Percurium also means it's the collective decision of the three of them, or how many of them voted,

and it's an unsigned order. Good analysis there, Popok. Let's talk about the Proudboy leader, Jeremy Burr-Tino, the terrorist organization. He pled guilty to seditious conspiracy and connection with January 6th. Then in his plea agreement, he said that he acted in concert with the other Proud Boy leadership,

including Enrique Tario and others who are set to go to trial currently in December. This is the first Proud Boy terrorist who has pled guilty to seditious conspiracy, which has been the most, the highest degree criminal charge that anyone's been charged with in connection with the January 6th insurrection. We saw Jeremy Bertino briefly in the January 6th committee hearings.

He had talked about how it was a video clip of him that had mentioned that membership in the Proud Boys increased exponentially when Trump said, stand back and stand by as his message to the Proud Boys during the debate with Biden. I believe that was the debate where he was concealing that he had COVID to try to kill Biden. Like, you can't even make these things up. I think it was in that debate where he said he had said that. And then you have down the hall from Bertino, the seditious conspiracy

trial of Stuart Rhodes, guy with the eye patch, who shot himself in the face. That's why he has the eye patch. And he has to wear the eye patch because he did an appropriately apply the sanitizing lotion to the and a disbarred and a disbarred lawyer and failed presidential candidate from 2008. Let's not forget his full resume. I mean, sometimes I care to forget some of the, the insane, bad shit, crazy, fascist resume. But thank you for pointing that out, Michael.

And that's going on down the hall. One thing to mention about this Jeremy Bertino also, he was in all of those supposedly encrypted chats with the leadership, saying things like 1776, mother-eifers, we got him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, stuff like that. But that's a big, big, big guilty plea. He's gonna know he's cooperating in the trial of the other proud boys you would have Jeremy Bertino take the stand, obviously. And then you got this oath keeper trial,

two terrorist groups down the hall, the proud boy trial or the proud boy can guilty plea was before Judge Tim Kelly. And then literally down the hall, the Oathkeeper trial before Judge Amit Mehta, who we've talked about here before. Popo, what do you make of the guilty plea and the trial? Yeah, first shout out to the courtroom staff and deputies and law enforcement around this courthouse during these trials. They are working overtime to both protect the public, keep order, and they're doing a

yoga and it's very rare. Maybe the first time in American history that two seditious conspiracy events are going on in the same courthouse at the same time. Speaking of 1776, I don't think that even happened back in, back in revolutionary times, but it's happening now. The thing about Jeremy Bertino, and you, you hit the nail on the head with his Jan 6 testimony, I thought was most interesting is the reason he wasn't at the ellipse, he wasn't at the stop to steal and he wasn't storming the Capitol on January 6th was not because he wasn't at the ellipse, he wasn't at the stop to steal and he wasn't storming

the Capitol on January 6th was not because he didn't want to be there. What came out in testimony and in the guilty plea is that he was stabbed during a planning trip. See, these Yahoo's and insurrectionists, and anti-American people went to Washington in December after the election to plan their violent overthrow of the government and to stop the peaceful transfer of power. And they got into a fight while they were there in December of 2020, and Jeremy Bertino was stabbed. So he what, but that's the only reason he, that was, that was the only reason he didn't

attend. He was recruited by the head of the proud boys. And Rique Tario and was put on this ministry of self-defense, the the MOSD, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's it's these people now armed and dangerous and using their weapons to stop Biden from being the president and allowed Trump to cling to power. I also found it interesting, Ben, that it looks like the government is recommending between four to five years as his sentence, the Maximum sentence for seditious conspiracy,

is 20 years, which means he's really cooperating. He's so cooperating that Judge Kelly, who's handling his sentencing, let him out on his own reconnaissance between now and the time of sentencing and kind of sent him home, as opposed to remanding him back into the federal detention center.

So he got out, I don't wanna say for good behavior, but he got out, he gets to sit home until his sentencing. Of course, that allows him to fully cooperate with the Department of Justice and the FBI. In the remaining trials, there's a big trial, Ben, you and I are going to talk about in that courthouse in December against the other proud boys that he's going to be testifying against. And that's Nordine, Biggs, Pizzola, and another person. They're all gonna be tried.

I'm not sure it's in front of Kelly, but there is a trial in December, Proud Boys. This guy's gonna be testifying against those people. And then in Riccaterio, I was gonna have another trial as well, because he is not, he is not like guilty yet. This is the first guilty plea,

seditious conspiracy and guilty plea of a proud boy. So I don't want to underline what you said earlier, pardon me. I got so excited, I knocked over my microphone. It's a big deal. It's a big deal that we have our first proud boy conviction, our first proud boy guilty plea and cooperation in the future trials to help the Department of Justice win those. And it is a perfect example, though, of Merrick Garland's

fastidious brick by brick approach to how you prosecute the largest prosecutorial endeavor in our history, but the way you prosecute Amatia, the way you prosecute something of this size and scale. And as I always like to say, the very first tier of people who were prosecuted were kind of the trespassers, the kind of clonest, fascist, cause players, get them first, prosecute them first. The next level, the more violent individuals, and those who went to trial were convicted very quickly and have very serious sentences, sending a message to that third tier, because if you are now someone like this leader of the the proud boys or others, you

know, the Department of Justice means business. You're, you're there counting those years. You're saying 42 years old. Wow, those convictions happened pretty quickly if some of those other people who did far less than me. And there could be enhancements on the sentencing too and man I could be 42 and 45. I could be in jail until I'm 70 and they're doing that math and they're having a I'm gonna I may just need to cooperate right now and at that level that's that third tier which I which I classify as those terrorist groups proud boys and oath keepers and three percenters. And then there's that tear above it, which to me is then is when you go to the people who are, who the oath keepers and the proud boys may have been communicating with, within Trump's inner circle as well.

You know, remember the violence, the violent part of this really kind of took place when everything, all the other unlawful things that Trump tried to do, the fake elector slates, the intimidation of pens, the BS frivolous lawsuits, you know, when all of that stuff failed, they then turned to violence and then they called these people to literally start a seditious conspiracy. Um, Pope, before I move on to the next topic, though, anything you want to comment on about that, the CDC.

The CDC. No, the CDC. The CDC. No, the CDC. The CDC. Yeah, week one was an eye opener. And it's exactly what you and I predicted. They're bringing all the encrypted text messages

in front of the jury. Roads was a prolific, encrypted text messenger, which are now writ large and blown up on all the screens in the courtroom for the jury to see. He has a tremendous fascination and fixation and belief that he is a patriot in the mold of George Washington, constantly referring to Washington and speeches from 1776. He's got a fixation with Chinese communism believing that Biden is a puppet of Chinese communists, he would say this, and a constant call for quick reaction strike forces using weapons at their disposal, he believed, at least that's what he claimed, that Trump would call up using the Insurrection Act because he thought Antifa, the anti-fascist group that usually breaks out, that Antifa would be involved with putting Biden into power, not recognizing it was the

democratically elected people that did, you know, the democratically elected process and the voters that did that, but that Tifa would have to be put down by the Insurrection Act that Trump would call up militia and that the Oathkeepers had to be ready to be that militia be armed and ready in the capital on Jan 6th when Trump blew the whistle. And this is what he testified to. The text messages also show how involved Roger Stone was. There's actually a chat group that Stewart Rhodes, this is the evidence in the trial,

that Stewart Rhodes would be a part of called FOS, the Friends of Stone. I can think of another OS acronym that more perfectly encapsulates these people, but FOS, okay, we'll go with that. And in that Friends of Stone chat room, they would talk about, we've got to have rifles at the ready and Trump needs us, but the really chilling testimony, because already there's been three or four witnesses that have testified who were part of the oath keepers. Michael Adams from Florida, John Zimmerman from North Carolina, and we get all of the text

messages from a guy named Caldwell, who is a former US Naval officer who appeared to be the weapons master and the plan organizer for the distribution of weapons. His evidence against him sitting in that courtroom is that he had a van with 15 loaded AR-15s that he told everybody in the Oathkeepers to bring zombie killers with them, which is a type of tomahawk, right? You know, like a small axe to have with them for hand-to-hand combat that they saw happening on Jan 6th to bring other hand weapons with them. And he literally on his Facebook, just to show you how insidious this is, and videos this is, on his Facebook, the night of Jan 6th, this guy called well, who's a defendant wrote that if we had guns, we would, I guarantee you, we would have killed 100 politicians.

And the only reason we didn't is because they were spirited away in tunnels like the rats that they are. That's almost a direct quote from Caldwell, a defendant in that courtroom. This is the other beauty of the Department of Justice trying all nine of these people together because all of their crazy batshit crazy stuff backs up on the other defendants, even if roads didn't write that, the jury is sitting there listening to Caldwell, and that just naturally bleeds over, you know, let's be honest, over to all the others, include Stuart Rhodes and vice versa. That's why Rhodes wanted his own trial, because he didn't want Caldwell's Facebook post

to be up as evidence in the trial. He just wanted his own trial because he didn't what called Wells Facebook post to be up as evidence in the trial. He just wanted his own words. Now the defense is left, obviously, starting with their opening statement. The defense is left with first amendment speech. Okay, I don't know how bringing munitions into the capital is first amendment speech. It's just big talk, but they never really did anything. And there's no link between all of this talk and the Jan 6th insurrection attack on the Capitol. That's only because these, that's only because they're waiting for the go message from Donald Trump, right? And so yes, they weren't physically part of the Jan 6th 800 that attacked the Capitol, but they were standing around doing all the planning. And that's enough for a conspiracy. You don't actually have to kill somebody

or a police officer to be charged with conspiracy to commit murder against the police officer. They don't understand their charges if that's going to be their ultimate defense. Now I haven't gotten any feedback in the media or those that are court watching this about the jury's reaction of these things, like the body language of these things. And judges don't really like when the media reports jury body language in real time. So it's going to be hard for us unless we get inside that courtroom to know how this is playing out. But I can't imagine after week one with these three or four witnesses and the text messages, their own words hanging them that it's going well for the defense. But look,

we're going to have to see. It's very, it is difficult when you're not in the courtroom and you're not, you know, really watching the jurors to speculate about what's going on in the jurors' mind. We're going to have to see the power of some more testimony in week two. This is going to be a six or seven week trial. People are going to have to be patient. But I think when the Department of Justice is done putting on the shock and awe of the just the sheer volume of texts, documents, videos, they haven't even gotten to videos. They haven't gotten to walkie talkies. They haven't gotten to the list of all the weaponry that was recovered. And they haven't gotten to all of the testimony from cooperating witnesses. They put on two or three.

I think there's six in total. They're going to testify against all of these defendants in this courtroom. Ben, what did you think? Well, that's the power of a conspiracy charge, right? That you have them all there and you link them all together in this concerted act to show the evidence. As you mentioned, the conduct naturally bleeds over because their conspiracy was to shed blood on the Capitol on January

6th. One other point I want to mention though is their defense, which is a bad one, necessarily implicates Donald Trump. With their public authority, if you will, it's one of the ways it's referred to is, hey, we were waiting to get the unlawful order to then overturn the government, but that then links the seditious conspiracy directly to Trump. And so that is also, as I mentioned earlier, in the brick-by-brick building, that is why you try the cases this way. And I thought it was very important that although it hasn't been spoken directly in the courtroom in the sense that a co-conspirator

would be Donald Trump, that is certainly the implication and that is certainly what the oath keepers is relying on, which is why you'd want to get that conviction first. And then you keep on building. Want to talk about speaking of keep on building, President Biden keeps on building for the American people. You know, you hear about these stories of, you know, all of the horrible things Trump is doing and the alignments between the oath keepers and the proud boys and these terrorist groups

trying to overthrow our democracy. But Biden's just going about doing things for the American people. I mean, I don't want to get into this, but I'll just briefly mention it as one example. I mean, partying all federal convictions for simple marijuana possession, impacting about 6,500 Americans and then directing and requesting, he can't force them to, but that governors do the same and talking about reclassifying where marijuana is on the schedule of narcotics,

because it's actually scheduled in a more severe classification than fentanyl, which is a whole nother conversation. But that's just an example of what he did this week. And another item and important action that he took, of course, was his loan forgiveness program. If you make $125,000 or less, you were eligible to have about $10,000 of student loans for giving $20,000 if it was a Pell Grant.

But this is something that helps regular Americans. The cost of it would be about half a trillion dollars over about a decade, whereas Trump's tax cuts for billionaires was trillions and trillions of dollars within the first year and like 10 trillion dollars, like five to 10 trillion dollars within five to 10 years.

And none of these quote unquote conservative groups raised in eyebrow when billionaires got tax cut and increased our deficit but when Biden who has decreased our deficit already by trillions of dollars does something for regular folks and regular Americans and hardworking Americans you get these this concerted effort by these extremist right-wing groups to try to challenge it and overturn it and it's just cruel and groups to try to challenge it and overturn it. And it's just cruel. And so this was one of the ways that they tried to challenge it in Wisconsin. This group called the Brown County Tax Payer Association. It's an Astroturf BS group that's basically their puppet master is these right wing extremist lawyers. They claimed that they had standing this loss. It was filed on Tuesday because they said our taxes are going to go up by giving student

loan forgiveness, pursuant to Biden's plan. They use this ridiculously lofty and insane language in their in their complaint when the founding fathers complain that King George the third imposed taxes on us without our consent. And this is like Biden giving student loan forgiveness. He's like King George the third imposed taxes on us without our consent. And this is like Biden giving student loan forgiveness. He's like King George the third. I mean, literally, that's what they that's what they say in the complaint. But pop up the most insidious and I think disturbing and disgusting aspect of this, which has parallels with the topic. We're going to talk about next, which is the Voting Rights Act and how Magga Republicans have tried to challenge the Voting Rights Act section to overturn the entire thing saying it violates

the equal protection clause in the Constitution. Here, a similar argument is made. If you go to the violations of the equal protection doctrine, this group is arguing. Defendants created the one time student loan debt relief plan with the express purpose of advancing racial equity, explaining that the purpose of the program is to quote, narrow the racial wealth gap. The White House explained that the program is intended to help black students, black

borrowers, and other borrowers of color. As such, this lawsuit argued, Biden articulated an improper racial motive in creating and implementing the one-time student loan debt relief program, saying that Biden was being racist to these white taxpayers by trying to address systemic inequities, which is precisely what the equal protection clause, and as we talk about the Voting Rights Act, trying to address a history of systemic racism, just trying to turn this on its head is what this lawsuit was trying to do. Fortunately, it didn't even have to get there into really the merits, like within three days of this lawsuit being filed, the

federal court and the Green Bay division in Wisconsin said, you don't have standing just because you are a taxpayer doesn't give you the right to file this lawsuit case dismissed in record time. And we're going to appeal it. The group said, the most important case ever, we're going to appeal it. We don't want people, you know, the majority of the student alone dead for forgiveness plans like helping people who make less than $75,000. Popeye, it's just cruel. I have nothing much more to say about that. All right. Let me unpack it. I agree with the cruelty. Let me unpack it. You've got, you've got, it's not really, you write right, the puppet for the lawsuit that was filed in Wisconsin

Eastern District of Wisconsin before Judge Bill Greaseback is this made up thing called the Brown County Taxpayer Association. But the puppet master is the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, another made up group, WILL will. Now, if you think they're a bunch of jokers, I will tell you that they were successful in attacking another Biden policy to try to help, let's keep talking about immorality in the Republican Party here, Biden had a policy to help black farmers who had been historically disadvantaged and the same group W-I-L-, and successfully challenged under a race-based equal protection

argument and stopped the program that was geared to help poor black farmers and give them aid from the federal government. So having, you know, boyied by that success, they decided to attack the student loan program. Since we're going to break out of Legal AF Law School here for a minute, generally, just because you're a taxpayer, you don't have federal standing, what's called article three standing, to challenge a program of policy of the federal government. You don't. Like you might say, I don't want my taxpayer dollars going for that program, or I don't want to rebate, or I don't, you know, just because you're a taxpayer, unless

you can articulate an independent harm or special harm to you, that's unique, that falls on you differently than just you being a general taxpayer, you're not going to have article three standing. And there's a long line of Supreme Court cases that basically say tax pay or standing is not enough as a ticket into the courthouse. There's some narrow exceptions, as you can imagine. Usually they're around religion and the establishment clause. However, if there's a racial component, which is this new hook that groups

like the WILL are using, you might get a favorable audience with a Clarence Thomas-led United States Supreme Court, which is what this group is hoping for. In the meantime, Judge Grease Bach in two days, who was a George W. Bush appointee on senior status, said, I don't see how you have anything but taxpayer standing here, which means you don't have standing at all in federal court. And I don't think you're being irreparably harmed. You're saying the costs and taxes of the burden are falling improperly based on race.

I don't see it. Yours is denied. Now the next step on the trip, the next stop on the train for them is the seventh circuit. We haven't talked much about the seventh circuit. It sits in Chicago, Illinois. It covers Wisconsin. And the duty circuit judge or the duty, duty judge from the Supreme Court is Amy Coney Barrett, who's from that region, right? She was on the law faculty of the University of Notre Dame. So she's gonna be the first one once it gets past the seventh circuit,

which is kind of a conservative circuit to begin with, that old region is sort of conservative. So they'll probably get a fair shake at the seventh Amy Coney Barrett. We know where she sits, although on the issue of race, she's, we know where she sits on religion. We're gonna have to see where she sits. Although on the issue of race, we know where she sits on religion. We're going to have to see where she sits on race. I doubt she's going to take this on herself.

She'll probably refer it if it comes up to her to the full panel. Unless she just decides, as Judge Grisbach did, that there's zero merit. There's zero Article 3 standing. Let's talk about something we haven't talked haven't talked about. Maybe once or twice in two years. The Supreme Court is supposed to be a court of limited jurisdiction, meaning they only take the cases they have to take. They don't generally take cases. That's why they take such a few amount of cases. Unless they believe that they have jurisdiction or it's the right type of case to take. They don't have to take every case. She could put here and just say, I don't see Article 3 standing for this group.

Sorry, or she bends over backwards, finds that there's standing or finds there's the issue of standing has merit and takes it up and lets the full panel decide on it. But it is heartless. It's again trying to help. In the case of Wisconsin, for example, there are 800,000 borrowers of student loans, a totaling about $25 billion in student loan debt. Of that group, 700,000 out of the 800,000 would qualify for loan forgiveness under this program. Talk about not wanting to help your own people and your own voters because you want to like stick it to helping, you know, policies in the interest of equity and race equality.

I mean, this is where the Republican part, one of the many examples of the Republican party having lost its way and having no moral compass at all in a case like this. We'll have to see what happens at the seventh and then we'll see what happens at the Supreme Court. We will, of course, keep you updated on developments there. If you like the independent, no nonsense, unapologetically pro-democracy media

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because I can't confirm all of the bootlegs that might have touched up are made in the USA and 100% union made, I would say, still go check out store.mitustouch.com for the authentic real deal merch. That store.mitustouch.com. Want to talk now about a case further eroding the importance and the power of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, really two major provisions within the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A lot of provisions, but section five has been eroded in a case called Shelby in 2013.

This was a case that eroded the pre-clearance requirement. It used to have to get pre-approval by the Department of Justice or by a district court panel if the state was going to gerrymand or change its election laws to make sure that they were not racist in nature and thatically dismantled that pre-clearance requirement. And what it did was it said that the formulas were unconstitutional, the formulas that were used in section 4 were unlawful to determine where you apply the pre-clearance standards. And by taking away the formula, you take away pre-clearance.

And so by doing that, you now have a situation where, and this was the first time since the new census where this occurred, states could do these racist, Jerry Mandered maps, and now the burden shifts to the civil rights groups to have to file the lawsuits, as opposed to at first having to be pre-cleared by the DOJ or a three-court panel. So that was the first way they took, they tried to erode it. Section 2 is now been under attack and section 2 is the other enforcement mechanism,

a proactive enforcement mechanism. That basically says that there is a private cause of action. There is a ability to file a lawsuit if there are racist, gerrymandered maps, if there are discriminatory maps. And I give this was a prime example here in Alabama. In Alabama, you have seven congressional districts, 25% of the population in Alabama is black yet. Black representation is only, has leadership in one congressional district. So in a pre-clearance, world or just in a common sense, world you go, how is it that

the black population has been so diluted so that they're only in one congressional district? And the people in Alabama, the lawmakers in Alabama said, what are you talking about? We did this in a race neutral way and we didn't factor in all of these things. And the map just happened to come out this way. And the argument for supporters of the Voting Rights Act is that's one wrong you had you was discriminatory but that the Voting Rights Act is not race neutral. It is actually supposed to help with systemic racist policies that lead to outcomes

policies that lead to outcomes precisely like this in Alabama, where you've now deprived Alabama's black population of representation by intentionally diluting it with your map that you now pretextually claim is race neutral. So this went before the Supreme Court. Actually, there was on an emergency basis, the Supreme Court allowed the map to stay and affect previously. So that map will be the map for the upcoming midterms, regardless of the outcome here. That was a prior rolling made by the Supreme Court. But here, the Supreme Court seemed inclined to accept the Alabama

map, to say the Alabama map is a valid map. The Alabama solicitor general tried to argue that the Voting Rights Act itself is unconstitutional. It violates the equal protection clause because if you have to assess race according to the Alabama solicitor general, that's racist. That's racist to the white citizens of Alabama. You're being racist. We need to be totally race neutral in what Contagio Brown Jackson said. This was one of their first appearances as a new justice on the Supreme Court.

She goes, the very history of Court, she goes, the very history of the equal protection clause, the very history of the Voting Rights Act is to address systemic inequities because states like Alabama were discriminating against black populations and populations of people of color in these precise ways. So you, in saying that the clause should bend over backwards to keep a status quo where the white population of a state like Alabama is suppressing and diluting black representation is exactly what the Voting Rights Act was intended to remedy so that people could be equal and everyone could be treated equal.

So if there was 25% of the population, that should be reflected in the congressional districts. The Supreme Court seemed not inclined to totally vitiate section two when they weren't buying some of the justices war, but on the whole, I don't think they're going to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act like the Alabama solicitor general wanted, but the kind of surgically dismantling it piece by piece, that seems to be what they're still doing. I believe they're going to uphold the Alabama map. Popuck, what else do you think?

I don't know about that. We'll have to see. I think Katanji made a very good debut on an important issue related to race because who better to carry the torch on race disparity, equal protection. I think Katanji Brown-Jackson. I thought that I liked her eloquence on one particular point where she chided in her own way the Alitos and the Kavanaugh's and the Clarence Thomas's by telling by saying, okay, I'll use your vernacular, I'll use your vocabulary. I thought what we were supposed to be doing is to go back to what the framers of a law in that particular time thought and use that as our mechanism to decide if something is valid today or not.

I thought we were supposed to take a time machine every time we look at a law like the Constitution and the founding fathers like equal protection and all of that. And if, which is exactly, exactly the argument that Clarence Thomas used, for instance, in the second amendment case, where he said, we have to keep going back to 1787 and 1780, and what was going on in the world at that time. And Katanji said, I thought that's what we were supposed to do. And if we do that, then you look at the history of the equal protection law being passed, part

of the constitution. And the reason for it was to stop newly freed slaves from being now free black Americans from being deprived and disin, deprived of their constitutional rights that disenfranchised by states like Alabama, particularly Alabama. So what happened at the time machine, I thought we were supposed to use it, and if we are, this is the history. And of course, no one on that,

none of her brethren, none of the other people took her on. Clarence Thomas, certainly a coward wouldn't dare do that in oral argument and say that she was wrong. Kagan led the a lot of the grilling of the Alabama attorney general, and I thought she put him quickly into a pickle that he found himself in and he couldn't really work his way out of. Fortunately for people that love the Voting Rights Act like you and I do and believe in equal protection, Fortunately, the advocate in the form of the Attorney General for Alabama was not very good and not

very effective on these points. He fell into a trap early on when Kagan, who's much brighter than he is and much and much more astute than he is in these areas, said to him, let me ask you something. Under the Voting Rights Act, do you think there ever could be a situation where we're applying your race neutralness that you've adopted, that there could be zero minority, majority districts in a state, in other words, where there would be no district in which the minority had the majority, a black district and Hispanic district or whatever it was. Could that happen? And he said, well, I think it could. You know, you know, that was the trap because now she's going to use that against them. I don't

know if she's going to be assigned the ultimate ruling because certainly that would violate the Voting Rights Act section two. That would violate equal protection. You have in Alabama alone, you have 27% of the population is black. And if you let Alabama do its thing, which it's done since 1875, which is to disenfranchise black people, you'll end up with one, maybe no districts where they have representation, which violates that Voting Rights Act. But we're only fighting over, you know, these minimal numbers. All that the proponents of race equality want is that there be two districts. This is how, a dastardly, and immoral the fight is for the Republicans in Alabama.

We just want two out of the seven. It'll still be majority. Alabama will still be red. It'll just have two districts and you can draw them in a way, and this is where the map making came up. You can draw them in a way that you have a respect for what's historically been referred to in Alabama

by Black Alabamians as the Black Belt. You can respect the historic black populations of the state without Jerry Mandry and coming up with some crazy design. This is what Kagan also focused on. I thought Katanijee Brown Jackson also was a genius in the way she talked about when we say things like a map and districts are compact, which is one of the doctrines, compactness, or demonstrates a community of interest, we also have to recognize in the same breath that compactness could be the result of discrimination in housing,

for instance, if there's a black section of a town, not because of the black people's choosing, but because that's where the whites have put them by way of a historic discrimination. Yes, that'll create compactness, but we have to be sensitive that we don't use compactness and the requirement of compactness as a discriminatory tool in it of itself. These are the only things that somebody in Kataji Brown, Jackson's life history and background can bring so eloquently to a oral argument like this one and hopefully behind the scenes in the conferences,

the caucuses among the Supreme Court justices, the clerks that she's chosen that are doing the work behind the scenes to draft opinions. And we end up, as you do, I hope we end up where you think we'll end up, which is that they don't completely rip away section two of the Voting Rights Act. Of course, Alito had to have his moment. And the way that Alabamians and the attorney general for Alabama and Alito can get away with this argument, this gaslighting argument, is that they focus

not on race, but on politics. They make this, they try to make this, we're not racists. We're just trying to preserve politics. So a black Republican and a black and a white Republican should have the same rights. This was the argument in the state of Alabama. This isn't about politics. This is about race. That's what equal protection is founded on. That's what the Voting Rights Act was founded on. If there was no discrimination in Alabama, we wouldn't have needed the Voting Rights Act to begin with. So I think we're going to come out from this upside down world ultimately, but it doesn't help for the midterms, which had one black district. And we're going to have to see the, I mean, Alabama is never going to be a blue state,

but at least the historic minority, underprivileged minority in the state that represents 27% of the state should have representation. I just saw statistics that for instance in Georgia where we have a fight for our life going on with the Senate seat and the governor's seat that there's a powerful, a very powerful voting block in Southeast Asians, Southeast Asian Americans who are voters in Georgia. But they only represent 5% of Georgia, and they're considered a huge voting block. This is 27% of the state is black, and they're going to end up with one representative and no real ability to influence power or politics when it comes to

the state house, it is disgusting. To your point, and to your point, Popuck, it's exactly why people consider this radical right extremist, federalist society virus of a judicial interpretation as just a complete fraud because it's just so intellectually dishonest. We're strict textualists here, but then we want to view the history here, but now here we're going to basically give our own interpretation of what we think matters right now in a modern society right now, and now it's an evolving document. Whenever it suits them, they will change that framing of it. And that is the brilliance though to your point of how Katanji Brown Jackson framed it

because she knows that there are only three individuals on there who are appointed by Democratic administrations and she's one of them. And so she has to speak to it through the lens of, okay, you wanna talk about what the founder said and what the framers of the law said. Here specifically why we have this law. Now you wanna change what the law means

because you believe we've evolved past racism. That's your view. Your view is that in the modern society there is no more racism right wing. That is actually what their view is by the way in the Shelby decision when they overturned The preclearance requirements. That was the strain of logic that they used to that the formula didn't make sense in Essentially an evolving post racist world where today we solve the problem and that's the insanity of their argument. He said it. The Alabama Attorney General said the Voting Rights Act was very, very good in its day. It's over. Like you said, congratulations, problem solve, post-racism. Obama was president twice.

It's all racism is now called in America. It really is a despicable strain of argumentation. Speaking of a despicable strain of argumentation and cruelty, we go to the radical right fifth circuit panel, which just affirmed the lower courts ruling that DACA is unlawful. The case was sent back to the lower court to address the fact that Biden had a recent rule making update to it, but essentially what is going to happen is the lower court is going to assess Biden's update, probably find that unlawful. Get sent back up to the fifth circuit, that unlawful gets sent back up to the fifth circuit who's going to affirm what the lower court does there. We'll go to the Supreme Court to address the issue.

Donald Trump, you'll recall in 2018 tried to issue an executive order that would overturn DACA when the Supreme Court's composition was slightly different than on a five-four basis. John Roberts cited with the pro-democracy forces on the Supreme Court there, and would not allow DACA to be overturned then, but now at the six-three level, I don't expect there to be a same outcome. Popo, what do you make of this ruling? What could you shed light on? Yeah, yeah, great. Thanks, Ben. Yeah, let's talk about DACA for a minute because it is interesting how it came into being and what it is and what it is not. It is not a law passed by Congress. It was a, it is a executive order issued by a president first Obama in a memo and then Biden in an updated memo.

And that may matter in whether DACA is going to survive with this United States Supreme Court ultimately. It is not the Dreamers Act. Sometimes it's confused with the Dreamers the, it is a executive order that a 610,000 people are currently participants in a program established by a presidential order. That presidential order in Texas shock in front of a judge, district judge, Hannon, and back in the summer was found to be illegal because it wasn't properly passed through the Administrative Procedures Act, the APA, you and I have talked about at length during prior podcast. There's a way to pass laws.

They have to go, if they go through agency rulemaking, there has to be a moment, there has to be a section of public comment, there has to be hearings, and then the rulemaking and such. That's if it's an agency rulemaking, this is really a presidential order, so it's a little bit of a hybrid.

What it is not is an act of Congress. If it was an act of Congress, Congress could get its act together, no pun intended, and get something passed to solve this problem for children who came to this country, and emigrated to this country, not by choice, but by their parents' choice and are illegal only because their parents were illegal, but should be treated as American citizens. If we could just get the law passed, we wouldn't have to be jerking around with a memo from Obama's era now updated by Biden. Biden, hoping to resolve many of the issues that Judge Hanannon had with how the Obama memo was generated tried to solve

parts of it by having open public comment and doing some rulemaking, which was consistent with the Administrative Procedures Act. I am not sure that's going to pass, Mr. First with Hannon, because the fifth circuit has has remanded it, sent it back to Judge Hannon in light of the new Biden memo rule making, which takes effect on the 31st of October on Halloween, and telling the judge, you trial judge, you're in the best position to evaluate whether the Administrative Procedure Act was properly adhered to by this new rule of Biden. So why don't you take a look at it? Now, by the way, this new memo is 453 pages long. So, so, Hannon's going to have to go through 453 pages and look at the history of how it was passed and whether it complies with the APA. Let's assume, and I think I'll be right, you'll be right that had it's going to reject this

Version of DACA also which means it'll go to the fifth circuit We know it's going to happen there. They're not going to like it either and then it's going to go to the US Supreme Court To decide if Biden overstepped his authority and his rulemaking authority and whether this was something that should be an act of Congress, a law rather than a memo. In the meantime, you have 600,000 people who rely on this, 81% of those people been in the statistics are from Mexico, Guatemala, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, or South Korea. Interesting that South Korea kind of got into that group as well.

These are like, you know, I don't want to call them future Americans because unfortunately, the DACA does not give them a path to citizenship, but defers their being deported, gives them work permits, and allows them to be, you know, hardworking contributors to the society. The interesting lineup of who is for DACA and who was against it then was also fascinating. The Department of Justice of course, is supporting the Biden policy. But so is Apple, so is Google, so is Microsoft, and a number of states as well. And then on the other side, you got Texas and eight

other Republican-leaning states or Republican states who say this is a burden and health care costs and education and all sorts of things that are falling on the red states. So look, I'm hoping that morality is suffused with law and it ends up in the right place, but I'm not sure, so what do you think this Supreme Court does when this DACA version comes up to them in let's say six months? Oh, they're gonna strike it down.

Right, right, I agree. I mean, I'm not laughing, I don't mean to laugh at it. I'm smiling because you're so right, and the fact that we can predict that 700,000 children are gonna be thrown out in the cold because of an inhumane immigration policy perpetuated by the Republicans, is sad that we can predict it.

Yeah, they don't care. And then they're gonna go to foreign countries like they did after overturning Roe v. Wade, these mega extremist right wing justices and they're gonna brag about it and cruelty sometimes is the purpose, Popok. Can I ask you a question? And I know the answer, it's a rhetorical question.

They say that it's gonna burden these states with healthcare costs and all sorts of other things. They had no, these states have no problem spending millions of dollars to ship migrants under fraudulent pretenses to northern states and Martha's vineyard and Kamala Harris's vice presidential home at great expense, by the way. They have no problem finding the money for that, but for 600,000 children, they can't spare a dime, they can't spare a penny. Oh, again, intellectual dishonesty would be putting it nicely,

the right way to say it's just a total and absolute fraud. Here you have some of the top American in corporations that are saying, DACA is critical and frankly comprehensive immigration reform addressing issues, but addressing it in a way that is compassionate and recognizing the need for individuals who can perform skilled labor at our corporations. We need that One of the strengths of America was the brain drain from other countries and people coming to our melting pot and

contributing and we need that here now more than ever and you have these xenophobic and racist tropes over and over and over again, this hateful rhetoric coming from a cruel rhetoric, coming from mega extremist, that frankly is harmful to this country. Don't believe me, listen to you claim to be pro business. Look at all the businesses who saying, we need this program and other programs like it,

but will the MAGA extremists listen? They're not going to listen. This is the plea that I then make to our legal AF audience. It's October 8th right now, right? We're basically one month away from elections. You spend the time to watch this episode of Legal AF. Now take this knowledge out into the world and do anything and everything you can before this election. Register, voters, speak to family members, share legal AF videos, share Midas Touch videos, seriously, spend time putting in the work now and leave everything out there because some of these elections could actually be decided with 10 votes or 5 votes or 1

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go check out the audio podcast as well. Same thing, but go subscribe to Legal AF on audio. It helps with the algorithms there as well and make sure we're in the top of the charts there. Look, you combine both. We'd probably be the number five podcasts of all news in the country based on the amount of views from both. But go check out on the audio right now and subscribe on the audio and leave a five star review. Those

five star reviews are very helpful as well. And it lets other people know how much you enjoy it and helps build this legal AF community. So great spending this weekend with you Michael Popak. We hit a lot of topics today very in-depth, very rigorous, very important. We will see everybody next time on Legal AF breaking down the most consequential legal news of our time. I'm Ben Myceles, joined by my good friend and legal scholar, Michael Popak. Until next time. you