Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump and Musk get SMACKED DOWN in FED COURT

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

In breaking news, the Trump Administration has lost again in Federal Court, and a federal judge in DC has entered Temporary Restraining Order #5 against it, this time to stop Elon Musk from having access to the Treasury Department computer servers and records containing the American people’s most sensitive financial and medical data. Michael Popok explains how smart DC Judge Kollar-Kotelly is, and how she forced the DOJ to agree to an injunction before she threw the book at them. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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or shake up your mood with an iced brown sugar oat shaken espresso. Whatever you choose, your espresso will be handcrafted with care at Starbucks. In breaking news, we now have our fifth temporary restraining order entered against the Trump administration on day 16 of the administration to go along with one preliminary injunction. That's six different losses. They are 0 and 6 at the Trump administration so far, and their Department of Justice in front of federal judges,

this time about Elon Musk and Doge and him rooting around in our financial and privacy and medical data information at the Treasury Department. I'm Michael Popak, you're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. Let's get to the new order that's in place with Judge Cotelli in the District of Columbia. Judge Cotelli! This is going to be the revenge of the judges of the D.C. Circuit against Donald Trump, all of which were horrified by the pardon of the Jan Six defendants, Judge Cattelli among them.

And now she's handling all of these cases against his administration. You do the math. The case I'm talking about is Alliance for Retired Americans versus Scott Bissette, the Treasury Secretary filed by Norm Eisen's public interest group. And they had filed this suit back on the third, just the third of February. And already we have an agreement on a temporary restraining order to give the judge more time

to consider the merits of the case on what we call a preliminary injunction. But this is the fifth TRO issued by a federal judge in four different courthouses in America. That's not a great start for the Department of Justice under Donald Trump's leadership. Let's talk about this particular case. This one's about the Bureau of Financial Services, a little known but probably one of the most important bureaus or departments of the government that impacts everybody's life. $5 trillion of money is collected through the Internal Revenue Service.

$5 trillion of payments are made to Americans through it. It is the nation's checkbook when it comes to things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits, disability payments, student loans, you name it, it comes to things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits, disability payments, student loans, you name it, it comes through the Bureau of Financial Services. And of course, Elon Musk and Donald Trump wanted to get their greedy little hands on the software

and the servers and the information, because if they can't stop funding through the front door, they want to gum up the works on the payment system in the back door. Meaning, we're all jeopardized, those that depend on government assistance are all jeopardized by Elon Musk, and we have privacy and data breach violations under federal law. Let me just read to you from the complaint, then I'll tell you about the agreed upon temporary restraining order and what that all

means in Judge Cattelli's courtroom. There was a filing on the third, a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief. It's to have the judge declare that certain things are unconstitutional or violation of law and to stop them or enjoin them. Here's the allegations, which I think put it in a nutshell. Let me just read you from pages two and three

of the complaint. Paragraph two. Millions of individuals engage in financial transactions with the federal government. The government collects trillions of dollars from individuals who pay their income taxes, obtain government services, and pay back loans like student loans and other debts that they owe. People also receive money from the federal government. Social security, retirement, disability payments, federal tax refunds, veterans benefits, salaries and wages for federal workers are all an example of that particular operation of the fiscal service. Now, let's go on to the next paragraph, paragraph three. The job of effectuating these financial transactions for the federal government belongs

to the Department of the Treasury, operating through the Bureau of Fiscal Service. To carry out its duties, the department collects and maintains sensitive personal and financial information about the individuals who are the counter parties to the transaction, either side of the government. Names, social security numbers, birth dates, birthplaces, home addresses, telephone numbers, bank account information,

and I would also suggest medical information when it comes to disability are in the department's records. Paragraph four of the complaint. Federal laws protect sensitive personal and financial information from improper disclosure and misuse, including by barring disclosure to individuals who lack a lawful or legitimate need for it. In his first week as Treasury Secretary, Defendant Besant, that's your new Treasury Secretary, you'll look on the money soon and see his name there, violated these restrictions.

Elon Musk and or other Doge members, that's the Department of Government Efficiency, that fake department that Donald Trump created to to cause maximum chaos, had sought access to the Bureau's records for some time only to be rebuffed by the employee that in charge of the Bureau. Right, that's a guy who for 30 years made sure your payments were properly deposited into your bank account or into your mailbox and he he first resisted, and then when he was suspended, he quit.

Within a week of being sworn in as Treasury Secretary, Bessette placed the civil servant on leave, this is the guy who ran the trains for 30 years, and granted Doge-affiliated officials full access to the Bureau's data and computer systems that housed them. He did so without making a public announcement, meaning he violated the Administrative Procedures Act, providing any legal justification or explanation

for his decision, violating criminal law, or undertaking the process required by law for altering the agency's disclosure policies. This paragraph six, the scale of the intrusion into individuals' privacy is massive and unprecedented. Millions of people cannot avoid engaging in financial transactions with the government. And then at the end of the paragraph six, and because defendant's actions and decisions are shrouded in secrecy, individuals will not have even basic information about what financial information or personal information that the

defendants are sharing with outside parties. Paragraph seven, people who must share information with the government should not be forced to share information with Elon Musk. And federal law says they do not have to. The Privacy Act of 1974 and the Internal Revenue Code with respect to taxpayer information make it unlawful for the treasury secretary to hand over access to the bureau's records to an individual,

to Elon Musk or other members of Doge. And it goes on. So now we've got the new order. Now what happened is this, very smartly, Judge Cattelli, who's been on the bench for about 30 years, she got the parties together, basically indicated to them, I'm gonna enter this temporary restraining order. We could have a hearing over it,

we can have another loss here for the Trump administration, or you guys can agree to some sort of temporary restraining order that the plaintiffs are okay with and the Trump administration sees the writing on the wall and will enter and submit it to me and I'll enter it. Or you can make me make the ruling. And all of this is in the temporary restraining order phase.

There's effectively two main phases when you're asking a judge for an injunction. First, you get the temporary restraining order. That's where the judge looks under the hood and says, yeah, I think you're gonna win on your case down the road. There's enough evidence and I see a lawful violation. I see violations of the law here. I'm gonna give the temporary restraining order

to this party, the movement, the person'm gonna give the temporary restraining order to this party, the movement, the person who moved for the temporary restraining order. Subject to me having full briefing, a better record, more evidence, more evidentiary hearing, testimony, affidavits and things, maybe in one week, two weeks, three weeks or four weeks. As long as the TRO is in place, of course, the plaintiff doesn't care

when the preliminary injunction hearing happens because they already got the stay or the block. So she's telling everybody, I'm gonna't care when the preliminary injunction hearing happens because they already got the stay or the block So she's telling everybody I'm gonna get around to the preliminary injunction Could be a month from now in the meantime work out the TRO If you can't come back and tell me and I'll handle it. Well Trump administration. I Actually, surprisingly I said I said I didn't think they were gonna agree to this because they seem to just be kamikaze pilots in courtrooms But they did agree and here's here's what we've got so far in the order that's been entered. It's a proposed order with the consent of the parties the court defers ruling on the motion for temporary restraining

order as follows. In other words, it is a temporary restraining order but it's by agreement. The defendants will not provide, so when you hear defendants, that means the Treasury Secretary of the Trump administration. They will not provide access to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of Fiscal Service,

except that the defense may provide access to any of the following people. Tom Krause, a special government employee in the Department of Treasury, he can only do read-only. Marco Elez, another person in the Department of Treasury with read-only. Any person who is an employee, but not a special government employee

who has need for the record or system of records in the performance of his duties. Any person who's entitled to access the records, and any person who's entitled to access the records under the IRS code. Now look, I don't think this goes far enough. Let me read to you, for instance, what the actual injunction is sought in the case, much broader than that. And I think she'll ultimately go here. But this is what Norm Eisen's group, on behalf of us, and I think she'll ultimately go here. But this is what Norm Eysen's group on behalf of us is asked for, a declaration

that the Trump administration's decision, this is on page 18 of the complaint, to implement a system by which Elon Musk or other Doge affiliated officials may access the Bureau's records and other personal information contained therein is unlawful. Stop or enjoin the defendants from continuing to permit

such access and enjoin defendants to ensure the future disclosure will occur only in accordance with the Privacy Act, the Internal Revenue Code, or other privacy provisions and grant that injunction. See, that's much broader than just a payment record. So, you know, I think now I know why the Trump administration took the deal. It's a much narrower TRO than what was sought by the complaint. Doesn't mean that the group that brought the suit is not going to be able to obtain that information, obtain that injunction at the contours that they're asking for. Just means they don't have it right now. But it is a major loss for the Trump administration.

Just to summarize where we are, helps me keep it straight. We have five temporary restraining orders already, one preliminary injunction, which is a higher level of injunction against Donald Trump's policies about birthright citizenship where we have two temporary restraining orders, actually, we have one temporary restraining order and one preliminary injunction from two different judges.

We have two about the federal funding freeze, two temporary restraining orders, and we've got a temporary restraining order to stop Donald Trump from putting transgender women in a male prison. That's where we are now. More to come, 32 cases are already been filed. Probably by the time this hits the airwaves,

it'll be 35 or 36 cases. We're averaging two cases a day against the Trump administration, who's currently 0 and 5. I'll continue to follow it right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. And take a minute, come on over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel in collaboration with MTN, and hit the subscribe button there

as we continue to grow that pro-democracy channel. So my next reporting, I'm Michael Popock. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel, help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AFFMTN. That's at LegalAFMTN.