Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump DOJ Collapses in Court as SCOTUS Ruling Screws Them

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

The Trump Administration has told a federal judge that they can’t refund the money it took illegally from the American people by taxing them illegally through unconstitutional tariffs because it will take 4 Million Hours to process the more than 53 million refunds totaling more than 170 billion dollars, and they just can’t spare the personnel! Popok reports on what Judge Eaton in the Court of International Trade could order next, like forcing Trump to hire 4,000 people to work to get all the refunds returned in the next few months, as Trump tries to deny Americans their money until years after he leaves office. Check out The Popok Firm at: https://thepopokfirm.com Subscribe:  @LegalAFMTN  Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! 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 Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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four million man hours to do the refunds to 53 million or more total refunds, the 330,000 importers for over $166 billion. Judge Eaton, the judge responsible at the Court of International Trade in New York, for actually supervising the refunds, put a hold on his order that the refunds happen immediately. because they've also said they're not suited or capable to throw all of the resources. They don't have enough resources. They don't have four million man hours laying around to do the refunds. And again, they're suggesting that this could take several years to do the refunds.

Will Judge Eaton allow that? Will the American people allow that? I'm Michael Popok and you're on Midas Touch and LegalAF. While you're here, head over to LegalAF YouTube channel and hit the free subscribe button. Let's talk about the ruling and then process. It's one thing for the United States Supreme Court several weeks ago to declare that Donald Trump's imposing on over 200 countries, and therefore on you and me, a tariff, that means tax, on our goods, was illegal and unconstitutional and a violation of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. It's one thing to say that. But of course, the Supreme Court filled with nerdy jurists are not economists or business people.

on the Customs and Bureau protection. So they didn't know how messy it would be to do the refunds. They just declared it illegal and then left it to us to clean up behind the elephant. So it went down to the Court of International Trade. The chief judge of the court of international trade assigned the issue to one judge, senior judge Eaton, sitting in New York. Last week, I reported the judge Eaton issued in order that going forward, no more IEPA tariffs be imposed.

on American goods through importers, and that all those previous tariffs that have been charged start to be reversed. Brandon Lord stepped forward with a declaration and effectively pleaded for mercy, but also supports Donald Trump's efforts to delay repayment until he's well out of office. Now, the Treasury Department has said,

despite the war in Iran costing us hundreds of billions of dollars, the one in Venezuela costing us tens of billions of dollars that they have about six or seven hundred billion dollars sitting around the treasury so they can repay the 160 billion that's owed to the American people. But now you've got to talk about process. Now, most of the customs process is automated through an electronic system that Mr. Lord identified as being called the ACE system, the automated. commercial environment, A-C-E system at the Border Patrol. But in order to recalculate and to refund, it's going to have to be a manual process. Here's what he says in paragraph 11. He says, out loud that CBP Border Patrol is not able to comply with the court's order of

March 4th, nor the order on March 5th, to stop. imposing and start refunding money. Why? Because if you go to paragraph 17, they give the volume of refunds. They say on paragraph 17 of his affidavit that they are now facing an unprecedented volume of refunds. Its existing administrative procedures and technology are not well suited to the task of this scale and will require manual work that will prevent personnel from fully carrying out the agency's trade enforcement mission. Particularly in paragraph 26, they say the following, that it's going to be get these numbers. They've already said it's going to be over 53 million refunds to 330,000 importers,

American importers, totaling about $166 billion. dollars. Here's what they say in paragraph 27 or 24. Once the review of an entry is complete, it takes someone approximately five minutes to process an individual refund. And the refund process, therefore, for 53,9309 entries with IEPA duties, the tariffs will require 4,431,161 man hours to complete. It's not feasible. to divert all personnel to processing these duties on a full-time basis with no time off. And if they were, its other functions would be compromised. And then they cite to a case back in 1998 called United States Shoe Corporation versus U.S.

And they say, well, when the Supreme Court declared tariffs on exports in the United States shoe corporation case, which was much less, that process, took several years to complete. And we think we're going to need more than that. So here we go. They stole our money. They're trying to steal it again with a new set of tariffs, but it's going to take six, seven, eight years to get the money back when Donald Trump is long gone and maybe not even on planet Earth. Hey, everybody, Ben Mysellis here from the Midas Touch Network. I wanted to let you know about my podcast partner, Michael Popock's new law firm. It's called the Popok firm. Michael Popock's pursuing his dream of starting his own law firm, really based on the popular demand by all the

Midas, Mighty, and Legal A-Fers who were approaching Michael Popak with their cases and saying, can you help us? And at that time, Popak was not able to. So he went out on his own. He started the Popak firm where he is now handling catastrophic injury cases like car accident cases, trucking cases, malpractice cases, big negligence cases, wrongful death cases. So if you or someone you know, have a case like this, the consultation with Popok's firm is free. Give them a call. See if you have a case. It's the Popok firm.com. The Popok firm.com. Or you can call 877 Popok A.F, P-O-P-O-K-A-F. So 1-877 P-O-P-O-K-A-F. Give Michael Popak a call.

And I'm really proud of you, Popak. Thanks for all the hard work you're putting in. Now, it's going to be up to Judge Eaton and the Democrats in Congress to come up with an alternate procedure. Because you can see the first instinct of the administration is delay, obfuscate, lie, foot drag, keep the money in the bank. I haven't even talked about the interest that is owed on the money. It's not just $160 billion that's owed that was collected illegally and unconstitutionally.

There's interest that has to be repaid to each of the importers. That could be another $10 to $15 billion of just interest. Now you're talking about $180 billion. To put it in perspective, the Iranian war that Donald Trump started that's going to lead to tripling of gas prices. It's costing the American people. just in the next couple of months, upwards of $100 billion. $100 billion could be half a trillion after the year is over.

Add Venezuela onto that and maybe Cuba, you're talking about a trillion dollars. So the $160 billion collected in tariffs by Donald Trump pales in comparison to how much he's blown, like $100 bills coming out of a fire hose in these war efforts to distract attention from his failing, domestic policy and his failing economy. It also pales in comparison to the tax cuts, totaling a couple of trillion dollars that Donald Trump has proposed for the wealthiest in America. So here's what's going to have to happen. Judge Eaton is going to have to put the administration on a leash,

and it's going to have to come up with a different computerized way to reprogram, so it's not done manually to cut the time for the refund processing by a lot. And if Congress wants to devote more resources, they can bring in people to come up with 4 million man hours. I mean, let's just do the math, right? That's the, because that sounds like a very big number. Let's just assume that everybody can do 2,000 hours of work. If you're talking about 4 million at 200,000, sorry, at 2,000. At 2000, you're talking about they need 2,000 people to work full-time to do the refunds.

Okay, go hire 2,000 Americans. This is an administration that doesn't create jobs. They lost 90,000 jobs in February. Go give 2,000 people who are unemployed jobs for the next year to process the refunds and get them done. I think that's the obvious solution to this problem. and we'll continue to train our attention and platform these issues here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal A.F. I'm Michael Poppock. See you at the intersection on Tuesday nights, my new podcast right here on the Midas Touch Network,

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