Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Gets Haunted by Judge Who Ripped Him Before

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

A federal judge who presided over Trump’s criminal case just refused to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that Trump violated the Appointments Clause by letting Musk take control of 17 agencies and departments without Congressional approval, a suit that she claims addresses “tyranny” and illegal attempts by a president to abuse power. Michael Popok explains why Trump was dismissed as a party, but why that doesn’t really matter in the suit. Dose: Save 30% on your first month of subscription by going to https://dosedaily.co/LEGALAF or entering LEGALAF at checkout. 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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at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Elon Musk definitely runs Doge. Elon Musk definitely runs Doge and is destroying America. How do I know that? Because Judge Chutkin in her new 50 page decision,

just said that against the Trump administration. I'm gonna cover it right here on the Midas Touch Network. So lean in. Yes, it's the same Judge Chutkin who presided over Donald Trump's DC election interference criminal case before the Supreme Court let him off the hook. And now she has a case in front of her.

We've been covering it from the very beginning. 14 different states brought a case claiming that there was a violation and is a violation of the appointments clause by Donald Trump because he created his own federal agency, which he's not allowed to do, that's only Congress's role, and then appointed somebody to that agency in a not so

temporary role in Elon Musk, which he's again not allowed to do under the Constitution, and then that unappointed, unconfirmed by the Senate person ran around and gained control over 17 different federal agencies. And that's a no-no in the Constitutional book and in Judge Chutkin's book. And she has now just entered her order. She's granted the, she has denied a motion to dismiss by Trump administration.

That's what this paper was all about because she's found that those 14 states have adequately pled that Elon Musk is the man behind the man and is running things. Now look, between you and me, I think it's him and it's another person. It's Russ Vought, who runs Office of Management and Budget for Donald Trump and is the author,

the architect of Project 2025, but Elon Musk too. Now she did do Donald Trump a little bit of a solid, maybe because of her vast experience with the immunity decision issued by the United States Supreme Court in 2023, which basically put presidential conduct into three or four buckets and found that some buckets you can actually go after a president for,

those are a wholly private type conduct of his and others that are quasi public or public or constitutional duties you cannot. And so knowing that she did grant Donald Trump and his administration their motion to dismiss to dismiss Donald Trump personally from the case. So President Trump is out but everybody else and Elon Musk is still in this lawsuit as it moves forward now that they've gotten past the motion to dismiss. I will post this, I'm going to talk about it now at length, but I'm gonna post this motion, memorandum of opinion, on the motion to dismiss on legal AF sub stack. It's a great place to

get it. I'll put it under filings AF. All right, let's dive in to the order. Let's start with her and the Judge Chutkin, who we love, really competent. Donald Trump constantly attacked her and will continue to attack her as a leftist, Marxist, radicalist, all sorts of crazy things. But she is a sitting federal judge of very high reputation. Here's what she wrote, the Constitution divides and balances power across three branches, the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, as a vital check against tyranny and to promote effective governance.

In fact, she says later that the reason we don't let presidents create their own federal agencies is because we don't want them to co-opt the federal government and stick their own lackeys in there. That's exactly what our founding fathers tried to get away from when they left England and they weren't gonna let it happen again. The Appointments Clause, the judge goes on in the Constitution, embodies this foundational compromise.

The Constitution grants Congress the power to create federal offices and agencies. The President shall then appoint individuals to fill such offices subject to Senate confirmation. And the judiciary may decide whether the legislature and executive acted in accordance with their constitutional prerogatives. Oh, if it was only so easy, Judge Chetkin. The Constitution does not permit, she continues, the executive, that's the president,

to commandeer the entire appointment's power by unilaterally creating a federal agency pursuant to an executive order, insulating the principal officer from the Constitution as an advisor in name only. See, that was Donald Trump's argument. Oh, he's Musk? No, no, no, no.

He's a rental. He's a temporary. He doesn't have, he doesn't wield real power or authority. That resides with Donald Trump. Not according to the way it's been alleged by the 14 states and not according to what what Judge Chutkin has seen with her own eyes. In fact, later in this in this memorandum of opinion, she quotes to actual things that Elon Musk has done and things that Donald Trump has said along with Musk that indicate that she's not gonna dismiss the case against them. She then goes over how Trump created Doge out of thin air.

She goes over his role and the claim by the government that he is just a mere special government employee. In fact, they're going to claim now that he's left the government. He's back doing whatever he does in social media. Did you know the liver is the second largest organ in your body? It's responsible for over 500 functions. But for some reason liver health doesn't always get the attention it deserves. Over 30% of Americans have a sluggish liver, a problem that often goes undetected until the very last minute. Dose is on a mission to educate us all on why it's so important to maintain your liver health and has created an incredible product to help you do just that. I mean, I found a clinically supported, potent and effective solution and I can't wait to share it with you. Dose for your liver was formulated to cleanse your liver of unwanted elements.

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Dose is gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, and vegan. Save 30% on your first month of subscription by going to Dosedayly.co, slash Legal AF, or entering Legal AF at checkout. That's D-O-S-E-D-A-I-L-Y dot C-O slash Legal AF for 30% off your first month subscription. However, she covers on page six, the statements made by Trump again

about Musk and other personnel. On February one, Musk called the US Agency for International Development, USAID, and pressured them to provide Doge with personnel access to the building. He threatened to call the federal marshals. He then said he spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper. He responded to a post on X, Musk did, and said the Roach-Doge team is rapidly shutting down illegal payments. Department of Labor leadership told employees that when Musk and his team arrived, do whatever they ask. On February 8th, President Trump told reporters that he instructed Musk to

go check out education, to check out the Pentagon, go through just about everything at the Defense Department. And of course, he was addressed publicly at the joint statement that Donald Trump made to Congress. She then goes through all of his activities in which she says on page seven that the allegation that the states have made that Trump sorry that Musk has inserted himself into at least 17 federal agencies and exercise a significant authority across the executive branch she then quotes from the complaint see on a motion to dismiss she's not making an ultimate finding but

she's trying to determine whether the pleading the complaint as alleged states a claim. Whether that claim is right or wrong, that is for another day in the case. This is merely testing the ability, the viability of the complaint to survive and continue to travel along in the case. And she goes through on pages seven through eight,

all of the things that are alleged that Elon Musk has done. Controlling expenditures and disbursement of public funds. Terminating federal contracts and exercising control over federal property. Binding the government to future financial commitments. Eliminating agency regulation, entire agencies and departments. Directing action by agencies, acting as a principal officer unsupervised

by the head of departments and obtaining unauthorized access to secure databases. That last point is what the judge used to find that there has been a proper argument about injury, that Doge and Musk getting access to our personal and financial information states a claim. That's the right way to put it in the world of motions to dismiss. Now when you continue into the opinion, she

then reminds everybody why we have an appointments clause and how it works because the Trump administration doesn't seem to understand that. And particularly she says that one of the founding fathers principles was to avoid someone being completely out of control who occupied the executive branch. She says on page 38, states the states alleged that conduct by Musk and Doge exceeds the authority granted to it and to the Constitution as allocated power. Congress alone, on bottom of page 38, Judge Chutkin said, has the power to create offices and departments. offices and departments. And she paraphrases the Trump case, her own Trump case, and a concurrence by Justice Thomas by keeping the ability to create offices

out of the president's hands and the founders ensured that no president could unilaterally create an army of officer positions to then fill with his supporters. The president, as the construction of his own branch of government, can only try to work his will through the legislative process. That is not what Trump has done. She then, in the final page, addresses Donald Trump being sued in his official capacity. And what she effectively says is, presidents cannot be enjoined, cannot have an injunction against them in the performance of their official duties. It's the one area that they agree.

And there she cites a series of cases dating back to 1866 and other cases in which she then agrees to dismiss Trump. But fear not, the rest of the Trump administration and Elon Musk and Doge are still in the case, and this case will now continue forward. Now generally, a motion to dismiss cannot be attacked by an appeal at this moment. You have to wait towards the end of the case for that to happen. So I don't really see an appellate right now. Donald Trump could certainly try. He could try to skip the, he'll have to go to the DC Court of Appeals.

Sometimes he skips courts altogether and tries to get directly to the Supreme Court. We'll keep a close eye on it. We do it here on the Midas Dutch Network and on Legal AF. Come on over to Legal AF. Hit the subscribe button. We're trying to build that pro-democracy channel. Come on over to Legal AF, the substack where you can get copies of this particular opinion, which I put under for today, we'll put under Filings AF. Subscribe to both places and subscribe to our podcast, Legal AF the podcast, one stop shopping for all things Legal AF, right here on Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak.

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