Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Gets Served With Nuclear Option by Victims

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

You will be hearing a lot about motions to dismiss indictments based on the Trump Administration and DOJ’s “vindictive prosecution” in violation of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the DOJ Manual. But the very FIRST such motion has been filed by Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was illegally removed to El Salvador and tortured, and then had a phony indictment brought against him by Trump’s DOJ. Will Judge Crenshaw order Abrego Garcia’s release from federal detention on his criminal charges this week and dismiss his indictment? Michael Popok takes a hard look at the new filing and makes a stunning prediction. Thanks to Ground News! Go to https://Ground.News/AF to cut through misinformation, critically analyze the news shaping our lives and hold the media accountable. Save 40% off unlimited access to Ground News with my link or scan the QR code on screen. 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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weaponized by Donald Trump to go after Democrats and his enemy list. And now there's the first motion that's been filed against the Trump administration by Armando Abrago Garcia's lawyers in Tennessee arguing on 40 pages of evidence that Armando Abrago Garcia was subjected to vindictive and selective prosecution. by the Department of Justice in a retaliation campaign after he was successful in Maryland to prove that he was unconstitutionally removed to El Salvador from Maryland where he lived and worked legally and that that removal was unconstitutional. That's the guy that Donald Trump finally brought back from El Salvador's supermax prison, but not to bring to the courtroom

of Judge Zinnis in Maryland about the unconstitutional conduct of the Trump. administration. No, under a phony charge that was manufactured in Tennessee that he was some sort of human trafficker or human smuggler, really smuggler. And now there is this motion that just got filed, first one ever in which this Department of Justice has been accused rightly so of vindictive prosecution to have the indictment dismissed and have him released from criminal holding by the federal marshal. Now, that doesn't mean he's going to be out walking the streets. He's going to be transferred over to immigration custody and then under the custodial care of Judge Zinnis in Maryland. But this is an important motion. It's the first of many. You can see people like

Senator Adam Schiff making a motion like this, Letitia James, the Attorney General making a motion like this, Barack Obama making a motion like this. This is the blueprint for how we fight back and use the Constitution against Donald Trump, and I'm here for it. So are you. You were on the Midas Touch Network and Unlegal A.F. Let's get down to it. There's going to be a ruling coming up as early as Friday on this issue. Armando O'Brigo Garcia lived in Maryland, married to a U.S. citizens, several children.

He was picked up several years ago in Tennessee on a traffic stop, didn't have a license, had several people in the car with him. And he was let go and released. There was no arrest. there was no citation, not even for driving without a license. But after he was picked up by ICE, and when ICE picked him up, I think at a Home Depot or something like that, they had no understanding of his being involved with MS-13.

They had no allegations like that. And they knew that he had an order of non-removal to El Salvador because of threats to his life from his home country. His parents owned a successful business. MS-13 was shaken down his parents. and he had an order from an immigration judge of the United States never to be removed to El Salvador. Knowing that, they put him on the plane anyway,

along with 200 people in the middle of the night, violated orders of Judge Bozberg, the chief judge in D.C., and went to the Supermax prison where, according to this new filing, he was tortured, almost upon arrival. He won his case in front of Judge Zinnis. He won his case in front of Judge Zinnis.

He won his case front of Judge Zinnis. He won his case twice in front of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. He won his case up to the United States Supreme Court. Yet Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice created a phony indictment about the traffic stopped three years earlier when he had seven or eight people in it and indicted him in Tennessee and then brought him back as part of the indictment, but not because he got indicted. That was a charade. That was a that was a screen, a smoke screen. So they could look, Judge Zinnis said, is that why? you brought him back because of the, you know, you, I ordered you to have him return to facilitate

his return. The Supreme Court supported my order. You finally brought him back because there's a criminal case pending in Tennessee. You needed to do that in order to get El Salvador to release him from that prison. We know that's a lie. By the way, you're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal A.F. on Michael Popach. We know that's a lie because in other cases, including in front of Judge Bosberg, there's been filings that show that the United States was always in control of the of the prisoners sent there to the Supermax prison at El Salvador. They paid $6 million for the privilege of controlling the conditions and the release conditions of the people there.

Even El Salvador told that to the United Nations. And so you have that case going on. And so the way so artfully they make out in their new motion to dismiss the indictment for vindictive and selective prosecution under the federal rules of criminal procedure Rule 12 is to lay out the retribution campaign that was waged against him after he was successful in Maryland

on his constitutional rights, then they amped it up. And he cites in his brief, Erez Ruvani, who is the whistleblower, a 27-page single-spaced whistleblower complaint, who says that the Department of Justice he worked for was corrupt, that he was ordered to lie to federal judges, that he was ordered to disrespect federal,

Judges, not tell them what was going on in El Salvador, and that they knew or should have known that Obrigo Garcia had an order not to be removed to El Salvador, and they did it anyway. In fact, in the brief that they filed with Judge Crenshaw, which is under review right now, as we speak, they cite to emails that they obtained in discovery in which people in the Department of Justice and Homeland Security said, well, he was removed under administrative error, but we shouldn't say that publicly, of course. Of course, the campaign of vindictiveness is easy to prove against anything related to Donald Trump and Pam Bonnie because they say all the stuff out loud. They literally called him in order to justify him being indicted out loud in filings by the Department of Justice, a person who's assumed innocent, presumed innocent until proven guilty. They called him, and this is Pam Bondi alone, garbage, a monster, a illegal alien, a terrorist, a white, life-beater and a human trafficker, and a human trafficker. Actually, he was a human smuggler. That was the indictment, which is not the same as a human trafficker. Smuggler is two consensual parties.

One wants to get somewhere, the other one takes him there. It's like a transporter. Trafficker is different. That's against somebody's will. And so they point to all that in the briefs. Let me actually read to you from the briefing. It says on page nine, in the immediate hour, aftermath of the Supreme Court's order in favor of Obrego Garcia, the government did not facilitate

Mr. Obrigo's release. Far from it. Instead, just days after the order, President Trump hosted Salvadorian President Bucheli in the Oval Office where he met with other officials and Attorney General Pam Bondi. At the meeting, the Attorney General and President Bucheli mused about defying the Supreme Court's order, trading flip remarks about how neither had the power to return Abrago Garcia to the United States. This is on page 10, shortly after the meeting, and for months thereafter, Attorney General Bondi and other federal officials attacked Abrago publicly. This is all to show vindictiveness of prosecution under Rule 12. While the government waged this public campaign to discredit and punish Mr. Obrego, it also sought to use its criminal investigative authority

for the same purpose. Opened a new criminal investigation in April 2025 about that traffic stop, And then they go on at length in the new motion to talk about the whistleblower allegations of Mr. Rueveni and why this proves vindictive prosecution under Rule 12 and selective prosecution as well. Because there are limits to what a prosecutor can do. You can't just selectively go after somebody. Of course, that's what we're seeing with Letitia James. That's what we're seeing with Adam Schiff. That's what we're seeing with Bill Clinton.

They just want the press, the Department of Justice, of these people having federal probes opened up against them, which itself violates the ethics of the Department of Justice. Let me take a break to talk about how I prepare for legal AF in my podcast and how do I get to the core facts without reporting bias from mainstream outlets. It's getting difficult, but I use a tool I want you to know about, especially if you're like me and you're frustrated with biased mainstream news or tired. of sorting through endless sources just to figure out what's actually true. I use ground news, and frankly, you should too. It's an app and website that brings together news stories from around the world and then shows you the political bias, factual reliability, and ownership of each source backed by ratings from three independent news monitoring organizations.

So instead of relying on just one outlet, you get the full picture. You can literally compare how the left, right, and center are covering the same story, all in one place. For example, ground news tracked over one. outlets covering how much, how Trump made ice the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the U.S. that right-leaning sources barely covered. That kind of imbalance, ground news makes it visible. And because it's subscriber-funded, ground news avoids the traps of clickbait and sensationalism. I find ground news essential nowadays to see through any double standards

in the current media ecosphere. If you go to ground.com or scan the QR code, we're giving our viewers 40% off ground news top tier vantage plan, which will get you unlimited access to everything I've shown you and more. Ground News is subscriber funded so they don't rely on ads that could also introduce bias. Subscribing supports our channel and their independent team working to keep the media transparent. Head to ground.new slash AF or scan the QR code to get 40% off the vantage plan, which gives you unlimited access for 12 months. Support independent media and get clarity on the news you consume. I can't live without ground news, to be honest, to bring you all of the fact-based commentary that I do here on Midas Touch and on legal AF. What's going to happen next in the Abrago-Garcia

case? It's up with Judge Crenshaw. He's the district court judge sitting in Maryland. Under him is a magistrate judge Holmes, but it's really sitting with him at this level. And he's going to have to make a decision whether, even though it's rare to find vindictive prosecution, whether the facts merit it and warrant it. And as I've laid them out and as they are listed in the motion, which I'll post on legal AF substack, so you can read it for yourself, they got the grounds under Rule 12. It's hard to get vindictive prosecution, but the way Pam Bondi operates that Department of Justice, she makes it easy. It's a gift. So my prediction is Crenshaw is going to find vindictive prosecution. He's going to dismiss that indictment. And then Abrago-Garcia is sort of in

another world, he'll be released by order of the judge from federal custody, martial custody, as a criminal defendant, but he'll be moved over to be held by ICE immigration and custom enforcement subject to what Judge Zinnis does in Maryland about its constitutional claims and arguments. Because she's retained jurisdiction and she's ordered him to be sent to Maryland pronto after he's somehow released from the criminal indictment one way or the other. So either he was going to win his case at a trial, which they don't seem to be interested in trying for obvious reasons in the Department of Justice. It was all a ruse. It was all a charade. Or he gets the indictment dismissed. I mean, if he lost, he would

have to stay in, you know, the Bureau of Prison somewhere. So watch, watch for this. Watch for this on we'll be announcing by later today. It could be as early as today. Certainly by before Friday, an announcement by Judge Crenshaw, a decision about the dismissal of this indictment. Follow us on LegalAF, the YouTube channel, LegalAF, the Substack, where I do live reports every day, at least twice a day. It's a real community we're building on LegalAF substack and help us there as well. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of LegalAF.

Me neither. That's why we form the LegalAF substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, over to the substack, you'll find the court filing in the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, morning a.F. What else? All the other contributors from legal layoff are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes where legal a.F on substack. Come over now to free subscribe.