Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Lawyers BRAWL IT OUT and DESTROY Each Other

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

Trump’s disastrous Cabinet Roulette continues, with 2 firings and “quitting” in the last 48 hours, and another expected by tomorrow, as Trump “fires” his White House Counsel— the all-important daily lawyer and counselor— before he even starts. Michael Popok explains what just happened with Dave Warrington’s appointment as White House Counsel and what that means for others in Trump’s inner circle as Trump plays out an elaborate “Gladiator-style” selection process pitting his allies against each other to see who wins. Use code LEGALAF to get 10 percent off your next order at https://bookshop.org/?utm_source=meidas-touch&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=meidas-touch-legalaf&utm_content=brand 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'll hit here for Midas Touch about Donald Trump thinking better of somebody he wanted to be his chief lawyer for the office of the presidency, the White House counsel, all important position. He said two weeks ago it was going to be Bill McGinley, which sort of made sense. He was a Republican and all of that and worked for the Republican National Committee. But now it looks like there's going to be a switch there and it's going to be Dave Warrington, somebody who's much closer to Donald Trump. And this all spells bad news for Boris Epstein. Yes, that shadowy figure that sits around Donald Trump.

I'm Michael Popak. You're on Midas Touch Network and The Legal AF. And let me talk about what is going on with the revolving doors. We haven't even gotten into the administration yet, and it's just sheer chaos. It is a dumpster fire. Donald Trump adopted, as we all know now, some sort of pressure hose, fire hose approach,

where he would just fire out inappropriate candidates for different positions, hoping he'd get one of them through. It's like a hockey goalie. That's the Democrats and the senators. There are all these pucks coming at their heads of all these obscenely unqualified, unfit candidates, and Donald Trump just hopes one of them will get through. In fact, you can tell by how quickly he's replacing the crazy that he's proposing that Donald Trump is ready to go to Plan B like that. Matt Gaetz out as Attorney General, Plan B, Pam Bondi hours later is put up

for the new position of Attorney General. Hegseth looks like he's gonna be out. Could be any hour now by the time this hot take goes up, he could be out already. He's already got his replacements. It could be DeSantis, it could be Senator Joni Ernst, which I thought should have been his first choice, or others. I'm sure for every one of these picks, he's got a backup.

That's his real pick. Keep an eye on that. And now you've got to switch it over at the White House Counsel's Office. I thought I was going to do a hot take about the DEA, the Department of, sorry, the Drug Enforcement Agency, had been fired within hours of being selected by Donald Trump. Donald Trump picks him, yay! He's a guy whose father-in-law is Ed DiBartolo who got pardoned by Donald Trump because he participated in sports gambling when he shouldn't have, when he owned the San Francisco 49ers. They're like, all right, well he's the son-in-law. He's a sheriff in Hillsborough County, Tampa, Florida. Yay,

he'll be DEA. No, he gets fired almost immediately. I mean, it looked like the guy quit, but he got fired because Donald Trump, having not done any vetting of any of his candidates, figured out that the guy had been in favor of COVID lockdown policies and those that applied to churches at the time, you know, keep people from congregating at churches on Sunday when they're spreading COVID. He didn't like that. I don't know. He just woke up and found that out and fired the guy.

Now we've got this kind of switcheroo at the White House council position. All important. This is the day-to-day lawyer that guides the president about his actions and conduct. This is the person you're supposed to run it up the flagpole with before you do it. In the first Trump administration, it was Pat Cipollone, and he was assisted by Pat Philbin. And let's be frank, they were the firewall that helped save democracy.

They talked Donald Trump out of his worst ideas, including those that were unconstitutional and even criminal. If there was a thought balloon over Donald Trump, let's use the Insurrection Act, let's shoot protesters in Lafayette Park. These were the guys that talked him out of that. But now Donald Trump originally picked a guy he didn't know that well as the lawyer, Bill McGinley. Bill McGinley, old timer, been around a long time, represented the Republican National Committee, knows the law of election, election law, that kind of thing. A reasonable person, not bombastic in any way.

But we were surprised that he looked like he was passing over Dave Warrington. Dave Warrington has been by Donald Trump's side for the last 10 years. He helped him through the impeachment process. He helped him through a lot of this criminal process. He's been in the background guiding Donald Trump for a long, long time. Dave Warrington has even been the general counsel for the transition team for Donald Trump, and that's usually the stepping stone to come in as White House counsel.

So we were surprised when he got passed over. Now what we thought happened is that Bill Warrington decided to try to protect Donald Trump from himself and opened an internal investigation against Boris Epstein. Boris Epstein, a shadowy figure that's in the Trump inner inner circle, although he hasn't been picked for any particular role, but he's the one that brought in all the lawyers, hired Todd Blanch and the criminal defense team, which are now in the Department of Justice or Solicitor General's office,

and seems to have the ear of Donald Trump on important issues related to the cabinet. His idea was Matt Gaetz, how did that go? And maybe that's why when Dave Warrington heard that there were evidence that Boris Epstein was doing pay to play. He was putting out his hand to get hundreds of thousands of dollars of fees in order to promote certain cabinet members to Donald Trump. I mean, there's even an affidavit or a declaration from a former governor who says,

it looked to me like I had to pay off Boris Epstein in order for me to get front and center and get a line of sight with Donald Trump for the position that I wanted to serve in. Legal AF is brought to you by Bookshop.org. You may be watching or listening to our show right now, but are you reading enough? It's time to dive back into books

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Use code LegalAF to get 10% off your next order at Bookshop.org. That's code LegalAF to get 10% off at Bookshop.org. So Warrington opened up an internal investigation. It leaked out. We reported on it. And we thought, that's not good for Boris. Now Boris seems to have survived that, but it looked like Dave Warrington got passed over

for the White House counsel job because he opened up the internal investigation. But now he's back. And we're seeing a little bit less of Boris Epstein. I did reporting about a major blow up, blow out fight between Elon Musk, you know, the guy that's now the head of this phony Department of Government Efficiency that's not a department at all, but there was a blowout fight at Mar-a-Lago between the

two of them. And I was like, all right, well that happened and then you've got the internal investigation about whether Boris Epstein has taken money under the table against Donald Trump's interest and all this kind of now it looks like Boris Epstein is on the kind of on the outer the pendulum has swung again in the power struggle around Donald Trump which often happens we reported on a lot of different power struggles because Donald Trump likes power struggles not where he's taken out of power he likes fighting and infighting among his people and the winner, the strongest, survive. There was reporting about a lot of fighting and a knife fight about who would be Treasury Secretary and the person that was leading that battle lost and got commerce the cabinet

position instead. So Donald Trump likes, it's almost like Gladiator, he likes to see who's going to survive this scrum that he creates. So right now it's hard to tell, but it looks like having Boris Epstein not getting any particular position. It looks to me like he's on the outer band of the orbit and Dave Warrington is the lawyer is on the inner. Now what happened to Bill McGinley?

They're moving him over, they're kind of kicking him upstairs to Doge. He's going to be the lawyer for Elon Musk and Rob Swamy on the Doge committee. Now the front story that they're pushing is, well, Doge is going to be very, very important. And so we need a really strong hand there as an attorney, and that'll be Bill McGinley. I don't think that's the story. I think the story is Donald Trump didn't trust Bill McGinley. Donald Trump wanted Warrington back, and Boris Epstein over his protest is not, can't be happy. The guy that

was internally investigating him is now the guy that's going to have Donald Trump's ear every day as the White House counsel. And right now, as of right now, Boris Epstein does not have an official position. He'd have to sign in on the visitor log, come in to visit Donald Trump, but he hasn't been made special advisor. He hasn't been made deputy White House chief of staff like others, like Stephen Miller. He hasn't been made special advisor. He hasn't been made deputy White House chief of staff like others, like Stephen Miller. He hasn't been given any role. Maybe he stays with the political action committees. Maybe he meets semi-regularly with Donald Trump.

Maybe they give him a role finally. I don't know. Maybe they put him over a doge. But right now, he's on the outs. I mean, as soon as that administration moves in together on the 20th of January, as of now, we'll continue to follow. And there's still more time. Boris Epstein doesn't have a role. Put all these pieces together and there you are. Now, I do believe, and we'll talk more about Doge as time goes on, that Donald Trump is putting all of his money on this Department of Government efficiency, much the way that Barack Obama bet his candidacy and his presidency on Obamacare.

And so we're gonna have to continue to see what's gonna happen. All I know is, so far, it looks like all Elon Musk is concerned about is getting rid of regulators that got in his hair and wouldn't allow him to make as much money as possible with his own government contracts. You got reporting that Roms Swamy wants to get rid of agreements that the government currently has with competitors of Musk. So this just looks like a complete grift and graft that's going on at Doge.

We'll continue to follow it. And as the public gets more involved and sees what they're doing, I think that public firestorm will help curb the worst instincts of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, but we'll have to continue to report on it. So right now, White House counsel, the one that's supposed to save democracy and give Donald Trump proper advice is one of Donald Trump's closest friends, has no White House counsel experience. It's a guy named Dave Warrington. We'll continue to follow it here

on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. You can follow me, Michael Popok, and all those places here on the Midas Touch Network. I do a new show called Popok Live, 8 p.m. I sit at the intersection of law and politics, 8 p.m. sorry, on Tuesdays, Popok Live. Wednesdays and Saturdays, the original, the original brand, Legal AF. Wednesdays and Saturdays, the original, you know, the original brand, Legal

AF, Wednesdays and Saturdays, the podcast here on the Midas.YouTube channel. And then we've got a new YouTube channel that we formed just before the election for the moment that is coming, which is the onslaught of lawsuits against a presidency that will be testing the limits and putting us into constitutional crisis almost on a daily basis and the lawsuits to match. Legal AF in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network. Go find us on YouTube at Legal AF MTN. Free subscribe and help us build that pro-democracy channel as well. So until my next reporting on all things Legal AF, this is Michael Popak.