Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump SUED for Jan 6, Judge SLAPS DOWN DeSantis Mask Ban, Eviction Moratoriums & More

Episode Date: August 29, 2021

The top-rated weekly law and politics podcast, Legal AF, produced by MeidasTouch and anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, is back for another hard-hitting, thought-provoking yet entertaining look at the most compelling developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s real-time, filled-to-the-brim episode, Ben and Popok explore and explode: 1. A Michigan Federal judge throwing the book at Trump attorneys’ Sydney Powell, Lin Wood and others for bad faith and meritless conduct in challenging Biden’s win, including possibly pulling their law licenses. 2. The House January 6th Special Committee issuing demands, and soon subpoenas, to investigate Trump, his cabinet, and members of congress, including whether Trump was mentally-unfit. 3. The FCC’s $5mm fine (and criminal charges) against notorious “robo-callers” and Trump conspiracy theorists who used 1200 robocalls to interfere with mail in voting. 4. A Florida judge’s ruling to overrule Gov. DeSantis’ efforts to block mask use in public schools. 5. SCOTUS’ 6-3 decision to invalidate the current CDC eviction moratorium as improper rule-making without Congressional action. 6. SCOTUS’ 6-3 decision to block President Biden’s efforts to end Trump’s “stay in Mexico” policy for asylum-seekers, as “arbitrary and capricious” and,  7. Rudy Giuliani associate Igor Fruman’s decision to change his “not guilty” plea to “guilty” in the New York federal prosecution case against him related his fraudulent conduct concerning Ukraine, and Trump, and what it means for the two pending related Giuliani prosecutions. Special Easter Eggs Alert: Ben throws a ‘yellow” card at Popok, but also admits that he sometimes dreams of LegalAF and Popok. Reminder and Programming Note:  All past episodes of Legal AF originally featured on the MeidasTouch podcast can now be found here. Follow Legal AF on Twitter here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What up, Midas, Mighty and Papokeans! Welcome to Legal AF! If it's Sunday, it is Legal AF! Ben Mycelis here with my esteemed co-host, straight from antiquing in the Jersey shore. You've heard of GTA. That's Jim Tan antique, the Pope pocket in himself, Michael Pope. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Hey, thank you. I'm going to have to justify my Jersey Shore bonafides. We say on the Jersey Shore, you said in the Jersey Shore, but that because otherwise, I'm going to get a tweet like, please correct, Ben, it's on the Jersey Shore. You know, we have very attentive fans and listeners, but, you know, we got a lot to talk about today as as our Twitter followers know. I mean, I thought the summer would be sort of a little bit sluggish,

a little bit slow. Supreme court has certainly made up for that. We've got beyond an action pact episode for you and I to dissect today. Absolutely true. Popok. But I want to get personal when we start this podcast. And you've talked about the attentive legal AF supporters, many legal AF supporters are getting very upset at you, Popok, for referring to yourself in the third person, your response. Thank you for that on the spot. Yeah, like I just made a joke that Popox gonna need a big cup of coffee for this episode in one particular person got on me and said, really, Popox third person, have you really reached that level? And I just sat back and watched sort of the rest of the might as mighty go

after that particular Twitter follower and say, no, leave them alone. Popox fun. I also liked the one that there was one. And for a minute, I thought it was your, your mom or dad, one who jumped on and said, less popoq get off of the popoqian stuff, more bend. And I was like, Mrs. Myceles, Popock revolution start with one person. I wouldn't discount that Twitter follower. I totally support that Twitter followers point.

And I support the other Twitter followers support who says less popock more Ben, but it's all good. Popock breaks down the legal analysis and everybody knows if it's Sunday, it is legal AF as Popock mentioned a jam packed legal AF episode for you this weekend. Let's start by talking about sanctions, sanctions, straight out of Michigan, the crazy crackhead lawyer group of Sydney Powell and Linwood have been hit with significant sanctions, a referral to their respective state bars, which could mean the removal of their license. This comes out of the Eastern District of Michigan, a very long ruling 110 page ruling. We recall an early to mid July hearing that took place zoom hearing with Lynn Wood and with Sydney Powell

and a group of some of the other local lawyers who filed some of these bullshit lawsuits. The specific judge here was Linda Parker, district judge, Linda Parker. I wanna read some of the opinion and then pass it to you, Popock again, 110 page decision. It begins by saying that the lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process. It talks about the role of lawyers in our judicial process. The opinion basically says, look, there may be some people who have the right to spew crazy conspiracies out in public, but lawyers should be held to a different standard.

Stop abusing the judicial process. But don't gloss over that one. The very first line that you read of a hundred and 10 page opinion, you've been doing this a long time collectively. We've been doing this for 50 years. You ever see a judge write that in the very first line of a, of a federal opinion on sanctions? Well, when you read this opinion, Pope, it truly is like loyering for dummies, American jurisprudence for dummies. It is, right, it is basically speaking to these lawyers, like they're not lawyers and saying, look idiots,

this is what your obligation was, and here's how you failed, miserable. How about on that, there's five lawyers that are being sanctioned by this ruling. One is Sydney Powell, who we all know released the Kraken, which you referred to as Kraken. The second one is Lynn Wood, a male lawyer who was really well known before Trump, and minorly well respected in the bar, and just sort of has gone round the bend. He's now mad as a had her. His defense to being sanctioned, Ben, if you read it, was I didn't know I was on those pleading. I didn't know that I was on the briefs related to how am I on that?

And then popock page 28 of the opinion quoting Linwood. This is what Linwood said, big bad Linwood. I'm gonna get those bamboo. I'm going to get the bamboo in China. I'm finding Hugo Chavez. I'm gonna go and take his body and find those boats in his creamatory. Ben as a southerner. Registration. So here, here, that's my Linwood impression. And here's what Linwood actually said at the hearing quote, I do not specifically recall being asked about the Michigan complaint, but I had generally indicated to

Sydney Powell that if she needed a quote unquote trial lawyer that I would certainly be willing and available to help her. In this case, obviously, my name was included. My experience or my skills apparently were never needed. I didn't have any involvement with it. That's what he said. And how did you get that? And how did Judge Parker and how did Judge Parker

socky bomb him? Do you know what she said back to him? It was basically said, you're wrong and you have zero credibility. And you bragged and Mr. Wood, this is from the judge's opinion, when you filed a case in Delaware, you bragged about your involvement in the Michigan case that you now say you were only at best a drive by participant in you're getting sanctioned too.

So let's break it down for our legal AF law school enrollees. There's three main ways a federal judge consenction lawyers for bad behavior, bad conduct, and no, the First Amendment does not protect the lawyer, not with standing Sydney Powell's position does not protect the lawyer and give them immunity. If they say, unfactual untruths lies and mislead the court, there's three ways of federal judge can handle that. There's a rule 11, which is part of the federal rules of civil procedure, which every lawyer like you and I when we sign sign a pleading, and that's why the judge spent so much time in the order talking about who signed the pleading electronically and who didn't sign the pleading. And by the way, nobody who actually signed it or who was on it, all of them pointed the finger at each other. So even the local lawyers who literally had

to file it, their argument was, whoa, whoa, we really weren't involved in this thing. Yeah, well, that just reminds lawyers. And this is what the judges foundational principles are, which you call dummy for lawyers or a lot of opinion for dummy lawyers, is that lawyers as officers of the court are held to the highest standard in not misleading the court or ab to the highest standard in not misleading the court or abusing the judicial process where even as a layperson, a pro-say lit again, who really doesn't know the rules, they'll be given a little bit of a break by a judge. Not a lawyer, not who is admitted into the federal bar and not who is required to sign the

pleading. And there's a reason for that because rule 11 of the federal rule says, if you sign a pleading and it's not based on its merit list, it's fraudulent, you can be sanctioned. You know that as a member of the federal bar. That's the one way, that's the first power. The second power federal judge has,

and every judge has, is what's called the inherent authority of the judge. A judge just gets it cloaked when they put on that black robe. They have the inherent authority to police their judicial process, their courtroom, and to sanction people. They don't even have to point to a rule or a regulation or a statute. It comes with the job. And the third way in federal court is the one that this judge also relied on, which is 28 USC section 1927, but you and I called section 1927, which is if you engage in the satious litigation, the judge can throw the book at you.

She used all of these things in her 110 pages, the judge analyzed rule 11, her inherent authority, and section 1927, and found that every lawyer in there violated their basic precepts, the oath that they took when they became a lawyer. And she threw, she literally threw the book at them. Some people might be saying, well, just awarding at all the attorney's fees and all of the cities and other defendants and counties how to pay isn't enough. The judge should have disbarred them. She doesn't have, that's counties how to pay isn't enough. The judge should have disbarred them. She doesn't have, that's the one power she doesn't have. She can't pull their ticket. She can't pull their license. She can make a federal judge referral to the

bar association for each of these lawyers, which she is doing, which she has done, which is not just like a little perfunctory, oh, federal judge made a bar referral. It is a big deal. And it is, it is, it could lead to the death penalty in terms of licensure for each of these lawyers involved in this case, which is appropriate. So two penalties here, both severe monetary sanctions. The judge requested that the city and other defendants submit their costs and fees, which will likely be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars could even rise into the seven figures, but I anticipated it being a low to mid six figure. A million, probably half a million.

Yeah. Yeah. Three hundred to five. Totally agree with you there. Yeah, and very furl to the bar association. So what does this mean, Sydney Powell in wood, the local attorneys who helped aid an abet this complaint could and will likely lose their legal license or face serious suspension. And here was the thing too, you know, you had a lot of local lawyers who were being, who were being co-opted, but willingly, by these nut cases, and might as touch called a lot of these local attorneys out, when they would do it. Like, wait a minute, what do you,

you have to stand up? I don't care what political party it is. This isn't a political issue. This isn't Bush V. Gore in Florida. This is some ridiculous bullshit conspiracy theories, seeking to undermine democracy and you as a lawyer need to stand up. And this was an interesting footnote in the opinion, not really interesting. I mean, it's just an accurate statement of the law where the quote quotes, Gentile versus State bar of Nevada, US Supreme Court in 1991, which talks about lawyers having considerable first amendment rights outside of the courtroom with some limitations when a jury is being empaneled, when a case is active, when the lawyers free speech can actually manipulate the jury, but Gentile reflects lawyers can talk outside of the courtroom. They can't be muscled.

They're still humans. They still are humans living in the United States of America. That is, but when you step into the courtroom in the narrow capacity of being in the room, advocating for a client in court, there is no first amendment, right? Your rights are to be officers of the court and abide by the rules and abide strictly by all your other constitutional duties. You and I, you and I, and it was a proud day, I'm sure for both you and me and our families, we took an oath. We swore an oath as constitutional officers as officers of the court. So did all these

lawyers. They've lost their way. I'm okay with the concept of lawyers. I want to make this clear and I'll get your opinion. Lawyers taking on unpopular cases and representing people. That is the basis of our, the foundation of our judicial system. It's what separates us from unscivilized societies. Totally fine with that. ACLU representing American Nazis, walking down, Skokie Illinois. They're right to protest and exercise their first amendment. Totally fine with it. The unibomber and, you know, Timothy McVeigh being represented in court in the process because I don't want to live in a society where there aren't lawyers who are representing even the notorious defendant who we all, you know, might want to get our hands

on and do something. The mob might want to do something too. Fine with that. This is different. This is, you're not allowed to go into court in and lie. And this is why Rudy Giuliani has a big problem and Rudy got disbard and suspended. And so will they because the judge pointed to almost the same evidence that Rudy alluded to, they claimed in the Michigan election process, which just to remind our followers, Biden won by 150,000 votes. There's never been a recall election or a review of votes that has ever turned an election on 150,000 ballots. It's just too many.

There's no fraud that's that rampant. And they said to the judge and they filed bullshit affidavits that said, oh, we have eyewitnesses that saw voter fraud. Oh, there's statistical anomalies and mathematical impossibilities. And we have some nutty expert who's going to testify to that. And that's the basis, Judge, for you taking away and disenfranchising 5 million Michigan voters who voted and take away their vote. And the judge was like, first of all, your affidavits are full of you know what?

There's no support here. There's only speculation and conjecture. This is the exact same observation that the bar in New York made against Giuliani when they pulled his ticket. They're going to do the same thing to these people sit at and one other thing on the footnote, then that you, you probably saw, did you see what the judge referenced in terms of Sydney Powell and her website? Would they say popak? She said in, in, in, in a coming up with the sanctions, she was also troubled that it looked like Sydney Powell was profiting outside the courtroom from her crazy conspiracy

fraudulent theories by trying to raise money on websites and doing conferences and, and conspiracy cons and all these things. And the judge said, you know what, you can't profit from being a meritless fraudulent lawyer either. We will keep the legal a efforts and popakians updated on the next steps in this case. But speaking popak and I don'toac and is that our new word? Wait, is that our new word legal a efforts?

Okay, legal a effort. It's trending. Legal a efforts and popoacions. And speaking of lawyers taking unpopular cases, it starts at the very foundation of our government with John Adams after the Boston massacre, defending Thomas Preston, believing everyone is entitled to a defense, but at the same time, John Adams fighting for democracy and fighting for the existence of our country, moving on, pop-ok from sanctions to the January 6th, select committee very, very busy this week sent out a number

of letters to eight federal agencies, including the Justice and Defense Departments, the FBI National Counterterrorism Center, Representative Benny Thompson, a Democrat of Mississippi alone, Democrat of Mississippi those chairing this select committee sent these letters out requesting information about the Trump family members. All of the Congress members who were aiding and abetting the insurrection, the usual suspects, the crazy cracking crew. In other words, Pope, that whole entire crew were the subjects of the CKC, the CKC, who exactly were subjects to these letters as part of the select committee investigation.

Tell us, Popok, about these letters. And I do want to put the asterisk here, though, is that these letters are not subpoenas. They are voluntary document requests, which is how the process starts. But Popok, break it down for us so people know what's going on. Yeah, it's going to start on the continuum as a letter. It's going to end with a referral to the Department of Justice, a motion for contempt and al- and subpoenas because the Congress has subpoena power under the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court analysis dating back to really the founding of the modern Supreme Court in the 1780s all the way through recent decisions that were made

even by this Supreme Court against Trump related to his tax returns. So that's just the flag it right there. That's the Trump, the maizeer's USA, LLP decision, mazers USA LLP being the accounting firm that had records that were in connection with the Congress's investigation into Trump's misconduct. Trump appealed that all the way to the Supreme Court. And the decision was that Congress does indeed have the power to subpoena. The wrinkle on that though was that was executive branch. One of the questions are, can Congress subpoena other records of other Congress members? It's a weird fac scenario here that you literally had GQP or as popock likes the

called cutie pies. But this is the GQP members who ate it and embedded the insurrection. And so there is in the constitution something called a speech and debate clause, which if you read it, read it literally, it basically says that the only

accountability members of Congress, House of Representatives and Senators can have, they can only be accountable on the floor. It's basically what it says. It says there shall not be any questioning of a member of the House except in the place, which is in Congress. But I think that one's okay. But let me take the plane up 10,000 feet for our listeners and followers and kind of frame it.

And then we'll get into the how we get from letter to subpoena. So as you said, rightly, the January 6th committee, which has been empowered by the full house to investigate what happened on Jan 6th, the attack, the insurrectionists, and the aftermath for the purpose, not only to get to the bottom of it, but to recommend what, how to prevent this from happening in the future. That's a proper legislative function. And therefore, they, that committee has certain powers. It starts with letter requests. And now what we've seen as reported in the media is that representative Thompson and his, who has the power to issue these letters as a

chairperson, has issued at least three categories of letters that have gone out. One of them has gone to the National Archives to ask for all information, because that's where the White House records would have went after the Trump presidency was over. So they're asking for the National Archive, the record storage facility for all Trump communication. We want to see first the committee says all the communication between the Trump White House and any of their agencies, including the Department of Justice, with the battleground states to see how they were leaning and pressuring the battleground states concerning this BS theory that the voter fraud had led to the election of Joe Biden. So they love this request that was

in here though. This is to the National Archives that the committee requested. Quote, all documents and communications related to the mental stability of Donald Trump or his fitness for office. I just wanted to make sure that was one of the, that's one of the three. I don't know why I didn't lead with was Trump so crazy on the day of Gen 6 that the 25th Amendment should have been exercised for his removal. So they're now to the second category of documents that they're seeking is from all of the agencies that were also, you know, of course, headed by Trump appointees, including the Department of Justice and Barr and all the cabinet positions. Because remember, under the 25th Amendment, if a super majority of the cabinet takes

a secret vote and decides that the president has gone to the loony bin, he's mad as a hatter, needs to be removed because he's incapacitated mentally. They can exercise that. He has to go in on the vice president steps into his position. And the question is that the committee wants to get the bottom of is, was the cabinet seriously considering a removal of the president, Trump, after Jan 6th, up until Jan 20th, which was the inauguration of Joe Biden, where they're going to remove them and they want to get documentation because they figure there's got to be fingerprints. There's got to be emails and correspondence and documents, maybe memos analyzing this

issue for the different cabinet heads. And they want to see that those documents and that information. The third, which is extraordinary that we're talking about that. The third category is they want to go out to the wireless carriers, the phone companies, Verizon and the rest of them AT&T, and get the phone records, including members of the House, members of the House, to find out who was in communication with the Gen 6 insurrectionists, both before, during and after, and maybe were involved with coordination. And that's where we're going to get into the battle over the

ability for the House to subpoena its own members and for the members to have to testify in a hearing like that, which is back to Ben what you said about the speech and debate clause. But I want to ask you something, even the literal reading of that one line of the speech and debate clause. But I would ask you something, even the literal reading of that one line of the speech and debate clause of the Constitution would seem to give the Congress the power to make the Congress people answer for those charges in the House. What do you think? Well, I mean, the literal language states the following. For any speech or debate in either house, a member of Congress shall not be questioned in any other place.

Now, the way that's been interpreted, of course, through gravel, the United States, this was the Pentagon papers and the Pentagon leak, which basically held that the speech or debate clause did not extend that immunity to, and this just related to a senators aide, Sipina, to testify before a grand jury about the arrangement of the private publication of the Pentagon papers. But ultimately, I believe that that specific clause is narrowly confined. It's a weird clause. Let's just be honest. But the framers of our constitution wanted it in there because they didn't want it members

of the House to be arrested when they were going to do their official duties by a president out of control who wanted to prevent a quorum for voting. So a lot, that's why that provision starts talking about no arrest shall happen if a congressperson shows up to do his duty because they were, you know, this is back, I used to call it the wild wild west back in the day when senators used to beat other senators on the house of the floor with their canes, which really happened. You can look it up after Trump, nothing surprises me. So they were worried that there would be an imperial president who would try to arrest members of Congress to stop them from doing their job. And then it led to that second clause that you and I are now spending a lot of time on.

Absolutely. And I mean, my expectation here, though, and here's the problem though, Popok, my expectation is they are going to issue these subpoenas and then they are all going to be litigated matters that are going to go before the district courts, the court of appeals, and then ultimately to the Supreme Court. And it will be interesting. Popoak, what do you think when it goes to the Supreme Court? We know and we just described earlier in this in the Trump versus Measers case, what the Supreme Court said about the subpoena power of the executive branch.

What do you think the Supreme Court would do here when presented to it as it relates to members of Congress? And particularly, here's how the GQ peers are trying to frame the issue because their pieces of shit is the same way they're trying to frame the issue over them being anti-vax and anti-mask as freedom. They try to co-op the language of equality and democracy to meet their fascist ends. What they're saying is you have no right, one member of Congress. That's the epitome of fascism because these fascists project.

That's all they do for another member of Congress to try to get my private phone records do not get. And that's the argument that the GQ peers are already saying, but it's like it's not a no one's trying to get your phone records outside of January 6th, who you were talking to on that specific day. And you can build in protections on these things by redacting all family numbers and all these other things. But what do you think the Supreme Court says on this Popeye? Yeah. Yeah.

So, my reading the tea leaves, including with Justice Roberts in the Trump case, is that they're ultimately, and I think this will go fast-track to the Supreme Court. I think it might bypass the lower appellate court. The Supreme Court seems to be inclined to take a lot of these decisions and we'll talk about two more of them in this podcast on a really fast track. But look, it is well established starting in 1789 all the way through the Trump case that you just mentioned with really a lot of the current justices that Congress in order to do its job has to have information.

It can't work in the dark. It can't take a shot in the dark. It needs data. It needs information. The Jan 6th investigation special committee is properly empaneled or in place by the full vote of the House. That's Prong one to determine if they have subpoena power. Prong 2 is that they are

conducting the investigation or the subpoenas that information they're seeking for a proper investigative purpose. They are. They're trying as has been declared in the preamble of the of the legislation authorizing the committee. They are they are looking at one of the most troubling moments in American history when thousands of Americans storm the Capitol as insurrectionists and to try to kill, capture or attack members of Congress, which has never happened before. So I can't think of a better purpose or legislative intent. And the third is that the subject matter of the information that they're seeking is related to that, the scope of that legislative intent. And I think so far what I've seen from Benny Thompson's letters, which will ultimately become subpoenas,

referrals to the Department of Justice, federal court orders to have all of this happen is going to be upheld. Now, the Supreme Court may, I think where we get into a problem, we haven't talked about it, is when the information sought is coming from the executive branch and from Trump himself, there is case law, as you know, Ben, that the executive power may be able to trump, no pun intended, the request. In other words, the executive privilege may lead to a court, including the Supreme Court saying, you're not getting all of this information out of the cabinet members or the executive branch, because now you've crossed over into executive privilege. So the Supreme Court's going to have to very delicately ultimately pick through the actual requests, the targets of those requests to determine if executive

privilege even applies. Of course, Trump's and all of his acolytes are, oh, executive privilege, executive privilege. But I think the member of Congress that may or may not have participated in the Gen 6 insurrection, winningly or unwittingly, I think they're going to have to stand and deliver. They're going to have to turn over documents and they may have to testify. But we're going to make a new chapter in constitutional law off of these requests. And we've talked about in previous episodes to the position of Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice that these acts of insurrection what took place on January 6th, as at least as it relates to what was going on on that

stage, the inspiring of the crowd, that that did not constitute executive privilege. And we talked about on previous legal AF episodes, some DOJ guidance and opinions where they were defending some unpopular things that Trump did under executive privilege, such as clearing the park, clearing a life I at park, E. Jean Carroll, allowing the United States to continue to defend the executive branch where it occurred in the course and scope of the presidential press conference, even though speaking about sexual assault itself was outside the scope of what an executive would do. It occurred in the context of a presidential press conference. But we know the DOJ's position

here, though, I think will be no immunity here, at least as it relates to what was going on publicly that we saw outside and those communications that were a political rally. And and and and Garland, Merrick Garland has gone one step further. I know even our followers and listeners, you know, take issue sometimes at the speed or velocity at which Merrick Garland has gone one step further. I know even our followers and listeners, you know, take issue sometimes at the speed or velocity at which Merrick Garland is moving. I don't have I don't have that problem. I think he's he's doing fine in the year that he's been in office. But he just recently, I don't know if you caught this Ben in the Jan 6th records issue. He's given a memo basically releasing and telling all of the ex members of the Department

of Justice, so the Trump members, the Department of Justice, that they are free to testify before the Gen 6 committee and provide documents. So he's already told like bar and everybody that was under bar in that office. I'm now the owner of the DOJ office, this is Merrick Garland talking. You're free. We are releasing you. There's no privilege. Go ahead and testify. Let's talk now about switching gears slightly. The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a

five million dollar fine for the right wing conspiracists, theorists, Jacob Wall and Jack Berkman, they're proposing again, that is five million dollars. For those who don't recall what happened here because these two idiots have been literally pulling these stunts, let's them off. Stunts makes it sound juvenile. These horrific criminal acts to undermine the election because these Trumpists at their core are just bizarre, just all they know is criminality. So on August 26th and September 14th, there were robo calls making these false claims about male voting. These robo calls reached out to a lot of black voters and said personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants

and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts. They targeted thousands of people with that row book call and I'm just glad Popak that these lunatics are being brought to justice here. And they're also under, they're facing four felony criminal charges in Michigan for using robo calls to also intimidate voters through robo calls by mail and others. They tried getting that dismissed. I don't want to belabor this one too much Popeyes because I don't even want to give them air time. Yeah, let me podcast time. But let me tie it to our later segments in the podcast. We're going to talk about administrative agencies like in this case, the Federal Communications Commission under the Administrative Procedure Act, the APA, and what they can and can't do. Here is a proper exercise of a federal agencies

rulemaking authority and ability to regulate in the area, in this case, the FCC. And so it'll start as a proposed fine of $5 million. It will then go ultimately, they'll have a right to challenge that. It'll go ultimately not to out to a federal judge like you and I talk about in the past, what we call an article three judge, but we'll stay with an administrative law judge and ALJ within who is just assigned to the FCC. So it's

at hermetically sealed administrative process. He'll that judge, male or female, whatever the judge is, will then rule on the $5 million fine having heard from both sides and issue an order. It is very difficult to go out from that order, which I'm sure it's going to be to uphold the $5 million, maybe even to raise the $5 million. To then, if you don't like that result, it's very difficult to appeal that you can't appeal, but the standard for appeal is very difficult. So these guys, one isn't as 20s, that's Jacob Wall, the other guy is an older guy. As you said, what I found fascinating is not just that they made 1200 robo calls in a very short amount of period to scare the crap out of people and to do voter

intimidation, to confuse them on mail-in voting so that they wouldn't go to the polls. And that's also the charges in Michigan under the state criminal statute that they committed voter intimidation. So they're going to go to jail. But did you see the background on Jacob Wall not to make him into a celebrity? But this guy is like the Evolian order to caprio. He's like like catch me if you can with wolf of Wall Street. Before he got involved with Robo calls as a teenager, he started some fraudulent hedge fund. Okay. He got sanctioned by every securities and exchange commission and state level securities and exchange commission. He's been banned from the futures industry in the securities business.

This guy's never met a fraud that he didn't like. And then he just latched on to the Trump conspiracy theories found this other moron, Jack Berman, and they got together and decided, let's make money. Let's create fake intelligence agencies. Let's write fake news articles and plant them on Facebook. And let's do Robo calls. And like enough is enough. We'll start with the FCC. Well, and with criminal investigation. And hopefully these people will be shackled together and breaking big rocks into small rocks. Hope hot Leonardo DiCaprio, huh? Leo Leo. He's in the two movies. He's in those two movies. I'll take your Leo and I will raise you that this Jacob wall is the political version of a Billy McFarland. And for those who don't know is

the person who did the fire festival and a number of frauds before that. And for many who don't know people were surprised on the Midas Touch live this week. They were like, someone wrote, you know, Ben's the lawyer from Fire Festival and Ben's the lawyer in the Fire Festival movies on Hulu and Netflix. And no one actually believed that that was me that was actually me in there. But no, I would be bringing down Billy McFarlane many years ago ago and then when politics called, it's these idiots like Jacob Wall who are the manifestations of that. And if you go back actually to the Fire Festival movie, and I think I recorded that in 2018,

I basically said in that movie, we have a Fire Festival going on every single day in the White House. And so that was a quote from 2018 way before the foundation of Midas, legal AF. And may have even been when Popok and myself were duking it out on opposite sides of cases. And for many of our listeners, you don't know that Popok and I are Kumbaya right now, but there was once a day, many years ago where Popok and I met on opposite sides of a case. But what's great about the law is we can all unite form friendships and bonds based on a love of the law, a love of democracy and a love of defeating fascists like Jacob Wall. Everyone's favorite part. Are

you ready for this pop up? Go updates. We've got update. We need a jingle. We need a jingle. The jingles are that I'm the jingles. Okay. I'm the jingle machine. Now you remember what was that movie where the Somali empire its private, not saving private right? What was the movie called Captain Phillips? Captain Phillips, I'm the Captain now. I am the jingle machine now updates updates. We got updates. It's not exactly on tune, but we're dealing with decisions that you may or may not feel are on tune, but let's start with one that I think is on tune. And this is in your state, popok of Florida, popokian Floridian, the judge blocked Governor block governor death, Santa's order banning masks.

Yeah, we've talked about this at length on legal AF podcast, how bizarre it is for a governor who doesn't like, hey, we should have mask mandates. I think governors should enforce the best health and science. But to have a governor in Florida

telling the school districts, we are going to defund you. We're going to take away your money from educating students because your school board has the audacity to meet and follow science, which says that kids should wear masks so that your children don't die. And we've also talked about on past legal afs, of course, governor, death, Santis also demanding the cruise ship industry, not check for vaccinations because he wants cruise ship passengers to die once he wants death. He will death,

Santa wants death cruise ship. So circuit judge John Cooper in A, it was actually a very well written decision. And there were parts of the decision also, which talked about you can't just let people go crazy, governor. We have to enlist very kind of common sense approaches when we're dealing with health and safety issues. The judge noted two Florida Supreme Court decisions, one from 1914, one from 1939, which found that individual rights are incredibly important.

They are the foundation of our constitution, but they can be limited by their impact on others. I'll go into the cases, but yes, you have the right to drink, to drink, but yeah, I was going to use some grosser examples, but you don't have the right to go out and just do anything you want and just be crazy and hurt people. And that's what the judge said. He said adults have the right to drink alcohol, but do not have the right to drink and drive. The there is a right to free speech, but not to harass or threaten others and yell fire in a crowded theater. Duh.

Let's talk about this from top to bottom. And the most perverse thing about DeSantis's position taken in court by the lawyers for the his Department of Education is that they're claiming that the parent bill of rights, which they passed, gave the governor the right to legislate in the area of masks, to which I asked, talk about the irony of this, what about the parents of the children that they don't want to see pie, that they want to see half masks. So the judge said, wait a minute, I get individual liberty, but parents don't have the right, even if they don't like the result to violate the rights of somebody else in a public health pandemic.

I'll give an example, you know, we're giving examples on this podcast. It would be like if it will stay in the school setting, it would be like if a parent didn't want their football playing high school student to wear a helmet because the helmet gets in the way of his vision. He's a better running back or quarterback. If he's out there, he's a good example. Right. Well, you and I've talked about the concussion cases and you were involved in those at the NFL level. So I've got a, I've got a student athlete who's got long flowing hair. I want him to have a career, you know, in endorsements and he, and he throws the ball better when

he can see without his helmet. No, you don't get the right to send your kid out into the field without safety equipment. And you don't get the right. Oh, that is really brilliant. Is that your own or do you hear that? Oh, that is too. Let me go and buy something. All of these are my own.

Popaki and that solves it. I just want to say, I've never heard it articulated like that. That's why we've called you. Popokian, you're a popokian scholar. You have a popokian scholarship following the way you broke it down there with football helmets. I think is so critical and vital to really drilling the point home across. One, because a lot of those GQPers relate to, you know, the football mask example,

but it's exactly like that. When Governor Depp Santis says, I want to see the smiles of the children. It's like, okay, well, it's like, yeah, well, let's do no helmets, no seatbelts, all right. It's really easy. Exactly right. Thank you. But that's what I thought about this morning. And I did think about that sport as being really hitting the GQP where it lives. You don't have that right. And you know, it's interesting. Leon County and Florida, just to get it really inside baseball, switching sports is the seat of the circuit court, which is the state level court in Tallahassee, which is where the governor sits. So like every case that challenges a governor action, regardless of party ends up in Leon County. Those are elected judges. Those are not appointed

by the by the governor unless there is an opening and he gets to a point of vacancy. Those are people in Leon County, which is a relatively conservative county, not the standing, the fact that Florida State University is up there. So it's a little bit of a college town. But these are like conservative judges. If you watch the zoom, which I did for a few minutes of the, of where he announced the ruling, I mean, this guy couldn't look more right wing conservative. The judge in his appearance with his three-piece suit and his slick tear and he's in his sixties. I mean, there's a lot of guys like a radical trying to undercut American values.

It's the opposite. He's trying to save school students from dying. And I'm sure you talked about this on the brothers podcast. Have you seen the numbers that are tanking for DeSantis in the state of Florida and his approval rating? It's going down the drain. Totally going down the drain. And Democrats need, and I will save most of the politics for the brothers podcasts, but the GQP lives and thrives on scaring the shit out of voters that Democrats are going to do x, y, and z. And the Democrats where we have people like death, Santas, who is literally killing

people, who is not popular, who's not popular amongst even conservatives who care about their family. And again, because being conservative should have nothing to do with being anti-vax, quite the contrary. If you are conservative, you should want to conserve life. That's why these GQPers are not conservative at all. What we need to do, what Midas Touch was great at doing, what we do on legal AF is we call a spade, a spade. And we say, death, Santis, you are a murderer. That if you elect the GQP, they are going to kill

your children. They are going to kill your loved ones if they haven't killed them already. Can I ask you something? This bullshit. Can I ask you something? Why isn't really bringing back to the bring it back? We'll bring it back to the law. We call that pulling a Jordi Popak. What I'm on like, I kill a rat like that. Oh, I didn't mean to go ahead. Go ahead. I'm going to tie it to the law. Why isn't a right wing Republican parent using their child as a guinea pig in their political social experiment? Why isn't that child abuse?

You have an obligation as a parent to be the guardian for the safety and well-being of your child. And if you won't do that, then the state steps in and steps in and protects children. Why isn't that a form of child abuse? You can harbor your fringe political views that mask mandates are somehow against democracy. But why do you get to use your child as the guinea pig in a death experiment? Why, why isn't that child abuse? I'm asking it. I know it's rhetorical,

Bob. I'm also asking you, why isn't that a form of child abuse? Not only is it child abuse, but what we just witnessed there, folks, is something that we will hear to for called a PCI, a Popoqian, co-option, interception, a PCI is when Ben is on a great rant, making some great logical points. And you get the PCI from Popoqian, Papakian himself, he comes in, makes a better point to show off to the Midas Touch legal a efforts that he is indeed the favorite brother a PCI folks you just watch it pop up. I agree that it is child abuse.

I agree with your football analogy and I agree with every legal a f or who says popok is their favorite brother updates updates we've got more updates on legal a f this show isn't done. This show isn't even close. We're half way mark. Hang in there folks put on your seatbelt because we talked just now about singing a good tune. We talked about a good ruling, but some bad tunes. But look, we at Legal AF prepare the Legal AFers and Polpoccyons and Midas Mighty for these rulings. We told you it was coming, frankly, I didn't think it was going to be coming as quick as within one episode to the next episode, because usually when these cases are being appealed, that process

takes more than a few days. But we talked about the eviction moratorium had barely survived in the past and how it was reinstated by the Biden administration using the justification of the Delta variant. Remember, these moratoriums, these preventions of evictions that were taking place, it has to be rooted in some authority. You can't just do it by, hey, I'm the president, this is what I say. So the way the Biden administration wanted to protect people from being evicted was utilizing the powers of the CDC and to use their powers as an agency and to use their powers as an agency to enact kind of common sense regulations that protect people when there are certain, you know, pandemics or epidemics and that the CDC can have these rules to protect people. There was no definitive rule, though, that said the CDC was authorized to prevent evictions.

That if you look at the literal text of what was going on, it doesn't say in the enacting statute that allows the CDC to do things, and ultimately, Congress has the past laws, enabling laws that allow agencies to do things. And sometimes agencies can have broad powers and sometimes it's narrowly circumscribed. But an agency can't just take agency action without the power being emanated from Congress. So with the Supreme Court said the last time the eviction ban came before them is, look, it's about to run out anyway, but Congress, the powers with you go past laws that protect people from being evicted.

You have every authority Congress to extend the eviction moratorium as Congress, what the Supreme Court is saying is, but the CDC, they don't have the power to do that. The problem is that our Congress is infested, not just by COVID infested GQPers, but by the GQP who wants people to be sick, unhealthy, evicted in the streets, so they can live in their mansions and basically laugh at everybody. I mean, that is what the streets so they can live in their mansions and basically laugh at

everybody. I mean, that is what the GQP's goal is, is to create a Russian style oligarchy and look as a Democrat, but as someone who believes in capitalism, I believe people should make money. I believe that people should be able to make lots of money. I believe people should make money. I believe that people should be able to make lots of money. I believe people should be successful. I believe though that we should live in a compassionate society where if it means that someone can't have 10 yachts

but can have five yachts and we don't have fellow human beings in our country dying on the streets every day. I think that's a fair assessment of the facts, but I believe a capitalism. And by the way, there is a balance here that we've talked about on legal AF where there are a lot of small business owners, though, who are also landlords who should not be forgotten here. And we do need to strike the right balances here. I won't go into the politics. I'll stick with what the scotist law said about these eviction moratoriums. But Popok and I have said this is a nuanced issue, but we told

you it was coming. It's coming. Popok. Yeah. Victor has arrived. Yeah. And I didn't do a PC either. I did. We were very tempted to do a PCI. I was moving around in my chair. All right. Well, this may not be popular, but certainly it's, it's not unexpected. We've certainly been managing expectations since the last episode about where we, two episodes really about where we thought Kavanaugh was going to end up at the end of the day. And, and he did. And the reason I'm going to say it's not,avanaugh was going to end up at the end of the day. And he did. And the reason I'm going to say it's not, it's not going to be popular is because I don't

think that the Supreme Court of the United States got this wrong. And let me explain why. And I'll pick up where you left off. Congress has to act here. Congress passed in March of 2020, what we, the Coronavirus Relief and Economic Stability Act, I'm butchering the name, but you can look it up, which set up a whole bunch of programs and funds

and the paycheck protection program and monies to restaurants and things like that. And one part of it was the Congress creating a national moratorium on residential evictions and ban like that. And one part of it was the Congress creating a national moratorium on residential evictions and banning them. And everybody is fine with that. That's what Congress is allowed to do. What's not okay is that after that expired and what the Supreme Court has said, not only is it likely that the, with the case went to trial, that the Biden administration, the CDC would lose. The court just said yesterday, the day before, Supreme Court, we can't imagine a scenario

where they wouldn't lose that argument because they would have been referred to, what you refer to as, where does the CDC get the power and the authority to issue that rule? That is the starting point for every administrative agency, every agency, regardless of who's in power, Democrat or Republican. And I want to live in a society where agencies are making proper rules based on the authority that they've been delegated to by Congress or by a statute. And the only provision that the CDC has been hanging its hat on, because it's really the only one that exists, is this one that you alluded to, which is at section 361 of the Public Health and Services Act,

which says that the surge in general in a public pandemic or health crisis has the power to issue rules involving inspection, fumigation, disinfection, and pest control. That was the basis for the nationwide residential eviction moratorium. So there's a big disconnect there. There is no other provision under the CDC and to answer a question that was asked in the Twitter feed this week. There's no other agency that has a statute or a rulemaking authority that would stem from something that's legitimate to to issue the eviction ban

in lieu of the CDC. Somebody said on one of our our Twitter feeds, what about HUD? What about the housing and urban development? Let them issue it. Yeah, it would be the proper agency. If the agency had on its books, a statute or rule that allowed them to do that, it doesn't all roads lead back to Congress. Congress has to act here. Supreme Court is not going to let and Biden did a great thing. By the way, in extending it for as long as he has, there are families who have been protected for an additional month or two months or three months because of them playing this out in the courtroom while he's trying to buy time on Capitol Hill to get legislation passed by Congress, which is the only place this is going to happen. So I know a lot of people are picking up pitchforks and torches about the Supreme Court and it was six to three. And of course,

the conservatives went that way. But I'll be frank, I'm not sure they had any other choice given the case law and the statute upon which the CDC was relying. What do you think, conservatives went that way, but I'll be frank, I'm not sure they had any other choice given the case law and the statute upon which the CDC was relying. What do you think, Ben? Yeah, it's a tough one because we don't like the result. And the issue is, could the CDC's authority, though, be construed to have some broader interpretation. And look, I think there are lots of times where this Supreme Court and prior Supreme courts, though, especially given that it's a global pandemic, you could say, well, clearly the intent behind the law that enabled the CDC to have these other powers would

encompass this. When the lawmakers were writing this statute, when they were providing the enabling abilities of the CDC, no one could know everything that was going to happen. No one would know COVID-19. And you couldn't possibly predict the scale and scope and the issues that we're dealing with. So I could see you interpreting it generally through that frame and saying clearly these other things are examples, but this would be one of the examples that was clearly intended

to be the case. So that was a way to argue. But I do think, though, the result here is, it's just interesting, Popok, when there's literalistic interpretations, and then when there's policy level interpretations, and there's sometimes skewed along political lines. Well, clearly, yeah, to your point, even though I believe that their analysis was right, I wish there were better language for the center. I mean, look, the name of the center is the center for disease control. So the question is, how does rent abatement or rent moratorium, eviction moratorium, how does that contribute to disease control?

And that's, that was the problem with the six conservative or right wing justices had, but there were three of the more liberal members of the court, a briar, Sotomayor and Kagan, who, you know, came up with an analysis that would have allowed the CDC to continue, to continue the program without congressional action. And well, I don't know if we're talking about briar today, but if not, we'll do it in the next podcast. But well, we could tease it, we'll do it in the next podcast. Well, we could tease it slightly and let's in the next podcast, but let's just talk about it very briefly here, Pope, that Justice Briar, he's 83 years old on the non-fascist wing

of the Supreme Court. I, again, I hate the terms liberal and conservative when what we're talking about is Democrats being the only party that wants to conserve democracy and conserve life. But, you know, Breyer's 83, he's writing a book. And so I think he gave a New York Times interview or was leaked in the press that he was considering retiring, but he goes, there's a lot of factors

I need to consider. And I'm not quite sure that I want to die while I'm sitting justice. I mean, that's literally literally what he said. I'm not making that. I said something like that two podcasts ago and you go, popoq, that was so cold. I said, I don't want the guy to die, but he's going to. And we need to do something about it. We call that popokian fragility, popokian fragility. Another term that you're learning on. The story of touch. The trailer of podcasts. More updates, updates, updates. Another decision

that we were preparing you for in this time in connection with the remain in Mexico program that was instituted by the Trump administration. It was officially known as the migrant protection protocols or the MPP, what the remain in Mexico policy implemented in the Trump administration required was that certain asylum seekers who arrived by land at the US Mexico border who passed what's called a credible fear screening with a US asylum officer, meaning that they were credibly seeking asylum because they feared for their lives that this group of individuals would have to return to Mexico. In other words, they would forcibly be removed to send to the place where they feared that

they were going to die if they got sent back to while they awaited an asylum hearing in the United States immigration court. I think it was important that I framed it very specifically what it is because the group of people, this relates to were people who passed this fierce screening, which is an extensive screening that says that these people likely could get killed if they return. So I want everybody to know what the stakes are. It's not that everybody who comes to America has to stay in America. It specifically relates to this group of people. And the Biden administration basically says it's incredibly costly and

incredibly evil to send this group of people back. And it seems very punitive. And it's focused on the xenophobic rhetoric of the Trump administration. And it's not really solving the broader immigration issues. It's just putting a lot of resources into being hateful towards this specific group and class of people. This is an update, an update, an illegal AF update, because we discussed that United District Court judged from the Northern District of Texas issued an injunction that kept the protection program in effect. It prevented Biden from removing the program. It was appealed to the court of appeals. It went to the Supreme Court. There was a brief stay in the enforcement

of the district court's order. The district court's order just were using stays and junctions. Basically says the migrant protection protocol which Trump Trump did, stays, not stays as it stopped. It continues to go on. That lives on. The remain in Mexico program cannot be removed, which is what the Biden administration wanted. Popup, what's going on here? Yeah.

So I called that doctrine or that test, the desperately seeking asylum test. And that was a very good way, Ben, that you put a fine point on it, because I didn't want people to think that we're talking about like regular tourists from Mexico who want to emigrate to the United States. These are people who have legitimate fears of being killed because they've either, they live in drug cartel neighborhoods, they've gotten on the radar for really bad people

in Mexico and could die. And so we'd rather have them across the border waiting for their asylum petition to be considered, then potentially dying on the other side of the border while the asylum petition is being considered because you can't bring the back from the grave to give them their asylum.

The Supreme Court in a little bit of hoisting the Biden administration on its own, Petard cited the case that they had ruled against exactly a similar scenario when Trump tried to end the Dreamers Act to send all of these poor children out of the country who had no, who committed no other crime, except that they were, except that they were brought here as children by parents who never got naturalized or got proper immigration status, but in all ways, shapes and forms

were good upstanding Americans. When Trump tried to, because that's where the Republican party is, they're against children, they're against values, and they wanted to port high school students and elementary school students. When that was challenged at the Supreme Court level three years ago, the Supreme Court said, no, that was an arbitrary and capricious executive order and sort of mean spirited, where you tried to overturn Trump Obama's policy on the Dreamers Act, and we're not gonna let you do that.

You have to go through, now we're back to the Administrative Procedures Act. You have to go through proper rulemaking and go through comment, public comment, come up with an emergency backing for this that makes sense. You can't just with the stroke of your pen sitting in the White House change policy like that. We find that arbitrary, capricious.

The Supreme Court in a half-page ruling, this entire rejection of the stay in Mexico changed by Biden was reversed by the Supreme Court in a one paragraph decision in which they cited, and I know why they did it. I'm sure you do too. They cited the case of the Trump case by saying, you know what, you can't do that either.

We didn't think Trump did it right, Biden didn't do it right. Come back, go back to the drawing board, come up with a proper rulemaking, do it through a proper procedure, and then we'll probably uphold it. But don't do it with a stroke of a pen. We didn't like it three years ago. When your predecessor did it, we don't like it now. What do you think about their analysis pen? I look, I think that we've talked about this in other legal AF podcasts.

We talked about it just before on the eviction moratorium issue. Their analysis ultimately supports whatever conclusion. I think their alignment is. I think here they could have equally interpreted it as whereas the difference in DACA being the harsh result of revoking promises to people who were here and then sending those individuals back into situations where many people who were part of the DACA program were born here, their taxpayers like, it's an evil thing to remove those people.

And that is arbitrary and capricious to have literally arbitrary. I mean, you have people living here who depend on that. And then you go, all right, see you later. You're going back to a country that you've maybe never, you don't even remember or you never lived in. Right. And to me, it is not so arbitrary and capricious as it is here to say to someone who is incredibly fierce for their life, to say, you know what, we as the United States of America, with respect

to these people, the same way we're talking about wanting to protect refugees in Afghanistan who fear for their life. It's a similar type of analysis of asylum seeking refugees that what we're not going to do is send those individuals back to the Taliban or send these individuals back to the cartels to be killed. individuals back to the cartels to be killed. It would seem to be an arbitrary and capricious decision to go and attack individuals who have credible threats as the United States of America, which is supposed to be a beacon for immigrants and a beacon for asylum seekers. To say, you know what, you need to go back and you probably should die in Mexico. So I think you have that nuance that I did there, Popo. But you know, look, at the end of the day, the Supreme Court's analysis is to try to buttress their cruel and evil ruling by saying, Oh, well, look, we gave you DACA. So we're going to kill these. But we gave you DACA. So I totally

agree with you. I think you're spot on in that analysis. That was why I emphasized it was a paragraph because they just wanted to stick it to Biden and say, well, you know, we found an arbitrary capricious before, but you're totally right. In the area of immigration, for instance, you know, the constitution gives the government the full power and ultimately, the executive branch to legislate in the area and regulate in the area of immigration. And they have made a finding as it relates

to Mexico specifically, that these people will likely die and not be able to get the benefits of asylum if they're not protected during the process. And immigration rulings get made like this all the time. I'll give you one last example. In Florida, there's two major groups of immigrant, now US citizens in in Florida, in South Florida, the Haitian community and the Cuban American community. And the the immigration laws as they apply to those two different groups are not equal. The the Cuban community always had the ability. If they apply to those two different groups are not equal.

The Cuban community always had the ability if they ever got their way onto dry land. It's unfortunately it was referred to as wet foot, dry foot. If they made their way in a boat or otherwise and got to a US territory, they were kept there and not deported while they went through a process. The Haitian community was not given the same rights. We'll debate another time or you can raise on your bot, your political podcast, the different power imbalance between the Cuban population and the Haitian population in South Florida. But these types of anomalies happen in immigration law all the time.

So I don't want people on our Twitter feed to say, well, why do the Mexicans get that benefit in other places where there's also, including Afghanistan right now where there's also people that could die awaiting asylum. And my position is that the new policies will be passed by the executive branch and the Homeland Security to account case by case for these types of things. And I don't need the Supreme Court to saying all of those events are arbitrary and capricious. So I agree with you. Absolutely. Those were your updates, updates.

You've got updates and some breaking news updates about some etymology of, you know, I like to use popokian terms, but, you know, I use the term popaki in fragility earlier. You may recall me mentioning that terminology. I would say that one. I hate that one. That one sounds terrible. Well, it is terrible because I googled it and I was just wondering. I said, I want to make sure that it is what I think it means. And it is partially the definition of fragility. But I did Google fragility, fragility also means the failure of a female to respond to

sexual stimulus, a version on the part of a woman to sexual intercourse is one of the definitions of fragility. But I also was correct that Fragidity means intensely cold lack of what I'm just reading from the Miriam Webster dictionary as you as you often do lacking of imaginative qualities and to be clear it was used in a sentence and the star Tribune March 6th 2021 as well as the Washington Post on July 18th of 2019, quote, during last month's cold spell, which covered much of the nation, a local newspaper in Texas looked north for advice on how to deal with the

unacustom fragility. And then Washington post July 18th, 2019, I just want to give people sources for this. I see. I got a footnote zero. Okay. 2019. I just want to give people sources for this. I don't know zero. Okay. Go. Eglistan 60 has worked in sub zero, fragility and then blistering sunshine,

but it also apparently has that other terminology, which I did not realize. So perhaps Papakian fragility may or may not be used in future episodes. I've been called a lot of things, but that's not one of them. Legal a efforts, please let us know. Papakians, your viewpoints are welcome as well. Two other cases now that we're done with updates, I want to talk about one, capital police officers filing a lawsuit against Trump and Trump hate groups. This is one of the newest lawsuits

that were filed arising out of the insurrection. I think this one has a little bit more sting because it's coming from the capital police officers themselves. Although the other ones were from members of Congress who were injured and others. What did you say? Also the victims. Also, yeah, also other victims and members of Congress who were victims. And so I don't think there's a lot of new ground to cover here. Popo Kolo.

This complaint does link Trump in more detail with the various hate groups out there, the oath keepers, the KKK groups, the proud boys, and really makes it a combined, pleads it as a combined conspiracy. But think about this before you got into this world that you and your brothers got into. Do you ever think you see the day when a president of the United States was listed as a defendant next to the proud boys in a lawsuit filed against them. I mean, it's just, it's just gobsmacking, it's just mind blowing. But this is a continuation we talked about.

You've had on your, I believe on the Brothers podcast, you've had on Representative Swalwell. So Swalwell and others in Congress brought their own case under the Ku Klux Klan Act, which is an act that was passed by Congress to enforce the 13th and 14th Amendment because of the reprisals and deaths that were caused by the KKK and people trying to exercise their rights. It's still on the books. And you see here that these lawsuits are using it as the predicate for their case against the president in this case. hear that these lawsuits are using it as the predicate for their, their case against the

president in this case. So the capital six capital police officers also using the KKK act and violations of the US Constitution, suing Trump, the proud boys, who else is in there? It's Giuliani in there. I just assumed Giuliani's always in there throwing a little win, Linwood, throwing a little Sydney Powell. It's like a sprinkling. Yeah, it's like a, it's like a big, it's a big, it's a crack in, it's a crack stew and all these people end up in it. But yeah, so we're going to follow that. That just got filed in the district court for in DC, the federal district court in DC.

It's just in the pleading stage now. So I'm sure there'll be developments. It may, I'm not sure if it was assigned and I apologize that didn't get this information before we started our podcast. I'm not sure if it's been assigned to the same judge. I wouldn't be surprised at the same judge in the district court and is that's handling the swallwell case. Also gets this one and kind of because it would make sense as to whether it's not different decisions that may be at odds with each other. I, my gut is it's gonna end up with the same judge.

It's already been assigned as a related matter. Yellow card. Yellow card for failure to properly research. Popok in yellow card was just pulled out for those who are seeing it. I am pulled up the yellow card. What are you? I got a card. I got, I got, I carry am pulled up the yellow card. I got believe it or not. I carry in my pocket a yellow card specifically for the moment where popok would admit. I literally

for those listening and who aren't watching it, I'm holding a yellow card and popok's pretty shocked that I came so prepared like popok. I do not do the research there. If the same judge was related to this case, but is it not? What did you mean? Was it assigned to the right judge? Oh, yellow card. I just give you. I'm just giving you the yellow card. That's the way the show that's the show works. We will update on Twitter. We will do a Twitter legal AF by MidasTouch Twitter update on my whether the case been consolidated. But I am impressed that literally out of his back pocket flew a yellow card. I don't know what happens if it gets to red.

If it gets to red, I guess my screen just goes dark and Ben does the rest of the podcast by himself. I speaking of which I had the weirdest polpocchi and dream. Yes. Oh, no. You just reminded me of. And so because of all the vacations you've been taking,

because of all of your antiquing, my dream was that before the legal AF today that I was going to wake up to a message for such a weird dream. I swear to you, this is true that you said, Hey, I can't make it until later afternoon, the earliest that we had scheduled to do it because I think you were going pumpkin picking or you had plans to start. I think you said, I forget what it was, particularly, but I think you were gearing up for Halloween and Halloween decorations because I know that's big in the popaki and world. But this is the headline, but okay, I get it.

But here's the headline, Ben Dreams of Popok. What is not podcasting? And so in the dream, though, I got so upset that you were doing that you were not going to show up or you were going to show a blade. I was like, you know what, Popok? I'm just going to carry the show all by myself. I don't care about if the Popockians are going to be angry. I got to wake up in this morning and I got to do the, what a weird dream and just a weird dream. But it's a very true dream. Finally, Popock, I want to talk about the guilty plea

switching gears to the criminal law of Igor, Froome and Igor, Igor Froome. We need sound effects. It's not I go. It's Igor. I mean, I, I, isn't, I know that's a young Frankenstein reference. I had a throw it in there. Igor, yeah. That, that predates me. Popak, I'm, I pre, I pre date you. Popak, you watch the original Frankenstein huh? No, I didn't watch it being made, but I have seen it when it was on television, but no young Frankenstein for our listeners that are in my vintage great movie go watch it. Igor versus Igor. I don't know which it is, but let's talk about him. Popo, tell us what happened here is switch from he originally pled not guilty in 2019.

He's now pled guilty. What does this mean one, two, do I care? And then three, is it bad news for Rudy Giuliani? I guess are the questions that I have. Yeah, we're going to we're going to talk about what it means. You should care and it is bad news for Rudy Giuliani. So Igor Fruman, who was a Belarusian business person, along with somebody else, who is being charged by the Southern District of New York federal prosecutors, which Rudy Giuliani once headed in the early 2000s,

which Rudy Giuliani once headed in the early 2000s for corruption and bribery related to the Ukraine to the ouster or the attempted ouster of the ambassador, the US ambassador to Ukraine by Trump to a marijuana business that they were trying to start with a Russian operative. And just generally he was a one right hand man for Rudy Giuliani. There's go online. There's plenty of video and film and pictures of them smoking cigars and having fun and reporting to each other about developments. Rudy is being separately investigated and prosecuted by two spots in New York, the Eastern District of New York and the Southern District of New York related to whether he was a foreign agent unregistered lobbying on behalf of the Ukraine's back to Trump, which is a crime. And whether he was involved with a takedown of the ambassador, and that's being done by the other, I think, by the Eastern District. These are the key witnesses, Igor Fruman and his business associate who were both charged in 2019 and 2020.

We all thought that they were going to have this trial in about two or three months. Because Fruman had pled not guilty, three days ago, four days ago, a filing got made in the court, and Fruman announced that he wanted to change his plea from guilty to not guilty. And for our followers and listeners, Ben, when a defendant changes his plea and goes to court to announce these changes, plea, what does that usually indicate that they will change their plea? True. They'll change their plea. They don't want to go to trial. It could also indicate that they have cooperating with the federal government.

Atcoms raise their Popeyes. I know. I know. You want to say it's a donkey, not a zebra. But in this case, it could well be that he is changing his plea to guilty because he's cooperating and that they'll be sentencing, we'll get leniency. So that is bad news for Giuliani because now the guy's not gonna go to trial and he's probably frequently talking through his lawyer with the prosecutors who are trying to really bring down Rudy Giuliani.

Do they care about Igor Fruman? No. Sure, if he committed a crime, they'll put him in jail. But they really want Rudy Giuliani. And at the end of the day, all roads lead to duty, Rudy, whose road of duty, Rudy leads to Trump, whose throne, duty, Rudy under the bus at this point and is even refusing to cover duty Rudy's legal bills. Did you see that video, Popak, of duty Rudy? You do one more duty Rudy. It may cause epilepsy and epileptic fit among our followers and listeners.

Okay. Duty Rudy, yes. Have you seen Popak that Rudy was brought an electric shaver to the airport and was literally shaving his hair in the restaurant. He isn't. He listened. He had a lot of things about his reputation 20 years ago in New York. And again, I've told our listeners, I have close friends that actually worked with him in

his office in the Southern District. I never heard about, you know, dripping hair dye shoving his hands down his pants to fix his junk on camera. Well, he thought he was going to, you know, fluffing it before he was going to be interviewed by poor. He was a weird guy. I mean, I know you was weird. No, there's weird. And then there's fluffing yourself, dripping hair dye and shaving and clipping your toenails in an airport restaurant. That's really weird. I agree with you, Popeyes. And so as able legal AF pilots who take off, we bring you through the air. We clear you through the legal turbulence. We give you the info. Unfortunately,

it's that time of legal AF where we land our fighter pilot jet of law. We hope we've armed you with all of the information for you to go out there and to spread popochi and dialect for you to spread the truth and for you to frankly know what was going on this week in the law. What are the broader implications of these cases and how they relate to you, your family, the country, the world. And we hope as always, we've broke it down for you in ways you can understand, relate to have a laugh here or there. But ultimately empower you with the knowledge that I don't think you hear anywhere other than legal a F. We so appreciate your support. Thank you as always for making legal AF a top podcast in the United States of America. As always, we always say if you have a case,

Popeyes and I are willing to hear it. If you a friend, if someone you know has been injured, if you're the victim of sexual harassment, if you are a victim of a business dispute, if you think you have a big case or you think you know someone who has a large case and you want to just see, hey, do I have a case or do I not have a case? Feel free to reach out to us. My email is bendatmitistouch.com, B-E-N-At-MitisTouch.com, MEI-D-A-S-T-O-U-Cis touch.com, be and at mitis touch.com,

MEI DAS T O U C H dot com, popok your email address is M popok at zp law dot com. Somebody asked on a Twitter feed, how do we reach you guys? And it's through the addresses that we just provided, which are also on our Twitter profiles.

We're happy to help, you know, if you think you have a big case, and look, if you just want to give a comment about the show, one, the best place to comment about the show is through the podcast reviews. Make sure you give legal AF a five star review. We know how massive this audiences, but wherever you're listening to this podcast, please, please, please, right now when the podcast is over, give it a five star review, give it a review. If you like the podcast, that helps with the rankings and the ratings of the podcast.

Keeps us on the air keeps us on the air. So give us a five star review. Thank you so much for supporting legal AF. I'm Ben, you know, Michael Popok, the Popokian. We appreciate your support. Shout out to the Midas mighty shout out to the Popokians. Last words, Popok, I do. I went, you had a yellow card. I got a black one, the last page in my notebook for prep today, I'm gonna commend this. This sums up the Midas Touch philosophy in your podcast, 100%. This is by Benjamin Franklin, energy and persistence,

conquer all things. That's what your movements all about. I appreciate that and we appreciate the support of the Midas Mighty. See you next time, same place, because if it's Sunday, it is Legal AF.