The MeidasTouch Podcast - Legal AF: Episode 17

Episode Date: August 8, 2021

The leading weekly law and politics podcast -- LegalAF -- produced by MeidasTouch and hosted 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 look at this week’s most compelling developments at the intersection of law and politics, aka Episode 17. The hosts first bring their healthy-brand of skepticism to the $10mm “wrongful death” suit to be filed by the family of January 6th insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt. Next, Ben and Popok bring the LAF listeners fully up to speed on the trials and tribulations of New York’s “Love Governor” Andrew Cuomo accused by 11 (!) former (and current) female employees of sexual misconduct. Then, the hosts explore SCOTUS’ recent attack on the CDC’s nationwide residential eviction ban, and the Garland DOJ’s intervention to oppose the Realtors’ efforts to overturn a limited CDC eviction moratorium based on rising Delta data. Talking about the Delta variant, Ben and Michael first examine the legality of Florida Governor DeSantis’ ban of vaccine passports and its impact on the cruise industry, and his ban on mandatory masks for school children even in the face of rising infection and death rates among children in his state. The Analysis Friends then drill down on Texas’ Governor Abbott’s attempts to interfere with the federal government’s “supreme” power to regulate immigration and transport (and detain) immigrants by claiming some feigned concern with the spread of COVID by immigrants, while simultaneously banning face masks and undermining vaccination in his state. Episode 17 ends with a sobering discussion about the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (“JASTA”) federal case filed this past week in New York by 115 “Gold Star” families against major global banks for allegedly profiting from terrorist organizations and governments banking with them, and thereby helping to fund attacks on Americans. Special Easter Egg and Programming Note: Ben gives Popok and the listeners the good news that “Legal AF” is leaving the “MeidasTouch Podcast” nest and moving to its own Medias-produced podcast channel starting with next Sunday’s episode. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to the Midas Touch Legal AF podcast. If it's Sunday, it is Legal AF. And I'm not worried one bit that we are going to get sued for that tagline over there because it's true. And you really can't sue over something that is factual, that everybody knows that if it's Sunday, it just is legal AF. I think, in fact, they've been saying it before we even started Legal AF, Popak. I think hundreds of years ago, people were saying, if it's Sunday, it is Legal AF. I am Ben Mycelis. Joined, as always, by my co-host, your favorite Midas brother, Michael Popak of Zupano, Patricia Isha Popak. How are you, Popak?

I'm doing really great. Did we get a cease and desist letter I didn't know about from some media giant? No, I'm just preempting the fact that human civilization knew if it's Sunday, it's legal AF and our mark preceded any other marks. And in the United States, you might as well get into a little bit of trademark law from the outset. It is not the first to file the mark for intellectual property rights in the United States, although that is important proof and indicia of use of the mark. But first use is the gold standard of American intellectual property law. Unlike you go to other countries like China, the moment someone gets famous in the United States, and I represent a lot of individuals,

you know, with great deals of notoriety here in the United States. The first thing they do in China, because it's first to file, is they run to the courthouse to try to file, you know, someone else's name over there. And you have to have all of these contested disputes over everything, which is a lot of disputes between America and Chinese over intellectual property, Chinese government over intellectual property. But how about that pop-up throne coming out hot, throwing out law right from the intro? I was as eager to hear your analysis on that as our listeners. That was good. I just don't want to get sued over it,

but I like it. I think it's accurate. I think since we moved now, it seems like a lifetime ago, from Wednesday to Sunday, the suits shoved us off calendar and moved us to Sunday. Everybody likes Sunday. It kicks off their week. We're not competing with anybody else in the space. We've got nothing but bravos about the move. And the slogan fits the times.

It's right. As many of you recall, Michael Popak took an eight-week vacation. And so he's unclear. He went to backpack through Italy and Europe and is unclear of what letters we may or may not have received during that time period. But no, Popak, we have not sent a cease and desist letter because I would have sent a carrier pigeon to find you in whatever mountaintop you were climbing to let you know that we needed your help at that moment. Another Midas Touch Legal AF procedural

announcement I think all of you are going to like um we are going to eventually be moving over i think it will be next weekend you'll hear more about it on the brothers podcast but midas touch legal af will have its own home on its own podcast channel and we know how much you love to listen to legal af on the midas touch channel, but I think Midas touch legal AF has grown now. We're what Popak is this episode 17, 17 episode 17. And I think it's time that Midas touch legal AF has its own channel. Still be able to listen to it every Sunday.

The same way Midas touch recently executive produced a podcast called Kremlin File, which quickly shot to number eight of all podcasts for news and 53 of all podcasts in the country across all categories. And I think just watching how successful that was with its own channel, I think we should have our own channel. I think we should have our own channel. We have our own identity, Popak, for the show, independent of the Midas Touch Brother podcast. And so I think it's time. I think we're ready. You know what this means? Our listeners are going to be really excited. I have a feeling it means a logo and it may mean merch. I like it. Logo, merch. So take those training wheels off Midas Touch Legal AF and find your new home on the podcast charts. I want to go start talking about an area of law I'm very familiar with. Civil rights litigation, Section 1983 claims, excessive force claims. It's an area of law where

it started pretty much. I worked for a partner at the firm when I started out as a lawyer over a decade ago. She became a judge and her specialty was civil rights law representing victims of police shootings and police brutality. I found my own niche there. I started doing lots of police brutality cases in Bakersfield, California and the Fresno area in California, which is an interesting area of California. You know, I live in L.A. It's about two and a half hours north of L.A., but it's Trump country. People call it the Oklahoma of California, just in terms of just the demographics and where it votes. But at the time I was practicing there, Bakersfield and Fresno had the highest per capita shooting death rate from police of anywhere in the United States of America. So

more people per capita were shot and killed by police in Bakersfield and Fresno than any other city in the United States of America, which is a startling statistic. We ended up having a great deal of success helping families. One family I represented became two, became five, became 10. I started leading marches out in Bakersfield. That's actually how I ended up getting connected to Kaepernick. Just an interesting backstory on myself was that I was doing police brutality cases in Bakersfield. And then when Colin took a knee in 2016, he saw the work that I was doing. And then we developed a friendship, which turned into a legal representation

when he was treated the way he was by the league. And to this day. And so I know a lot about police brutality cases. So when I read the headline, Ashley Babbitt was, quote, ambushed during Capitol riot. Her family lawyer says, as Ashley Babbitt's family is about to file a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit for excessive force, for wrongful death, for being shot by the Capitol police officer as Ashley Babbitt and the other insurrectionist terrorists stormed and tried to kill our lawmakers and the fact that they have filed a wrongful death case against a police officer. And I want to say this too. Ashley Babbitt and her ilk would be the people who, when I would represent an unarmed black or brown man or woman who was

shot and killed by police unjustifiably would tell me they shouldn't have touched their waistband. They shouldn't have walked that way. They shouldn't have looked. They should have just complied. They shouldn't have said no to the officer. They shouldn't have been snarky with the officer. They got what they deserved is what the crazy right wing always told me in my career. So the fact that you could lead an insurrection, we have the video of Ashley Babbitt climbing into some of the most within our sacred chamber of democracy that is the Capitol building. Her literally trying to get onto the floor, her going into the area where Vice President Pence was being hidden by Secret Service and our other top lawmakers breaking through that barrier. And they filed, her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit is the height of hypocrisy,

the height of, frankly, anti-democracy. If you don't understand that when you storm the Capitol building with the mob that's chanting, kill the vice president, kill Nancy Pelosi, and there are consequences for that, just makes me so angry. Yeah, we talked a lot about this one a couple of months ago, and now that her family has decided, they haven't yet filed, but they've had press conferences, their lawyers to file what they claim to be a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Capitol Police, probably in District of Columbia. Let me remind everyone what Ashley Babbitt, a 35-year Air Force veteran, and her ilk did that day at that

door. That door that you described, Ben, was the last barrier before the Speaker's Lobby, which is a 20 or 30-foot long lobby that leads directly to the chamber of the House of Representatives. Moments before Ashley Babbitt and a mob of a dozen people stormed that door, broke the window, and started banging at the door and yelling at the police officers that were assembled on the other side and screaming at them at their face to stand down, to leave, to abdicate their responsibility as Capitol Police to protect the representatives on the other side of that door, which of course they did not do, and got in their face and used flagpoles and used fire extinguishers and used helmets to attack that barricade. If they had broken through that just moments before, there was an assembly of about five or six leaders of the

House standing in that very lobby. On the other side were House members that had not yet been able to be cleared from the chamber to safety. If they had broken through with murderous intent, there would have been deaths, I have no doubt, assassinations of sitting House of Representative members. So they were warned to get off the door. They were warned to back off. Behind them was riot police. In front of them were uniformed and clean clothes Capitol police, whose one mission and one mission only, as we've learned from the recent testimony on Capitol Hill, is to protect at their own risk of life and limb members of Congress, which they did. When the uniformed police backed away from the Speaker's

lobby to allow the riot police behind Ashley Babbitt and others to move in, the last line of defense was a plainclothes officer with a pistol. When Ashley Babbitt refused and was screaming that they were going, let me make it clear, they were not on a tour. They were not civilians just frolicking for the day in the Capitol as some revisionists have disgustingly portrayed this as. She yelled with her group that they were there to murder, to do violence, to attack. This is what you said about right-wing people saying, well, if they move for their waistband, you know, they have the right to shoot and kill them. A police officer who has a reasonable belief that both he and that what he's been charged

with protecting is at risk has the right to use lethal force to stop it. No one told Ashley Babbitt to climb through that broken window with her backpack to lead the charge of others behind her. She made that decision voluntarily. And that she got shot in the neck or in the shoulder, the press has been a little bit murky on that, and it was fatal, was her fault. And to now sue for wrongful death because she claims that she should have been given other non-lethal stop orders or she should have been apprehended in some way. She gets through that 20-foot speaker's lobby

and we're going to be talking about not just the Jan 6 insurrection and five people dying, including two police officers by suicide. We're going to be talking about a dozen elected officials shot and killed on site. A tale of two quotes. Let's look at the quote by Terry Roberts, the lawyer for the Ashley Babbitt family. He says, quote, it's not debatable. There was no warning. I would call what he did an ambush. I don't think he's a good officer. I think he's reckless, referring to the still unidentified officer, although the GQP members out him at all of the hearings. So his name's actually out there because the GQP political leaders say his name frequently,

but we're not going to say it here. Mark Schammel, lawyer for the unidentified Capitol Police officer, says, quote, it's a false narrative that he issued no verbal commands or warnings. He was screaming, stay back, stay back, don't come in here. Now, I want to be slightly critical for a second of Mark Schamel here, only for this. You don't need to respond to the crazy fake narrative that Terry Roberts, the lawyer for Ashley Babbitt's family, is saying. This whole idea about the officer ambushing Ashley Babbitt and not giving verbal warnings misses the biggest point here, which is Ashley Babbitt is a terrorist.

She is a terrorist who tried to kill political leaders. She is a terrorist who tried to overthrow our democracy and with her group of other terrorists stormed the most sacred building of our democracy. Focusing on the commands, I think, is not insignificant. But let's not lose the forest for the trees here of what took place where a terrorist tried to storm our Capitol building. And what this officer did was effective in stopping that group of people, because the moment he did it, the moment they crossed that bridge, those basement dwellers, those people, those cosplay fascists who were out there saying the things that they see in video games and saying the violent stuff, they became chicken shit the

moment they realized, oh, shit, this is an insurrection. Like, there are consequences for what we do. And we see all of these basement dweller GQ peers, you know, crying in court now and whining and trying to. With the leaders saying holding press conferences like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mo Brooks and all the rest of them, free the January 6th insurrectionists. They're being horribly mistreated in jail. They GQP to just a stupider version of Al Qaeda. And the same way Al Qaeda has its martyrs, our stupid GQP has its stupid martyrs. And that's just what we're seeing here. But the people who were actually ambushed during the insurrection were the Capitol police officers. Those were the people who were ambushed, and they gave compelling testimony, which has been analyzed every which way.

Let me ask you this question, Popak. After watching the testimony of the brave and courageous metropolitan police officers from D.C., the Capitol police officers whose job solely is to protect the Capitol and its surrounding structures, which is significant, which is a significant infrastructure, is prosecuting Trump for the role that he played, that Trump played in the January 6th riot easier now, thanks to the Capitol officers, or did nothing really change? I mean, you and I always thought that he should be held accountable, but was there new information injected that says, you know what, I think this is more of a reality now? Yeah, I thought, I think it makes it, to answer your question up front, I think it makes it easier for the prosecutors to bring the case. We'd seen bits and pieces of this testimony before, but when it was just compiled altogether under oath, the compelling testimony of the people who were protecting our Capitol and were victims themselves. I just want to remind our listeners, I know they know this because they follow this

stuff closely. We've had two suicides of Capitol Police directly related to the attack. This is at the same time that there are 12 or 20 members of the House of Representatives who voted against awarding the Congressional Medal to the Capitol Police for that day because they didn't like the language in the proclamation. I mean, that's how outrageous it would become. If we didn't have Eugene Goodman having a group of people, terrorists, follow him away from representatives and senators, there would have been mass blood on the hands of all these insurrectionists. In addition, if we didn't have the unnamed officer who shot and killed Ashley Babbitt, we would have had a dozen dead in the House chamber. To listen to the testimony of the officers, many of them in tears, talk about what was screamed at them by the Trump supporters,

not Antifa, not a false flag, Trump supporters, telling them that they were sent here by Trump, that they came off the rally as a result, that they were here, you know, because they said they were, you know, libertarians, that they were trying to protect liberty, and they wanted the police to stand down and let them in, in order to overthrow the government. To hear those words and the linkage back to Trump, who lit the flames, who got that crowd up to a fever pitch, a murderous mob, and then pointed them directly at the Capitol, like sending a missile, a loaded missile into that crowd, I think prosecutors should be seriously considering whatever they can do and let the defenses fall where they are. Let the executive privilege defenses fall where they are, but bring the suit. Other than the executive privilege claim, it's probably the easiest case in the world to bring, like let's not even sugarcoat this. If this was in any other context and a terrorist leader was in front of a mob of people and you've seen that

image that the New York Times so brilliantly recreated of after the speech where the cell phone towers literally show the mob then storm the Capitol building. But if you have a terrorist leader who's telling people, I'm going with you, we're going to go in there, we're going to give them hell. And then you got everybody else around, you know, everyone else is part of your core terrorist team, basically saying trial by combat, get ready. And then you go and attack the Capitol building. You would be charged with treason and you would be put in jail for the rest of your life, probably times three or four life sentences is what you would be sentenced to. So let's be honest. This is the

easiest case in the world to bring against Trump and all the others that inspired that insurrection that day. And we're not just inspired who literally encouraged it and who were active participants in it that day. I understand there are these overarching considerations of executive privilege. It's the president or the former president, which just makes me puke to even say. But it's not a difficult case to bring against Donald Trump in any other context. All right. Switching gears, I want to talk about the recent Department of Justice defense of the Biden eviction ban in court in light of the Delta threat. Delta variant, no joke, no joke. I know a lot of people who are sick from the Delta variant and who had been to locations and been to places where there were in states, particularly where there were unvaccinated people, where there was an unvaccinated friend.

And, you know, the people I know are so angry and upset that others are not getting vaccinated. They've done what they had to do. And they were in a location where there are people who may have been unvaccinated. And it's the whole situation is is incredibly frustrating with the disinfo that's been out there. We're going to talk about this in a little bit on the show with Death Santas banning the cruise industry. We've talked about this on the last one, but we're going to talk about it in the context of a new lawsuit filed by the cruise injury against

the Santa saying, hey, we want vaccine cards on our ship because we want to not have death ships. We want to be in the business of cruises. Death Santas, you may want to be the death governor, but we want to be a cruise ship, not the death ship, please. And so this issue about the Department of Justice defending Biden's eviction ban in light of the Delta variant is a very complicated and complex issue. The eviction ban has been in place for quite some time and the national realtors in various states, particularly here, it was Georgia, it was Alabama who brought a lawsuit against the CDC

for being responsible for imposing this eviction ban is saying, look, the association we represent, homeowners, facilities that rent are losing money and a lot of money and are going bankrupt because we aren't able to collect any rent from people. And I say it's a complicated issue, too, because, Popak, like, I am aware of stories where there are people who this law really wasn't meant to protect, who, though, abuse the law, who live in, you know, places that... Billion- dollar homes. Yeah. And so there is a broad sweep to the law. And Biden, there was a Supreme Court decision that didn't address this specifically, but where the Supreme Court questioned whether the CDC had the right to impose the ban. And

Biden's instincts seem to say, all right, I think it's time that we phase out this eviction ban. But that's changed with the Delta variant. And the DOJ basically said on balance, the problems we hear you National Realtors Association. But if we have a homeless crisis that is significantly exacerbated because we have a homeless crisis right now, if we have a homeless crisis that is significantly exacerbated, because we have a homeless crisis right now, if we have a homeless crisis that is significantly exacerbated plus a Delta variant, guess what? National realtors, you're not going to even have people who could rent in the first place because

our economy is going to be so destroyed and people are going to be dead. So you're not even going to have business that way. So on balance, this is what we have to do given the Delta variant. Popeye. Yeah, this one's complicated, but we're going to do what we always do. We're going to simplify it and get it down to its essence. And as a way of background, my dad, my late father was a realtor for 50 years. I got my real estate license when I was 18. I sold real estate when I was in high school and in college. So I kind of get it. But here's what happened. The Biden administration passes the moratorium through the CDC as a blanket eviction moratorium nationwide. That goes up to the Supreme Court.

And in a very interesting ruling, and now our listeners are very sophisticated in Supreme Court analytics, the way that we present it, you get a decision where four of the most conservative or right-wing justices, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and then Kavanaugh, but put an asterisk next to Kavanaugh, we'll talk about him in a minute. They say CDC overstepped its boundaries, and this is back in June, and can't issue a nationwide moratorium on eviction. It goes beyond their powers, and they would have ended it, four of them would have ended it right there and then in June. Kavanaugh remarkably sort of saved the program, at least till it sundowned, until it ended recently, or about to end. And his argument in concurrence was, I'm in favor of ending it too.

I think the CDC overstepped its powers. However, let's let the federal monies make its way through the pipeline. Let's make sure all renters are properly protected. I'll give it more time. So his vote alone actually stopped the nationwide moratorium ban or moratorium on eviction from being ended back in June. Now, two of the chapters of the realtors in Alabama and Georgia have brought suit at federal court in the District of Columbia, arguing that the more limited moratorium that the CDC has rolled out targeted to states that have very high Delta variant numbers is also violative of the Supreme Court's decision in June. And they point to Kavanaugh's concurrence basically saying, listen, you don't have the power to do this. It would have been 5-4 against you. And if we read the tea leaves and add together the concurrences with the dissents,

you know, we think the precedent is as follows. The Department of Justice, the DOJ, has come forward and said no. That ruling was very specific to the CDC's ability to do a nationwide non-discriminate ban on or moratorium on evictions. And we get the law in that area. But that's not what the CDC is doing now, the Department of Justice is saying. What they're doing now is targeted specifically to a health crisis of the Delta variant in those states that have rising cases like Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Florida, which we'll talk more about in the podcast. Or every state. Or every state that's red. That basically has, I mean, I don't know if you saw the stats. I'm sure you have, Ben. 98% of current, of new cases of coronavirus,

98% are Delta variant. Two months ago, it was 10%. So it's completely taken over as the dominant strain of coronavirus. And 98% is also the percentage of people that are hospitalized that are not vaccinated. So do the math. I don't get why red state people haven't done the math. And the most amazing thing is a public service moment on the legal AF is that it is leading to a uptick, substantial uptick and unvaccinated getting vaccinated in red states, including in Alabama. Alabama just recorded its highest number of daily doses, daily jabs of vaccine in the last week because even the Delta variant is scaring the crap out of right wing people. You know, that disinfo and this has nothing to do with the law, although maybe one day there'll be some lawsuits about the disinfo that certain people spread, which I hope and I hope there are certain people who are not as immune who spread the disinfo of Fox News who will be sued for really being COVID's best friend and COVID's engine in this. chamber, what I feel like it's done, Popak, is there's been a lot of people who, even smart

people, when the way that disinfo hit them, is it just caused them to say, you know what, let me just wait and see. Let me wait and see. I'm being told a lot of things right now, which is why if there was genuine and true leadership, those people would have got the vaccine already. I heard it on Facebook became the predominant theory of why I'm not getting back. And there are wacky people with their views. They're the GQP views, but there are actually a lot of kind of smarter people who are like, you know what? I'm hearing it from a governor DeSantis. You know, I'm hearing it from like a Ted Cruz. I'm hearing it from smart people that maybe I shouldn't get this. So let me hold a little bit and see what happens.

Then boom. Then we hear the stories about these people dying. And now people want to start getting the vaccine after the proliferation. Anyway, sorry for interrupting. No, this is this is like one of those those horror movies or one of those catastrophe movies where people ignore the science. And then there as the planet disintegrates, they're racing to get to the spaceship and fighting over each other to get off the planet. I mean, it's become that.

But if anybody doubts, and I know our listeners and followers of Midas Touch don't, but if anybody doubts that Facebook is the number one place people get information, when Biden announced last week or earlier this week that their goal for their administration, which will happen because if they get two terms, it'll take it right out to 2030, is to have 50% of American vehicles, cars, be electric, 50% by 2030, which is just around the quarter. It's at the end of the second administration. The immediate reaction was hundreds of millions of dollars of Facebook ads being placed by fossil fuel companies, Chevron, BP, all the oil companies rushed. And where did they put their money? Well, they didn't put it on the Midas Touch or Legal AF podcast, for sure. They didn't put billboards.

They pumped it into Facebook because that's where people are getting their news and information from. And the other thing that's disgusting and really, the only reason that the right wing is using COVID in the way that they're using it is for fundraising purposes. If there was no money in it, Fox News wouldn't be running their stories. If their ratings didn't reflect an uptick every time they ran a COVID scare story or a Liberty, we don't want to be muzzled and masked or whatever the current BS is. If there wasn't money in it, they wouldn't be running those programmings. If there wasn't money in it for DeSantis, and we'll talk about it later, to fight back against Biden and his biomedical control or whatever this phrase that DeSantis has come up

with, if he didn't then use it for his fundraising purposes, there was no money in it, he would be a normal civil servant and tell people to go get vaccinated. Yeah. And so as you were saying that I was coming up with a framing in my mind, my mind sometimes works. And what what what are how can we connect this to people in a way that maybe they understand? It's kind of like zombie movies. And perhaps we should look at the Republican Party and what's taken place as like the zombification or the zombification of the Republican Party, where, you know, in the movies, in the kind of parody zombie movie, like the zombie bites or eats the other person and

it turns them into a zombie. Here, the GQP is spreading their deadly virus, you know, you know, both in terms of their disinfo and the actual virus and converting and trying to convert people into these walking, talking, crazy zombies who are literally amongst us and it's a fight really for the living against these zombies against this death cult that's really that that's out there the problem with zombification is you're killing people they're zombies you know and that's not a good thing to be um but in this rhetoric that's why they spreading the rhetoric, this false rhetoric, because they're trying to convince more people to go into their death cult to, to, to solidify their own power. Should we talk about Andrew Cuomo? And I, I think we have to talk about Andrew Cuomo and The struggles that I have both as a lawyer and as a progressive Democrat pro-democracy is that the power of your pen to hold people accountable is one of the most important things you can do as a lawyer. It's one of your most sacred responsibilities. And the

Republicans have completely abdicated their responsibilities. Not only have they abdicated their responsibilities, pedophiles like Matt Gaetz and sexual predators like Donald Trump literally are the face of their party. They don't even investigate their own. They hoist up all of these individuals as their leaders, and they make a mockery of every aspect of our law. And we have an obligation to call out wrong conduct. We have an obligation to hold people like Andrew Cuomo accountable. And we do that on the Democratic Party. And I say why it's frustrating for me to talk about is because I know on the one hand, I have an obligation to talk about it, Popak. But on the other hand, I know that what I'm doing

is allowing the GQP with a party of sexual predators, a party of pedophiliacs, what they are, to make inroads into voters. And that's problematic for me. So I just share the tension in my mind, but I feel like we have to talk about it. I do too. I'm not going to join you in the Republican Party as a party of pedophiles, but I get your point. On Cuomo, who, you know, everybody knows I'm in New York. I followed Cuomo for a long time. I mean, I was just commenting yesterday. I remember the beginning of the pandemic when he was doing his daily press conferences that were going worldwide. I have friends in London who would tell me that their mothers were in love with Cuomo and that in London they would get up whatever time they needed to get up to watch his press conference. I saw people walking around the streets of New York with a I heart Cuomo shirts.

I mean, when he was at the height of his popularity, what we're talking about now, I don't think would have been conceivable, but it's serious charges. And he's got at least four different major problems against him, both personally from a liability standpoint and politically. So let's unpack it and first kind of catch our listeners up on this. You've got Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, who was charged by Cuomo, okay, to conduct an independent investigation of the charges against him brought by female staffers and others around his inner sanctum who claimed that he had touched them inappropriately, made inappropriate comments, or what I like to call, at least in this context, groping and grooming. He's either touching them

or he's grooming them for sex. And this was the allegations. And they were, you know, pretty shocking and scandalous. And, you know, he was pushed politically to do the right thing, which was to turn it over to the attorney general, who's an elected official, Letitia James, and her team. She then hired two supremely credible investigators from the private sector, who are well known in the areas of employment law and criminal investigation, to conduct the investigation, which they did over several months, interviewing dozens and dozens or 100 people. At the very end of the investigation, only a few days before they issued the 165-page report with exhibits, they interviewed Cuomo. It went for 11 hours. Now, it was at the end. I'm sure most of the report was already in the can. They were just getting his point of view about the serious charges brought by not one, not two,

not five, 11 women. I mean, this is taking on Tiger Woods' proportions. A number of them were executive assistants working directly for the governor. One of them was a female state trooper who was on the detail, the protection detail for the governor, who claims that he would walk by her and run his fingers down the front of her uniform in her abdomen and comment about her fitness and all sorts of other inappropriate things. Now, in response to this, there's been a number of things. The Assembly, the government in the state, is starting impeachment proceedings based on what's in the 165-page report. That's one. investigations as to whether crimes, sexual crimes, happened in their county by Cuomo as the perpetrator based on allegations that have been made. So you've got an impeachment proceeding. You've got five potential separate criminal probes brought by five separate district attorneys. You have one of the executive assistants, these are all females, who filed an actual criminal complaint. She's unnamed.

She's anonymous. She was anonymous in the 165-page report as well, claiming that during an interaction with the governor in his office or in his conference room, he reached under her blouse and cupped her breast. He sexually assaulted her. And she has filed a criminal complaint in Albany, where the seat of power is for New York, claiming that. That is a misdemeanor with a one-year potential prison sentence, if proven. So we've got that open. And then you've got the defense, which has now started. He's hired a former Obama prosecutor who's now in private practice. She's handled some pretty notorious other cases. So she's got the chops to handle this kind of defense. But they came right out of the box and did what you and I expected, which is they attacked the

victims or the potential victims and claimed that all of them are lying. None of this happened. And some of them are doing it for their own political gain. One of the members of his staff actually ran for Manhattan borough president at the same time she was tweeting allegations against being groped by the governor. So, you know, there's some claims there that they filed their own 65 page or so response with pictures. Some of that I thought was sort of compelling about laying out some of these people's agendas. I thought a lot of it was actually silly. I mean, to attach exhibits. Ben, did you see the photos that they attached to their response of just a series of photos of Cuomo hugging and kissing people.

It was a bad report. There are some things that you can do, even if the report that you're doing is good, that will cause you to lose all credibility. And so when you're doing photos of political leaders who are hugging people during national crises and then saying that, see, look,

this is what hugging is like. People know what hugging is and people know what groping is. Politicians are known to kiss babies on election or to cause, you said to comfort people during national crisis. They're not supposed to take somebody in their conference room and fondle them. And by the way, you can say what you want

to say in the report, but showing a picture of President Obama hugging someone is just makes you look just it just isn't the smartest argument. It just loses. Well, the other one that I thought really struck me badly made me scrunch up my nose and say, oh, this is the best they have, because it detracts from their main argument, which is without too much corroborating evidence, other than Cuomo's word, these people are liars. I mean, that is the fundamental thread throughout the entire defense. But, you know, they had a footnote where they thought it was compelling, and I thought it was actually just not only silly, but detracted from their position. When the woman who claims that she was groped under her blouse,

who's now a criminal complainant against him, they say, well, that couldn't have happened. And first of all, it certainly didn't happen in his office. At best, it happened in his adjoining conference room. I'm like, okay, well, who cares where the grope happened? And then they go on in a footnote to describe all of the memorabilia that's in the conference room as if that matters. Like he wouldn't possibly grope her in there. There was something from his father, Mario Cuomo.

There was a piece of 9-11 artifact. There's a memento. I'm like, are you kidding me? Who cares what the room looked like? Is that the best you got? So look, 70, they did a recent poll. He had the support of the New Yorkers for a long, long time. 70% of New Yorkers now tell him that he should resign. 70. Almost every political leader that matters in New York, including ones that were his close confidants, have told him to resign publicly, have taken podiums and said, the governor's got to go.

So whether he resigns, I don't know. I think he should at this point, to be honest with you. I don't think he could be an effective leader any longer with these charges. He needs to defend himself. Fine, but he should do it as a civilian. Certainly he shouldn't run again because he has the opportunity to run again for office. And I think that's what you said. I think that he has the right, absolutely, to defend himself as a private civilian. There was an independent investigation by another Democrat, the attorney general of the state, that Andrew Cuomo made the decision to participate in.

And whether it was because of political pressure, the right thing to do, or however you want to frame it, he did it. The findings of that investigation not just came out against him, but very much against him. And it's a distraction during this time, especially in 2022, that is not needed. Switching to another, Governor Popak, I thought you just broke that down. Great. And provided real clear, concise insight into everything that's going on with Cuomo in a way that I think our listeners they know what's going on but I think you broke down all of it great I want to talk

about the cruise industry in Florida we keep coming back to it because Death Santas continues to enact measures as Florida has been the epicenter of the COVID pandemic and now is also the kind of epicenter of Delta, not the airlines, the deadly lethal variant that's spreading and killing all of its people. I think it was like 135,000, 140,000 cases in Florida last week alone. And DeSantis doesn't accurately report. So if that's the number that's being out there in papers, it's probably significantly higher than that based on everything that DeSantis did. But here we have the Norwegian cruise line, one of the successful cruise ship companies that operates across the world, but out of the ports in Florida and Miami, asking a judge to block Florida's vaccine law, which would prevent the cruise ship for asking for vaccine cards from its passengers. Norwegian Cruise wants to say to its passengers,

you know, the same way when we grew up, we'd have to we have to tell people that we were vaccinated for smallpox like this isn't a new concept. People like my entire life, when I went to college, when I went to camp, when I went to certain events in group settings, I'd have to show proof that I was vaccinated against diseases that would kill other kids. You're not allowed to have mumps, rubella or smallpox because it's your personal liberty, which is the argument that people are using about not getting vaccinated against COVID. You don't have that right. Somebody wrote on one of our feeds, what happened to free will and personal liberty? And I wrote, you also don't

have the personal liberty to contract smallpox or polio. Yeah. And it's incomprehensible to me, you know, and sometimes I'm at a loss of words when I think of the GQP, when they can't get crazier, they champion as their major civil rights issue, the right to contract COVID, the right to contract and spread the Delta variant, that they think that wearing masks is this invasion of their liberty when in fact, this is why they can't be called conservative anymore. This is why there's nothing conservative about them. Like the conservative decision is where the mask, the conservative decision is where the vaccine, the conservative decision on paper is to have people responsibly write down on their vaccination cards the date of their vaccination so that they can they're out there literally championing, you know, you know, death. And you go back in history and you look at these governors who were on the wrong side of history and you look at what's going on now and someone like a someone like a death santus is so far on the wrong side of history that if he wasn't just imagine what our country would be like if someone like that was in charge

of it right now you would have delta variant everywhere we'd have to be wearing like full fledged you know medical body suits to go. Like things would be that horrible if someone's like that, which is why I really want to tell everyone, but I'm going to pass it to you about this. There's no region cruise line, Popak in a second, but everyone listening out there, why is Midas touch doing a podcast called Kremlin file? Why are we doing it?

The rise of Putin and the end of Russian democracy is mirroring what Trump wanted to create. It's mirroring what DeSantis wants to bring here. It's not a savvy, sophisticated government over there. It's actually an idiocracy run by an authoritarian who just kills opposition. And there's no real logic. Things aren't good over there. We just have crazy GQP members here and their enablers like Tucker Carlson going to Hungary, who's got a total GDP of one hundred and sixty three billion billion, whereas California is trillions of dollars in GDP and Republicans hoisting up far right governments across the country. And it just it's just infuriating. But sorry,

Popak, I digress. Norwegian Norwegian Norwegian cruise line, the governor of the state that you lived for some ambiguous period of time wants to force cruise lines to have apparently pandemic outbreaks on their cruise ships? I sometimes get so caught up in listening to you that I forget I'm co-hosting. I'm glad I came back. Also, one observation. I never thought I'd say this. I never thought I'd say that Ben Maisalis is underestimating the ability of the Republican Party to be even crazier than they are right now. They have an infinite supply, apparently. There is no line that they will not cross. We saw that with the presidency of the last president. But this one is, I think we can sum up relatively quickly. And I think we have finally, for our judge junkies out there, and we've talked about

the federal system and the state system and Obama appointees and Trump appointees and all of that, we got a good judge now for this Norwegian case, a judge that I know from my time in Miami. So just to recall, because even though you and I move on with different episodes of Legal AF, the cases that we talked about still progress through their procedural postures. So we still have at the 11th Circuit, which is the Court of Appeals that covers Florida and Georgia, the pending case brought by the DeSantis administration claiming that the CDC mandates on cruise ships about vaccination, wearing masks, test cruises, hygiene, cleaning up and all that that's still being considered by the 11th circuit full panel about whether that cdc has the power to enforce that on cruise ships and that would be in opposition to the sanis's policies the sanis has a separate policy which is he outlawed past vaccine passports i know them well i don't know what's exactly going on in California, but in New York, starting September 13th, if I don't show my digital vaccine passport,

I'm not getting indoors to a restaurant, let alone an event. So it's not just Broadway. It's going to your local pizza place. I know you like talking about you've got a thing for local pizza places. I do too. You won't be able to go in New York inside unless you have a digital passport and the state has rolled out a really easy one to use and we all have them. So DeSantis in his infinite wisdom and other like-minded governors, right-wing governors around the country have outlawed vaccine passports under what theory? Under the theory that it discriminates between those who have decided under free will that they don't want to take the vaccine and those who have decided that they're in a public health crisis and they have a moral and political and patriotic obligation to take the vaccine.

And so he doesn't want discrimination. So if you don't have the passport, then businesses like cruise ships can't ask for one when people try to cross their borders, you know, onto their ships and into their businesses. Norwegian Cruise Lines has stood up and said, no, no, we want passport vaccine. We want vaccine passport. We want to be regulated. Hey, can we have an adult here regulate us? Can we have an adult here regulate us so that our people don't die?

I want to know, as the cruise cruise ship operator who on my cruise ship is vaccinated and who isn't. And more importantly, the other people on the cruise ship want to know that too. And so we want to be able to use a passport, a vaccine passport. And DeSantis is stopping us from doing it. Judge in Miami now, now filed in Miami, a lot of these suits came out of Tampa, which is on the west coast of Florida. This is in the southern district, right in one of my hometowns of Miami. And a very good judge has gotten pulled by Norwegian through, really, it's just a lottery. A wheel spins by the clerk electronically, and these cases get randomly assigned.

But the random assignment has gone to, I know you love rustling papers, has gone to Kathleen Williams, who before she became a federal judge, an Article III federal judge, was the federal public defender for Miami and the acting federal public defender for Orlando and Tampa. So she's on the defense side of the bar. She's on the helping the poor side of the bar for her career. And she's now been a federal, she's an Obama appointee and has been a federal judge. If I was a betting person, I would say the Norwegian is going to do pretty well and that Judge Williams is going to come out with a appropriate, properly analyzed decision saying that the governor's ban against vaccine passports is irresponsible, wrong, and against the law. And then that'll get taken up to the 11th Circuit already considering a lot of the other DeSantis policy considerations. And it's really an intrusion onto private business.

I mean, private business, a cruise ship, they want to if they want to set a policy and they want to set rules to keep their people safe. At the end of the day, if people don't like the rules the cruise ship is having, guess what? You don't have to go on a cruise. You don't have to. Don't go on the Norwegian cruise ship. Go on. Go on. Go to your Trump rallies. Go to Tallahassee and go lick each other's faces, you wacko, stinky GQ peers and spread COVID. Like that's your alternative. Your alternative is go to the Trump rally. And it is consistent. You're right on point with private business

having the right to regulate its own operations. And for us to be talking about Republicans taking the opposite view just shows you how they've lost their way. But this is no different than if you get to travel to Africa and go on some exotic locale that's in a third world, they're not going to let you board the plane or the ship unless you were inoculated against a whole host of communicable diseases. That's been going on for like 100 years of travel. Why suddenly DeSantis gets to tell cruise ships,

drop your pants, drop your protections, let everybody in, let the unwashed masses in, who cares whether they're carrying any type of virus on board. It's just the height of hypocrisy. There have been, just looking at in terms of overall deaths of Ebola deaths in America, you know, there's this view that somehow amongst the GQP, when they go, you know, COVID is not that deadly. I never even understand what that means that something is not that deadly. I never even understand what that means that something is not that deadly. It's as if deadly

means like you'll get injured or something like oh like yeah if I die like you know I'll deal with it you know I'll deal with that shit and it's like no you're going to be dead. How selfish is it for you to take such a complacent view

of life and death as an american citizen so so so cavalier and covid deaths in america right now i just want to pull up the number ebola or covid which i want to put i want to put there's there's not a lot of ebola deaths is the point in America that I'm making, but there's been about over 616,000 deaths from COVID, over 35 million cases. And again, I think those numbers are likely low in terms of what the real numbers are. I think there's been a lot of reporting lag. Those numbers are also just what's reported. And we know that there are a ton of laws in that.

But the Ebola deaths, I don't think that there's more than a handful of Ebola deaths ever. This is this personal freedom versus mortality that goes on constantly. But it normally gets decided. In favor of life. People didn't want to wear seatbelts. In cars. Until it was proven. That if you wear a seatbelt. It cut deaths from internal collision.

Within the car. By like 90%. And it saved lives. People. One Ebola death. Okay thank you. People who are motorcycle enthusiasts enthusiasts a lot of them hate wearing helmets but you know the statistics show that if you wear a helmet it's going to drastically

reduce death and injury and then and then people that don't die from COVID something we don't talk about they place an inordinate strain on the medical system, on the healthcare system, not just from being overrunning ICUs and what it's doing to our frontline workers there who are working nonstop. In Florida, there were 16, I believe, children deaths from COVID while DeSantis was giving his press conferences that there's nothing to see here and there's nothing to worry about. 16 families lost their children during that same period. That was completely avoidable. The ICUs are overrun again in Florida. That's the other hidden thing that DeSantis hides as if he's a dictator in an iron curtain country. They are overrun again. The ICUs

can't keep up with it. And the strain and the cost that unvaccinated people are now placing on our healthcare system falls on the average taxpayer like you and I and our listeners. And it's completely avoidable by just going to free vaccinations, and you have a ticket to freedom, which is how you've described it. Oh, absolutely. Just further Ebola context. There's been 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths that were basically reported in the world. Well, the one that I hear reported in the world. Well, the one that I hear. In the world. Yeah, the one that I hear, and I think that's what you're alluding to, is, well, cars kill a lot of people, and we're not banning them.

Like, I don't really get this. Wear a mask, get two jabs, call it a day, reclaim your life. You and I, I know people will find this, will be amazed by this, but you and I and your brothers would like to stop talking about COVID. We would like to stop talking about COVID deaths and the Republican policies that have promoted death. We would like to be talking about other things. We should be after almost two years of a pandemic that in which, and that's the only thing he did properly as a president, was Operation Warp Speed. He didn't get the vaccine into anybody's arms. He had no logistical, but he did through his programming and focus, get a vaccine developed in a year that normally would have taken five. I'll give him credit for that. for it because he if you have the world class cdc if you have all of these things that would have done that and in spite of having all of the best things you've completely fucked it up

you've completely destroyed and countered everything that our health, all of our past presidents built up and and and were ready for this moment. Literally all all the former guy, the trader in chief, the fucking idiot, all he had to do was literally do nothing but instead hydroxychloroquine and Clorox and all of this bullshit that led to all of these deaths. And so, and the fucking name is stupid. Warp speed. You don't, it's, it's a serious, it's a serious health crisis that our medical facilities would have been able to address in a way that had didn't have to be politicized.

We would have had 70, 80% less deaths. And this man completely fucked it up. Can I readultate my comment? Yes. Okay. I don't give him, I don't get, you know, I don't, I'm on your side with all of that. He could have also, to use your vernacular, could have also fucked up the development of the vaccine, not believing in it, not believing that it was a serious threat. And that's the only God darn

thing that he did right, is that he put the money and the effort into pharmaceuticals and got that thing created in a year. Everything else after that is exactly the way you described it. Are Republicans the party of pedophiles? No. Popak, Popak being very cagey today. I'm right out there. I'm not going to. I would tell all of the Midas Touch listeners out there,

go look at the pedo Trump video and ask, you ask that question. I think there are a lot of, I think there are, put it this way. I think the republican party has a lot of pedophiles in the party and they project and they are disgusting back here how did i get back on this and they are just okay so one other thing about desantis DeSantis. DeSantis is also clamping down on these student mask rules as well. He is pushing forward executive orders that will stop school mask mandates. This guy's really crazy. And basically, if you're a school and you want to mandate masks, you have to, I guess, in Florida, let the parents opt out of the school. And if you don't have a sufficient opt out ability, then your school has to allow the kids to not wear masks.

And this is in the name of, quote, parental choice, according to Death Santas. And so they will not let schools enact their own policies. Here's the split screen I want you and Brett and Jordy to do. I'm going to outline it for you. Okay. Here's your one minute video. On the left side of the screen is DeSantis at his press conference declaring that he wants to see the bright, shiny, smiley faces of his children as they enjoy the education process. And that's why he's not in favor of masks. Do we have him? Do we have him saying that? Yes. He said, I want to see the smiling faces of children and my children as they're educated. On the other side of the screen, I want you to run

the stats showing that 16 children died in the ICUs in and around Florida at the same time from COVID because of his policies. Because it's easy for him to do these press conferences, but it takes organizations and leaders like Midas Touch to hold them accountable. So I'd like to see that split screen. Popak, I want you to text Bretton me that specific interview. I will. The second seconds and we'll we'll get to it. And then I want to touch upon this briefly, but I don't want to belabor the point. What are other GQP governors doing? We see Death Santas doing this.

We see Governor Abbott in Texas doing this. They blame immigrants. They blame illegal immigrants. They it has no like logical bearing because on the one hand, they downplay the threat of covid these governors. But then when they have to acknowledge that covid is a threat, they say it's the illegal immigrants fault and that and that the issue is the borders. And so the Justice Department recently sued Texas Governor Greg Abbott for law enforcement to pull over vehicles with migrants. So it's basically a way that Abbott wants to racially profile immigrants in his state. And what do you think about that? Yeah. So let me give the background that always leads into these litigated political discussions. Texas, like Florida, leads the country in two statistics. One, one of the lowest numbers of fully vaccinated people in the country, 44, only 44% of their

adults are fully vaccinated. New York is hitting 70% as a contrast. California, I'm sure, is right there. So you have that. And then you have 24,000 new cases a day recently of COVID, mainly Delta, primarily Delta variant in Texas. So that is the result directly of his policies, Governor Abbott's policies of outlawing masks like DeSantis and not promoting properly vaccine, the use of vaccine. And the result is you have supremely low numbers of vaccinated adults and supremely high numbers of Delta variant COVID in his state. a governor order preventing immigrants from being transported by the federal government as part of their federal right, supreme right to regulate immigration, naturalization, and the detention and transfer and transport of immigrants, because some of those immigrants might have COVID, is the height of hypocrisy again. The Department of Justice has stepped in an El Paso

federal court and has argued properly that under various articles of the U.S. Constitution, the federal government alone, without any interference from a state, has the supreme power to regulate immigration, naturalization, and by resulting statutes, the transfer, transport, and detention of immigrants. And so when Abbott says, well, I don't like the way they're moving immigrants through the federal system in Texas in vans and in cars and bringing these people in. He is violating the U.S. Constitution by issuing an order because there's only one government that is allowed to regulate immigration, including detention of immigrants, and that's the federal government. And for those of our law geeks who are taking legal AF law school, you look at the supremacy

clause of the U.S. Constitution, which is Article 6, Clause 2. You look at the power of the federal government only in naturalization, which is Article 1, Section 8. And you look at all things related to alien detention statutes. And so I would be shocked, even in Texas, if the DOJ doesn't walk out with a temporary restraining order against Abbott's order because of improper interference with federal power. And one thing to consider is where would we be right now if you didn't have a DOJ that was not doing what a DOJ is supposed to do?

What would a Trump DOJ have been doing or not doing right now at this very moment? I recall, Popak, my favorite books to read growing up, they would be scary are the alternative history books um and you know perhaps what we should do also at Midas Touch I'm just going to give myself a ton of tasks let's do videos let's create new podcasts are you going to do an Oprah book club well what I'd really like to do we should do an oprah book club what i'd really like to do though is do and really well done alternative fiction just of what the country would have been like right now had trump won and had the well had trump cheated and and and come into power um through the means of an authoritarian and what our country would be like now. Every state would look like Florida. Every state would, we would not be going to restaurants.

We would not be going to ball games. We would not be seeing our families right now. All businesses would be closed right now. And, you know, we would be, you know, listening to Trump go on every day on TV, saying horrible, you know, horrible things. So it was a horrible time period in our history, which is why we're pushing back with Legal AF, with Midas Touch. I like the idea. It would be a sequel to the book that you and I talked about at an earlier podcast, The Plot Against America by Philip Roth, which became a really chilling HBO series last year about what would have happened if FDR had lost, and Charles Lindbergh, who was a, unfortunately, and this is not revisionist history or critical race theory,

he was also a virulent anti-Semite and supporter of Nazis and of Adolf Hitler, if he had become the president of the United States, and it's the alternate universe that you talk about. Yours would be the sequel, would be Plot Against against America part two. No doubt about it. Want to talk about our final case, Popak. This is in your area of expertise. I'm going to give you the New York times headline from August 5th, 2021, but this is an area of law that,

you know, better than almost anybody. Gold star families accused major banks of aiding terrorists, according to a new lawsuit. And this is in that New York Times article says the banks, including Deutsche Bank and others ignored warnings that their customers were helping to finance it, to finance attackers targeting Americans in Afghanistan. So, Popak, let us know what's going on here. Yeah, thanks for that lead in. And this is a body of law and an area of law that you and I haven't talked about. It's hard to believe that we've done now 17 podcasts, but we haven't

talked about this particular area. And the U.S. government following 9-11 and Congress has passed a series of laws to give victims of state-sponsored and other terrorism against the United States the right to sue those that were responsible. And the most recent body of law in 2016 is the Justice Against Supporters of Terrorism Act, which is known by its acronym JASTA, J-A-S-T-A. And it allows victims to bring suit in federal court against supporters and profiteers from direct or indirect support of terrorism against American citizens and the U.S. government. And 115 Gold Star families, that means that those families have lost a close family member, loved one, child in the military. They've been killed, making them a Gold Star family. 115 of them have bound together in a Brooklyn federal court and brought a case not against countries or subsidiaries of bad countries that conduct terrorism worldwide, but against banks, a lot of them U.S.-based, most of them, all of them having U.S. operations, arguing that banks like Deutsche Bank and the other banks that have been named aided and abetted terrorist organizations by allowing a flow of money in U.S. dollar that belonged to those terrorist organizations or their front organizations, whether it be charities, phony charities, phony supply companies, to transact worldwide business through the bank. And the bank profited as a result, both by accepting the deposits, making interest on the deposits and fees to the tune of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. So in other words, the argument that the families

are bringing under this JASTA case is that the banks are not turning a blind eye. They know that their banks are being used for money laundering, of terrorist funds that are then used to purchase ammunition, to pay terrorists, to attack and kill Americans. And these 115 families represent those people that were killed. So you have the direct attack on the banks as opposed to, as I said, going after government, foreign governments or other BS charities that are really fronts for terrorist organizations. Suit just got filed. You and I all follow it closely. What do you think about going after banks for money laundering at the terrorist level? These cases are notoriously very difficult.

And, you know, I am kind of has become so complex, especially with the kind of digitization of currencies and cryptocurrencies and the ability of criminals, of money launderers to very savvy and sophisticatedly hide and move money. And then the need of these financial institutions, though, to perform certain basic rudimentary functions, it creates some tension there where if they, you know, we've seen this before where there have literally been bankers who know what they're doing. They work with the cartels, they work with the drug lords, they work with the terrorists, or they genuinely should have known. And so if they know, should have known, you know, and act, you know, just completely recklessly with no controls,

I think it's important that we reinstate controls. We don't want these institutions funding criminal and terrorist acts. But, you know, then there's a part of me that says the terrorists are the ones who are responsible. We need to find truly who their inner circle is and who they're and what the true infrastructure is that's allowing them to operate. And sometimes are we looking for some ability for accountability in the form of money? And banks have money. And, you know, look, if the banks are profiting off of terrorism and we can prove that they are profiting off of terrorism and they know about terrorism, should they disgorge their terroristic profit? You know, absolutely. But I think for me,

it kind of comes down to what they knew or should have known. Yeah, I agree. I think it's a very nuanced approach. I'm okay fundamentally with the concept that you have to get these terrorist organizations where they live, which is the pocketbook. They're not, you know, we had theories 20 years ago that Osama bin Laden was in some sort of cave handing out mixtapes that were being delivered to Al Jazeera. And, you know, he was, you know, he had money in a canvas bag or he was paying in rupees. He wasn't. As we know now, you know, from reports and from movies like, you know, Zero Dark Thirty, he was living in the middle of a neighborhood, you know, basically protected by that government and transacting business through bank accounts

and getting money wired out in or out. And so, you know, this theory that terrorists are living under rocks and in caves and aren't participating in either the dark web and in financial transactions is just wrong. And if you can cut off the head and get their money either directly, which is the preferred method, or if you can prove a case, and that's going to be up to the lawyers in Brooklyn here, prove a case that the banks turned willfully turned a blind eye in order to profit, didn't have established controls, anti-money laundering, AML type controls, because it was in their best interest to look the other way and profit from it, then I think the bank should pay. But I get your point about let's not lose our focus on the campaign against terrorists and terrorism by chasing money. Yeah. And look, if there is, if the person who knew that there was someone from Islamabad, you know, who was transferring unusual amounts of money, and then it was being transferred out to unusual sources, and you're able to prove that the banker said, you know what? I value the stream of money rather than trying to put forward our money laundering protocols. And there are

strict laundering protocols that are in place that regulate banks right now. And if they're turning a blind eye to it, then they should be held accountable. But we'll follow that lawsuit and we will keep you updated. So we will update you all as well. If Midas Touch Legal AF finds its new home on its new channel next week, but we will, of course, still be here same time Sunday. If it is Sunday, it is Legal AF, of course. It's great to have Popak back. Popak, any vacations coming up in the next few weeks? Not after all of the flack I took. I am going to be, I'm just welded to my chair for at least the next 17 episodes.

Well, I am excited to have Popak back. I'm excited to cut through some of these complex legal cases. And today we did explore some complex, some dense material that maybe you didn't realize how complex and dense it was. But Popak, who's complex but not dense, broke through it and gave you some incredible insight there. So thank you, Popak. Thank you, everybody, for listening. We will see you next week on Legal AF. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.