The MeidasTouch Podcast - Special Edition: MeidasTouch Presents 'Legal AF', Episode 4

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

On Episode 4 of our new weekly law and politics podcast, Legal AF, hosts MT founder and civil rights lawyer Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and commentator, Michael Popok, tackle the NRA’s bizarre efforts to secretly use the Bankruptcy Code to escape liability in New York and re-incorporate in Texas and discuss whether their business model and fundraising smacks of "financial domination." Next up, the conservative members of SCOTUS and especially Justice Gorsuch are leading efforts to thwart Biden’s agenda by stripping administrative agencies such as the EPA and the Department of Transportation from rule-making ability under the little-known “nondelegation” doctrine. Then, the Analytical Friends analyze the civil rights violation that occurred when Lt. Caron Narario, a Black Army officer, was peppered sprayed and almost worse during a routine traffic stop in Virginia. Ben and Michael then take a look at the recent “January 6 Insurrection” federal lawsuit brought by the NAACP and at least 10 members of Congress who feared for their life against Trump, Giuliani, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, for claims under the KKK Act of 1867 for conspiracy to violate the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment. Then, in a new “speed round” segment, Meiselas and Popok take listener’s questions on topics ranging from data breach lawsuits and the proliferation of ransomware computer attacks, to possible class actions against Trump for his deadly mishandling of the COVID pandemic and his role in the attack on the Capitol. --- 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. The ANF stands for Analysis Friends. Ben Mycelis of Garagos and Garagos, also of Midas Touch, joined by Michael Popak, managing partner of Zimpano, Patricius and Popak, your favorite lawyer on the Internet. Michael Popak, how are you doing, Michael? That's a great plug. For those that view this, look what I have for today. I have a gavel given to me by some of my team, which I may try to use during our podcast.

Just to be fair, you're my favorite lawyer on the Internet. I think you are a close second to Mark Elias, who's the voting rights lawyer. And he's got about 300,000 Twitter followers, which you will have, I predict, in about a year. But to leave no doubt, my favorite, I would say you're a close number one out there. Just want to be real and honest for the rest of the population. I appreciate that. We don't want to give any more fanfare to Rolling Stone, but we did a miraculous thing there that history books will write about. what the expression is. I know it very specifically, you know, he who throws stones. At the end of the day, I run the most transparent organization where I make zero dollars working for Midas Touch. And I had a organization in Rolling Stone, which is basically funded by the Saudi government, which killed journalists trying to talk about, you know, trying to attack

a progressive organization like Midas Touch. But I want to thank you, Michael Pop about, you know, trying to attack a progressive organization like Midas Touch. But I want to thank you, Michael Popak, as always, for being our lawyer on Midas Touch. We've kept you extremely busy since our founding. I think we may be able to open up our own law firm purely based on the amount of legal work generated by Mitah's touch. But getting into it and today's legal issues, the first thing I want to talk about is what's going on with the NRA, the National Rifle Association, which I think has been basically exposed to, in my own opinion, to be a Ponzi scheme that's being run by Wayne LaPierre, who basically has yachts in the Bahamas, paying $30,000 a month retainers to his personal travel agents. And then on top of that, giving huge commissions to the travel agents. So Wayne LaPierre, I think he took the stand

this week in these bankruptcy proceedings that are taking place right now in Dallas, whether or not this could even be a valid bankruptcy in the first place. Attorney General from New York, Letitia James, had filed a lawsuit against the NRA in New York for basically running a fraudulent operation out there. The people within the NRA started fighting each other and suing each other and going at each other's throats. Their consultants were suing each other. Their board members were going after each other, basically saying Wayne LaPierre was running the NRA as his personal piggy bank. Again, this isn't a partisan issue. The guy seems to be running this thing completely fraudulently.

And so he filed a bankruptcy petition in Dallas to try to restructure the organization so that it could be deemed to be a nonprofit in Dallas? What's going on here? Yeah, we got a lot to unpack there. First of all, let me clear it up for our followers. The bankruptcy filing that the NRA has made, and really Wayne LaPierre, the executive director, the CEO, was made because it came out in testimony in the bankruptcy proceeding itself that he didn't get board approval. He didn't get his internal general counsel approval. He just went to an outside law firm and prepared papers, and it was news to them. It was news to the board of the NRA and its general counsel that Wayne LaPierre had put it in bankruptcy or attempted to in Texas. The other thing I want to clarify for the followers is the NRA is not insolvent. It is not a proper candidate for bankruptcy. That you do not like the state in which you are organized and you don't like the attorney general looking up your skirt and looking into your charitable affairs, and I'm using that term mildly,

that's not grounds to go and bankrupt yourself and reincorporate in another state. And I'm reasonably confident that now that the judge has heard all the testimony, that they're going to reject this attempt by the NRA to run away from its responsibilities and the lawsuit that you mentioned in New York and try to reform itself in Texas. And by the way, even if they were successful, and I'd be shocked if they were, it's not going to get out from under Letitia James's lawsuit. She still has the power for all the things they did while they were in New York to go after them for the Ponzi scheme that they were. And, you know, listen, I think

lawyers like you, Ben, and your firm, weren't you involved with any NRA suits? Well, yeah, you know, we looked into a lot of these issues with them aiding and abetting individuals who engaged in mass shootings. You know, ultimately, they still receive a lot of protection under the law and a lot of immunities, regardless of their moral culpability. And so we never actually filed or brought any of the direct lawsuits against the NRA. I mean, there were some really tragic cases that I could recall where there were some mass shootings and some of the families who lost loved ones would bring cases against the gun manufacturers or bring cases against the NRA and lose for causation purposes or because there were other statutes that prevented those lawsuits. So it always struck me as an area of moral culpability, an area where there should be civil liability, but that was hard to deliver justice for clients. So I never

directly took those cases. But this LaPierre testimony at the bankruptcy hearing is something that was just very intriguing to read. The New York Times referred to him as an antiquated, absent-minded professor who doesn't use computers, who scribbles notes on yellow legal pads, who doesn't even know how to send text messages. Except, and back to your moral culpability, except he knew full well how to get on a yacht after mass shootings at elementary schools. And he said he had to go on a yacht and circle the world because he was fearful for his life. So of course, he did what anybody does. That's with an organization that promotes, ultimately promotes gun violence. He got on a yacht with a chef and a cook and a crew while grieving families, you know,

how to pick up the pieces from their children being shot by gun violence. I mean, that it's pretty despicable. Yeah, and that's his direct testimony. He testified that because he thought he was living, quote, under threat, that he had to find refuge on two luxurious yachts, Illusions and Grand Illusions, owned by an NRA contractor. And that these yachts were frequently based in the Bahamas, where Mr. LaPierre would stay at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island or in Europe when he would be mingling with celebrities.

This is not spin. This is not talking points of political parties. This is what Mr. LaPierre testified to. And it's incredible how much damage the NRA has caused the nation, but then peeling it a step back that it only basically stands for the self-aggrandizement of its leader and just enriching a cult-like figure who uses the money to basically defraud his true constituents. Oh, wait, who does that sound like? It sounds like every GOP thing, whether it's Trump or LaPierre, they all seem to run their organizations purely like Ponzi schemes and just rip off all of their constituents. Yeah. The New York Times also had a piece earlier this week about something

that was news to me. I'm sure it news to you. Something in the world called financial dominatrixes who actually demand money be sent to them over the internet. And apparently it gives sexual gratification to the people that send the money. So this person will go on vacation and she's a dominatrix and she will order her minions to send her more money so that she can continue her vacation. And I was like shocked by that. But then listening about Wayne LaPierre, how is it any different than what he does in collecting his money for his constituents? He's a financial dominatrix. My mind was just blown on the concept of financial dominatrix. So let me clear things up. One, no, I've never heard of the concept financial dominatrix in my life.

And two, just trying to wrap my head around the concept of basically hiring somebody intentionally to extort you throughout the day would seem to be the biggest nightmare of my life. I mean, shit, when I get the alerts from Citibank, when I have my little limit and a bill's paid and I get the buzz that the limit has been expired, even if it's not a huge number, it makes my heart stop. So the fact that you just have a stranger and you hire them to extort you, that's just the craziest concept I've ever heard about ever. I need to do more research on this

because they should make a hard, that would be the number, that would be my Blair Witch project right there in a nutshell. So moving on from financial dominatrixes to, I guess you can call non-delegation dominatrixes in the Supreme Court. A slew of, again, I don't like to use the term conservative and liberal because I've always said this on the Midas Touch podcast, and I'll say it again. I do not fit the typical boxes that would make me, quote unquote, conservative. I consider myself far more conservative than any of these current Republicans because I believe in our democracy. I don't believe in Jewish space lasers. I don't believe in mocking survivors of school shootings. That apparently is what conservative means today. So that is crazy. That's not conservative. It's another C word. It seems that these justices appointed by people like Trump and the GQP, they have a very malleable view of the Constitution. And we've talked about this before, you know, and just giving one example of the of the malleability. You have this doctrine, right, called strict constructionism.

And I'm a constitutional literalist. Every word has specific meaning, except when it comes to, you know, amendments that people don't agree to agree with. So, for example, the Second Amendment, all the Constitution, strict constructionists, and I say that just because we're talking about the NRA. This is what the Second Amendment says. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed with commas. Wait, wait, wait, wait. The first clause has a comma after it, right? Right. Meaning everything that follows, if you're doing grammar, everything that follows modifies the thing before.

That's the thing that the strict constructionists want to ignore when it comes to second amendment. Exactly. They actually want to ignore. Let's take out the words, a well-regulated militia. According to the strict constructionists, that's just, that's random words that don't even have any meaning. It's superfluous. Being necessary to the security for a free state. That's not modified by a well-regulated militia. That's just other words, apparently.

And the only thing that they read is the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. No well-regulated, no militia, no being necessary. And so that's just one example. We're going to get a little deeper into the weeds here as we talk about non-delegation doctrine and the dismantling of, quote unquote, the administrative state and all of these terms that you may hear being thrown around. But basically, we have very complex problems that are taking place in our nation as technology involves, as we learn

more scientifically about the climate change, about technology, generally speaking. And because Congress can't every single day solve every problem every single day. They can't solve many problems. There's been a doctrine of delegation where Congress can pass laws and the laws can then request that the various agencies pursue policies that are in furtherance of the commands and dictates of Congress, because Congress can't plan for everything. If you think about a law that's passed in the 80s or the 90s about computers, you can never figure out issues about Bitcoin and blockchain and things like that. So the agencies look to what the dictates are from Congress to pass regulations consistent with congressional mandates. So that's delegation. Because guess what? You have to run a country. You have to

have a functioning country and have things that operate and things that work. Because we like to live, we like to eat, we like to sleep in peace. But apparently the new GQP appointed justices, they for a long time when they started realizing, wait a minute, it looks like we may not be winning elections that much anymore. So let's basically create a doctrine that basically creates complete paralysis throughout the country so that nothing can work because we know Trumpists and all these GQPs don't like things working. So, Popak, tell us a bit about non-delegation and what the Supreme Court is doing. Yeah, that's a good segue. So, for the followers, administrative law plays a bigger role in your life than you can imagine. Everything from the Clean Water Act, things having to do with clean air, to regulations about mortgages, consumer credit, all of that is coming ultimately out of an agency of the federal government who was given the broad

policy strokes by Congress, but it's left to the agency through its rulemaking to come up with the nitty gritty, the granular level of the administrative law. Lawyer geeks like Ben and I know something about the CFR. CFR is a set of books and statutes that are all about administrative rulemaking done at the administrative level by the EPA or by the Treasury Department or by the Transportation Department or Commerce. And what Ben said is right. There's only two ways for Congress to impact your life and impact and regulate business. One of them is, and other aspects of your life, one of them is a direct statute that has the nitty gritty of how to execute that statute. For instance, the new voting rights law that's being considered by the Senate and the House, which hopefully will pass and override all

of these voter suppression laws around the country, actually has in detail at the molecular level, how long polls will be open, how absentee ballots will be handled. If there's going to be Sunday voting, if people can give water and food to other people online, really down to the molecular. But as Ben said, you can't do the Congress can't do every law like that. I mean, it barely gets anything done now for the 10 or 12 things it does a year. So what it does, the second way it can regulate is to is to create broad policy strokes, aspirational goals, and then turn it over to the experts in the administrative agency who are the scientists, who are the economists, who are the engineers, depending upon the department, and they come up with the actual rules and regulations. And as Ben said, because these regulations often last longer than any one administration,

because it takes a long time through the rulemaking process. You have to have public, first you have to draft them. Then you have to have committees look at them. Then you have to go through a public comment section time, or the public comments on them, and industry comments on them. And then you take comments from the industry being regulated. And then another year goes by. And then suddenly, hopefully, you have a new Clean Water Act or a Clean Air Act. And it lasts longer than any one administration. But if Ben's right, which he is, that the Republicans are having trouble winning national office, the administrative world becomes very democratic. And I mean that, you know, party's democratic. And so how can a party that is often out of power, like the Republicans, address that? Well,

then you go down the route of the Gorsuch's of the world. And now he's joined by Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett. And you go down the path of deconstructing the administrative state through a doctrine that the federalists, these conservatives have adopted called non-delegation, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's saying that somewhere in the Constitution, there is grounds to argue that the Congress cannot delegate to the administrative agency the task of creating these very specific regulations. So what's the impact of that? Well, if you cut the legs out from under the agency and you say, sorry, Congress, when you told the EPA to develop new clean air and clean water regulations, that can't be delegated. And everything that comes out of that agency's mouth and out of their printing press, all the regulations, a court should strike them down. So let's just stop for a minute. Forever, forever, conservatives have taken the position

that judges should not be activists. They should not strike down laws that Congress created. What Republicans mean is they shouldn't strike down laws Congress created that they like. Now they've adopted a new approach, allow judicial activism to strike down agency agency rulemaking to, as Ben mentioned, to basically immobilize the country. Just shut it down. Don't allow any new rules or regulations. And therefore, what will happen to our transportation policy, our infrastructure policy, our air and water environmental policy? It grinds to a halt. And now they've won. So the big fear is, and it's not a fear, it's going to happen. Gorsuch in a 2019 Supreme Court decision, but in dissent. So he wasn't in the majority, but he blew the whistle on this concept of non-delegation.

On the craziest case, by the way. I mean, like, if you want to know how absurd it is, what this non-delegation view is by Gorsuch and others. So from 1989, the delegation doctrine was set, in our increasingly complex society, replete with ever changing and more technical problems, Congress simply cannot do its job absent an ability to delegate power under broad general directives. That seems fairly common sense. Who would be like, who would be like, fuck that. That's some horrible stuff for the country. First off, who would be against that? Then, Gundy versus United States was a case where the plaintiff

was a convicted sex offender who challenged his conviction for being a sex offender, not because he didn't do it, but his conviction for failing to register as a sex offender when he moved to New York, because he argued that the Justice Department did not have the rights, having been having the rights delegated from Congress to label him a sex offender. So he was challenging. You can't label me a sex offender. Congress never could have given the authority to the Justice Department to say that I'm a sex offender in the first place, in the

first place. And the conservative, the quote unquote conservatives, this is why I call them the crazies, they went to the sex offender. You're right. They looked at the sex offender and they said, great point. You should not be labeled a sex offender. You had no right to the DOJ, the Department of Justice, so-called law and order. How dare they label you a sex offender, sex offender. This was a non-delegable duty. So if you want to know the craziness of the non-delegation doctrine, it's rooting in Gundy, which is a pro-sex offender case. You know, it's even on that note, you know, it's even as crazy. The entire federal sentencing guidelines, which are used by federal judges every day to sentence convicted felons to their jail sentence, their jail term. It is the federal sentencing guidelines which were

made by a commission. They don't have a problem with that. That entire structure that puts people whether in jail and for how long was not determined by Congress with a specific law. It was done by a commission off something that was delegated. And where is the outrage and the horror by the Republicans and the Gorsuch's of just changing whatever the doctrine is to ultimately suit your vision of – when I say suit your vision, suit the right wing vision of maintaining what they believe to be America in their mind, which is a white supremacist country that is backwards, that does not embrace developments or technology, that is so overly pro-corporation. And we could all be pro-corporation, but they're pro-corporation to the extent that they're destroying the corporations because they're letting corporations destroy the environment and therefore destroy themselves.

It's such a myopic, stupid thinking that when you think about the advancement of our country, you think no one's going to look back at what you're doing and go, great, great work what you did there by striking down all the environmental laws. We've seen what incompetent leadership and what stupid anti-science did in a very immediate sense with COVID. When you denied scientists access, when you spread disinfo, you have 600,000 plus deaths in the country. These regulations aren't designed to do anything other than try to help problems and solve problems through, as Popak discussed, a very diligent and transparent open process before any of these regulations are actually implemented. So we'll keep you posted there.

But it's why elections are so critical. And it's why you listening can't just be complacent. You can't just listen to the podcast. We appreciate you listening to the podcast, but you can't just listen to the podcast. We appreciate you listening to the podcast, but you can't just listen to the podcast and then just go on with your day and act like there aren't people out here who are trying to literally destroy the life

of you and your family every day. There is a crazy, radical, right-wing group of people who are a fringe party now, but who are a vocal, crazy group of cheaters who want to change the rules to destroy your life. And you need to step up. You need to do anything you can. Granted, Popak and I are lawyers and we could try to make difference in our legal fields. But you at home, whether it's just talking to a family member, a friend, you have to get out the word, though, that we need to preserve and save our democracy. And we need to make crazy views like the non-delegation doctrine, which,

again, is just a refuge and a vestige of upholding a anti-Diluvian kind of white supremacist view of this country. We need to make sure that doesn't survive and that doesn't exist in our country. So and just we'll leave it at this for the listeners. Anything that has to do with religious and religious rights in the United States going forward, Coney Barrett is going to be the leading vote. So far, there's been three cases about religious rights in this country, and she sided with the majority in all three. Anything that has to do with the dismantling of the administrative state, which means dirty water, dirty air, Biden's infrastructure policies being ground to a halt, look for Gorsuch. So those are the two, for me, those are the two justices going forward that our listeners should be attuned to, to see where

they're going, because that's where the court's going to go. Popak, did you see this video, switching gears for a second, of the U.S. Army officer who sued the Windsor, Virginia police officers? It was clearly an improper and unlawful stop that took place, I think it was last December, after the lawsuit was filed and the body cam footage was finally released, finally reached national attention. As a result of the body cam footage being released, one of the officers was terminated simply because the body cam footage was released, not because he did the wrong thing when it was known for months, the body cam footage was released, not because he did the wrong thing when it was known for months, but because the footage was released.

So a lawsuit was filed by the army officer just this week. His name is Second Lieutenant Karan Nazario. He was in his uniform as the police pepper sprayed him, threatened his life. When Lieutenant Nazario said, I'm honestly afraid to get out, the officer shouted, yeah, dude, you should be. Lieutenant Nazario went to this specific area. He went to this gas station because it was a well-lit area. He was afraid that if he did not stop there and he stopped on one of the dark streets that they would kill him. That decision probably saved his life based on how the police officers acted here. And so he'll be bringing a civil rights action. This is an area I'm very familiar with. I bring

a lot of what's called Section 1983, the Civil Rights Actions. 1983 is the Federal Code Section to bring federal civil rights actions. There are also state law claims that you can bring in these cases from me reviewing the videotape, knowing that the officer was terminated, but just watching with my own eyes here. It's definitely something I think that Lieutenant Coronazario is going to prevail in it. I suspect that there will be a settlement in the next six to nine months would be my guess. Yeah, I was both saddened and frightened when I saw the video. First of all, my dad was a second lieutenant after he graduated officer training in the army. I felt for this individual. He's wearing his

fatigues. He's coming back from the base. He's in his SUV. I guess the reason for the stop was that his windows were too dark, which is ridiculous. But more importantly, this concept, this unfortunate concept in our society of driving while black or driving while brown or Latino is a major problem that's been going on for way too long. You and I, as two white guys, get stopped in our car for speeding or otherwise. I do not have in the back of my mind

that this traffic stop could end with my death. But black and minority drivers legitimately have that fear. I'll give you an example. 30 years ago when I started my career, one of my colleagues was a very accomplished lawyer who was African American and came originally from the South. He told me over lunch 30 years ago that when he drove back to New Orleans from Brooklyn, where he lived, he would do so in a car where he was wearing on around his neck, like dog tags, his driver's license. And I looked at him not being able to empathize with that. And I said to that person, why? And he said, because I don't want any police officer as I'm reaching for my glove compartment, or I'm reaching for my wallet to shoot me. And

I'm not the only one that does that. That was 30 years ago. Okay. We are now 2021 on almost a weekly basis, an event like that leading to death or injury occurs. He did everything right. You and I might not think to drive to a well lit gas station to make sure there were witnesses, but he did the right thing. You know, they not only said to him, you know, you're, you better be afraid. They actually said that, I don't know if you saw this or heard this, they actually said, you're going to ride the lightning, which is a reference to the electric chair and the Green Mile movie. Okay. So this went beyond anything that you and I would have ever experienced. And certainly for me, as you've noted, is a civil rights violation of the first order. Yeah. And look,

we will keep everybody updated on these cases knowing they take time, these civil rights cases. And sometimes the process in litigating a civil rights case like this can be incredibly frustrating. For example, in California, you don't really get discovery, at least in the Central District. You don't really get discovery until you have a case management conference. And one of the issues with that is that sometimes these courts are congested and your case management conference may be six months, seven months after you file the case. And so you can't even do discovery and get the documents and the evidence until the case management conference takes place. And then sometimes depending on the judge you get,

you have certain judges who then want an expedited trial schedule. And then because the police have all of these immunities and because there are certain protections on getting police personnel records and things like that, they could file certain motions which delay you getting the records. And before you know it, you could be looking at a trial date, not really having a lot of the documents. And sometimes, you know, if you're the lawyer on a case like this, the lawyer on a case like this, you know, any lawyer that's worth, you know, that's worth anything will ask for the documents. But trust me, I don't get them right away. And I can't go in and rush into the police department and just take them. I wish I could, but I can't. I can't take them, you know, and they'll cite an investigative privilege. Hey, we're investigating this, so we can't give it back. And then they'll keep sending you letters. We're investigating. We're investigating. We can't get back to you. And for example, in California, you have six months after an incident to give notice if you want to file state law claims against a municipality. And so sometimes you don't even have all of your records before you can give notice of your intent to file a case. And so and then even once you get into once you even get into court, you know, one of the things that the police officers could argue here in in the case that's been filed is they're going to argue a qualified immunity. They're going to say that where we may have made a mistake here as officers,

the mistake we made was a reasonable mistake. It wasn't a reasonably defined and well-established right at the time that what we did was wrong. So even though we may have made a mistake, even though we may have acted negligently, you can't sue us as a police department because we didn't violate any well-established right at this specific time. That's a doctrine called qualified immunity. So when you hear people saying abolish qualified immunity, that's basically what they're referring to is that doctrine. And the issue is, is that qualified immunity gives judges a lot of discretion to make the decision whether a case should proceed or not.

Yeah, I think you got it right. I mean, look, I'm of two minds. There's a certain amount of immunity that I'm comfortable with when it comes to the operation of government and police. I might just be just to the right of where you're at with your cases, but certainly none of the things that have been publicly disclosed in body cams and video cameras, for me, would be covered by any type of immunity. And certainly no protocol or standard operating procedure should lead to the death or the bodily injury

of a person just because he's having an interaction with police. So we will follow up with that and see what's going on there. You know, we'll keep everybody updated. Going to the Trump lawsuits, we may have touched on this briefly before another Midas Touch podcast, but I want to talk about here from a legal perspective. There are a number of lawsuits taking place against Donald Trump specifically right now for inciting the insurrection. And they fall into different groups. There was a group of former Capitol Police officers who brought a lawsuit against Donald Trump for their injuries. And in addition, there were lawsuits that were brought by the NAACP, and there were lawsuits

that were brought by members of Congress. You want to talk us through some of these? Yeah, let's start with the NAACP and the members of Congress. So those were kicked off originally by a lawsuit brought by a member of Congress, Bernie Thompson, in the district, the federal court in the District of Columbia, against not only Trump, but Giuliani, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, all under a very good but unique application of a law that was developed after our Civil War and the restoration period that followed, or the Reconstruction period that followed, called the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which is what it sounds like. And for those geeks that want to follow along, it's 42 U.S.C. 1985. And it's an act to prevent conspiracies to violate the 14th Amendment. And the 14th Amendment, again, is your equal protection and due process amendment. So if you have a conspiracy, more than one person, and the object of that conspiracy is to violate the 14th Amendment rights of another individual, you have just violated the Ku Klux Klan Act.

And that is the basis of the lawsuit that was brought by Representative Thompson. Now, 10 members of Congress who were all, you know, within an inch of their life from being lynched and worse on January 6th have intervened to join the suit and filed an amended complaint. And the 10 members of Congress, all Democrat, range from Jerry Nadler in my home state of New York to Maxine Waters in Ben's home state of California, and everybody in between. They all allege in their complaint all the different ways they feared for their life, how they armed themselves with legal pads and pens and gavels, whatever they could find, and chairs, how they hid in their offices, how they had legitimate fear of being executed by this angry mob incited by Trump and Giuliani and the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. And so that case is traveling along,

NAACP is involved with that case as well. Separately, you have a case and a great case against the Capitol Police. Look, Capitol Police was probably a division of law enforcement that most Americans never thought about ever, unless they visited the Capitol and saw them doing their job, or, you know, during times when leaders die, lay in state at the Capitol and you see some police officers around. But this year alone, think about what's happened to the Capitol Police. You've got five of them or four of them that died either on the day of January 6th or by suicide by their own hand because of the psychological trauma of what happened to them on January 6th. So they're responsible for that, too. You've also got just a week ago, you had some madman ram a barricade at the Capitol, get out with a knife, and stab to death a Capitol police officer.

So, you know, putting aside all of our issues with law enforcement, I don't have any issues with the Capitol police. They have brought their own case because they were put in harm's way, completely outnumbered and outmatched with an armed insurrection that led to the death of a number of them and psychological trauma all the way around. So that lawsuit, I think, has got tremendous legs and will do well and do well also. And now the last question you posed, which I'll turn back to you, is, is there a class action that could be brought against the Trumps of the world related to the Capitol attack? Or is it really just the people that were subjected to the violence on that day? What do you think? I think, and this was also a question that I get frequently asked on Twitter, and the question I

get asked, can there be a broader class action against Trump, either for the insurrection that took place or just generally for the misrepresentations he's made in connection with COVID? Basically, a state sponsored, I think it's called democide, a form of genocide directed against your own people. And the short answer is, he should be. Do I think that there will be a viable legal case, though, against a former president for engaging in that conduct. The problem is, is that the constitution was based on a number of premises, which I think we always thought we were going to have a capable, competent individual who would rise to be the president and that they may have faults.

They may make mistakes, but inherently they weren't anti-democratic. And we saw that that's not the case. We saw the vulnerabilities. I think we're fortunate that the very glue of democracy stuck together, but just barely. And there's so much deference given to the president that actually suing a president acting in an official capacity is going to be incredibly difficult to prevail on, even though I think you should be able to prevail on it. I think that assuming we continue the fight that we're having here, marginalizing the GQP to this fringe radical right party, and when the country comes around and appreciates the full extent and nature of the death and destruction and devastation wrought by Donald Trump. I think Donald Trump will be viewed historically among the worst dictators and despots ever to live. I just think from a standpoint of could there be a lawsuit right now? I think that you could file one. I just think you're going to run into immunities against the president. And now let us turn to

an interesting part of the show that we just answered one of those questions right there about the class action that we got asked from our Twitter followers. That was Mark G's question, by the way. Mark G, you may know as Naked Mole Rat Man, who referred to my beard as a naked mole rat, the hairs on a naked mole rat, and then switched his Twitter profile from a convertible to a naked mole rat. So Mark G., thank you for that. Thank you for that question. I want to go to this next question, then we'll take one final question before closing the show out. This comes from Midas JB4WIGANFC. And the question is, why are state bars so unwilling to discipline its members? For example, Lin Wood, Farting Rudy, or constitutional, quote, constitutional expert, Jenna Ellis. and they wrote farting rudy and they put

constitutional expert uh because she's not one uh in quotes so popak what's your take and i'll give you my hot take after yeah okay i like the hot takes this is good a new segment this is like speed hot takes on espn hot takes with popak and myself um look it it's a this is not going to surprise our listeners that even in self-regulated bar associations, that there are politics. And even though they're supposed to be non-denominational, if you will, they're not supposed to be Republican or Democratic controlled, the people that are bar leaders in the state often reflect the politics of that state. So in New York, which is more liberal and by democratic roots, they, the New York, the New York city bar has gone after Rudy Giuliani. But, but, but Florida is not going to go after, at least while DeSantis is there and other conservative Republicans are in the Bar Association, the Florida Bar in Tallahassee next to the governor's mansion is not going to regulate

craziness that happens in Florida. In Georgia, think about it, the Georgia Bar is controlled by who? It's controlled by Republicans, and they're not as crazy as Lin Wood is. And he's been pretty off the rocker. His Republican conservative Georgia bar members are not going to do their job to disbar him. So you really got to look to liberal states and then go after them. Sidney Powell's bar license. I thought we determined this on the last Legal AF was based where, Ben? She's in the Midwest. I'm not sure.

Do you know where she is? Well, she's not in D.C. We know that. I think she argued, I think it's Arizona or Colorado. She's somewhere out there. They're not, you know, that's the problem. The problem is the self-regulating bar associations or these these state bars, if you will, don't have the cojones, the steel ones, because they're generally appointments or elected by other, you know, other other lawyers that reflect the politics of that state. What do you think? Yeah. I mean, I think there are a lot of very good and very well-intentioned state bar investigators out there and lawyers who work for state bars across the country. I just think by

and large, there's a specific type of target that the state bars are usually going after. Money. They're usually going after the solo practitioner or the very small firm that has the simple fact pattern of maybe they take money out of the trust account and put it in their general account to pay a bill, or they don't pay the client the money that the client's supposed to get when they're supposed to get it, or they don't return files to the client. There are certain very simple kind of fact patterns that are easy to get these Ws, these wins that the state bar can look back and say, we've successfully prosecuted, you know, XXX amounts of attorneys over the year. And then also regulate the non-licensed practice of law as well, if people are pretending to be lawyers and trying to root that out. But going after some of the massive fraud, a lot of times they'll just wait until

the feds successfully prosecute or a local state government successfully prosecutes. And then by operation of law, when you've been prosecuted, you'll lose your bar license if you fit into one of those categories. And so in my observation, they generally say, let the prosecutors deal with it. Let state governments kind of deal with it. Let prosecutors deal with it. And we'll just deal with that example that I gave you of the solo practitioner or the small law firm that mishandles funds or commingles funds or things like that. There are some times where there are just large, and generally some of these large law firms that have the resources to even fight back against the state bar, the state bar will just let them do some fairly shady shit and get away with stuff that a solo practitioner would be prosecuted right away for. So that's the overall observation that I have generally to answer that question.

But it's a really good question. Yeah, I agree with it. And then going to the final question, the final question comes from one of our Midas University chapters, the Midas UC Santa Barbara chapter, who talks about the class action, will there be a class action lawsuit coming out of the UC, the University of California system, that there was a cyber attack that took place? The schools have thus far only agreed to one year of credit monitoring. Do you think that there will be class action lawsuits against the UC system? I've done a lot of these data breach type cases. I'm surprised there isn't

a class action lawsuit that's already been filed. I have a feeling by the time we finish this podcast, there probably will be one filed because these lawsuits have become fairly kind of regimented, you know, and there are certain kind of players in this area of law and they form lawsuits and form fact patterns now because it happens so frequently. But we've seen, for example, there was a

big data breach with Marriott, a big data breach with Equifax and Target. And oftentimes the first step that a corporation or someone who engages in data breach will often allow the one-year credit monitoring. But here's the advice to the consumer, always read the fine print when you're being offered one-year credit monitoring, because oftentimes it comes with a catch. I remember on some of the early data breach cases

that I did, they would give you the one-year credit monitoring, but what you didn't realize was you were waiving your right to sue them by accepting the credit monitoring. And actually, there's a lot of attention brought to that practice. And Congress basically stepped in and shamed these corporations not to do that. But it doesn't mean that a less high profile one, a corporation may still do it. So the short of the matter is, yes, I think there will be a class action. Two, I'm surprised that there isn't one already. Three, with the free credit monitoring, just if you do want to accept that, make sure that there's no strings attached to it. That would be my advice. It was 10 other universities, including some here in New York. Yeshiva, I think, was hit all at the same time for ransomware. It was not just a data breach.

It was a ransomware data breach. And just for our listeners, it's exactly what it sounds like. in exchange for Bitcoin, which they think is untraceable, will first lock your data and threaten to either release it or erase it unless you make a ransom payment. And these ransom payments started out a long time ago as one Bitcoin, but now one Bitcoin is pushing $50,000, $60,000. The highest ransomware that was paid by a company in the last year is up to $10 million. A company paid $10 million to have the keys to its computer servers and system returned to it. So it's lucrative. That's why it happens. So you've got the ransomware issue on one side, which is the problem, whether you pay

or you don't pay. And if you don't pay, there's ramifications to it. If you do pay, you may not get your data back anyway. And then you've got the breach, which is what happens to the consumer, in this case, the student, who has all of his personal identification information released to the public because the entity didn't pay the ransomware. So you've got that lawsuit on top of it. But I think Ben's right. If that suit hasn't been filed, as soon as we get off this recording, it will be. I have no doubt about that. Well, I want to thank you, Michael Popak, for co-hosting this incredible week's edition of Midas Touch Legal AF. Let us know what y'all think about the taking questions from people on Twitter.

We should do more of that. We should do less of it. We appreciate all of you for making Legal AF by Midas Touch a top legal podcast and, in fact, a top podcast across the United States of America. We thank you very much. Michael Popock, any final words? I have one. I want to put a poll out to the listeners. Should Jordy Maisalis go to law school? That is the open question. Then he can join us here on Legal AF.

As Jordy would say, shout out to the Midas Mighty. Have a great rest of your week.