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- [00:01]
Michael Popak
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- [01:02]
Karen Friedman
We are 15 days into the Trump administration and I'm going to go on record here with my my partner in crime, Karen Friedman, the midweek edition of Legal af. I will say that Donald Trump has accomplished more negative things and chaotic things in the first 15 days than any president in history. What are we watching? We're watching a administration already crumble and circle the drain. A Department of justice for Donald Trump, if you can call it that, that is losing rapidly credibility in front of every federal judge they've appeared in front of. And that's not saying that.
- [01:39]
Ben Mysellis
That's saying a lot because there are.
- [01:40]
Karen Friedman
32 suits that have been filed against the Trump administration in federal courts around.
- [01:48]
Ben Mysellis
Around the nation, half of which are.
- [01:50]
Karen Friedman
In the District of Columbia. Which means look for the revenge of.
- [01:55]
Ben Mysellis
The Joe Biden appointed judges and those.
- [01:58]
Karen Friedman
Who, who handled the Jan6 cases.
- [02:00]
Ben Mysellis
This is their moment.
- [02:01]
Karen Friedman
This is what we're watching. So what, and what are we watching?
- [02:06]
Ben Mysellis
We are watching.
- [02:07]
Karen Friedman
Or as Chris Murphy, the Senator just said today, Donald Trump has lost it. He's, he's lost it. If the 25th amendment could actually be invoked by this, this group of, of toy cabinet members and J.D. vance. Is J.D. vance still vice president? That's just a rhetorical question. Where is he, by the way? We don't know where he is. But if you know we're going to.
- [02:30]
Ben Mysellis
Take over Gaza, troops on the ground.
- [02:32]
Karen Friedman
In Greenland, a trade war that lasted 24 hours and America lost a creation overnight Almost of a pariah state by Donald Trump of the United States, where we are radioactive to our allies, where we are inviting our enemies like China and Russia to step into the void created by Donald Trump's destruction of diplomacy. Who pulls out U.S. aid from the.
- [03:00]
Ben Mysellis
World, which is a vehicle of diplomacy that's been there for 60 years?
- [03:04]
Karen Friedman
Donald Trump.
- [03:05]
Ben Mysellis
Who pulls America out of the American.
- [03:08]
Karen Friedman
Economy, removing the thing that makes the economy hum, which is the American government funding states not for profits and the rest. Donald Trump, who jeopardizes your entitlements. And I, people got a little upset with me. I used that word the other day. That's the generic term for Medicare, Medicaid, you know, veterans disability benefits, student loans and the type and those type of things. It doesn't have anything to do with that snowflake term of you feel entitled is that you're entitled to it. You're, you've earned it. Who's jeopardized that in, in two weeks time, Donald Trump. Who's done an all out war on gender and on and on the transgender community who are American citizens. Donald Trump. He signed 30 or so executive orders, Karen, and now we've got 32 lawsuits, four temporary restraining orders, one preliminary injunction. And we're just getting started. As we've said before, trust the process. And the process is federal judges and the one that are being handpicked by the Democrats and by progressive and by public interest groups, know what they're doing up and down the west coast from Washington down to California, up and down the east coast from New Hampshire and Rhode island, down to Maryland and the District of Columbia. That's, that's where we live. Those are the federal judges we want. And already the Trump administration is 0 for 5. 0 for 5. And we just got started and I predicted, Karen, a long time ago that you can triple the amount of lawsuits that are going to be filed against the Trump administration from their first go around. That was a thousand, this is going to be 3,000. They're already averaging more than two a day. Two a day. And that's going to continue unabated as the Department of Justice, led by Donald Trump's all acting, acting this and acting that. Take ridiculous, intellectually bereft positions in court.
- [04:59]
Ben Mysellis
With that, don't even pass the straight.
- [05:01]
Karen Friedman
Face test with federal judges and telling them out loud in filings that they're not going to comply with federal orders. We'll see who's going to win the battle between federal judges and cabinet members for Donald Trump's administration. They Better have toothbrushes in their back pocket because contempt is on the way. We're going to use this opportunity not. We can't talk about all 32 cases. We'll do that over time, but we can talk about a couple of them. I want to drill down with you, Karen, on the, on the Doge mus category of cases, right. I want to talk about the ones related to his trying to kidnap all of our personal and private data and try to muck up the works of their payment system through the off through the Bureau of Financial Services and his access to other servers around the, around the government for which he has no right to be there and is an invasion of our privacy. I want to drill down on the war that's broken out between the FBI, the Department of justice, the Biden, the Biden leftover leadership against the Trump Department of Justice.
- [06:04]
Ben Mysellis
It's, it's a brawl in plain sight.
- [06:06]
Karen Friedman
And two lawsuits that have broken out. And then we'll talk about Trump turning the United States almost overnight into a pariah state. The trade war Gaza, putting troops on the ground in Gaza, taking over Gaza as the Riviera of the Middle east and developing it, shuttering usa, the impact on diplomacy and US Business interests and national security as a result. All right here on the midweek edition of Legal af. How are you doing?
- [06:34]
Carolyn Levette
I'm good. I'm good. It's so good to see you, Popak. It's funny, you did predict that there'd be so much, many things to talk about in this administration and so many lawsuits. And it came up, if you remember, we had a conversation because I was saying to you, what are we going to talk about now that the criminal cases are all going away? Is there going to be life after these cases? Because that's really what we spent so much time talking about. That was four cases, four criminal cases that we spent so much time devoted to and talking about. And now here we are, as you said, there's three dozen cases already filed and we are going to. This is gonna be an unbelievable victory for democracy in these cases. I think we're gonna win almost every one of them because the lawlessness that is going on is just insane. And although we're gonna win in the courts, we need to also fight and win in the court of public opinion because somehow we are not getting the message out. And I don't know if the tactic for Trump is let's just throw everything out so that there's so many things that it' playing whack a mole and Our heads are going to be spinning, but we have to, we have to pound it and talk about it, and people have to understand what's happening because it is lawlessness. And it is, it's not just breaking norms. It is not just breaking traditions. They are violating the law left and right and there. And, and, and the thing is, but he, literally, everything he says is dei. Dei. It's the answer to everything. And it's, it's like no matter what the problem is, oh, dei, there's no even looking at what happened. And, and, and exhibit A is the tragic plane crashes that have happened on Trump's watch, by the way. Hey, you know, cut government. Why do we need government employees? Let's make them all resign, okay? We don't have enough air traffic controllers. You know, what could go wrong, right? You're trying to get everyone fired and to leave. What could possibly go wrong? Well, look, we've seen two plane crashes in the very beginning, and without even, it's irresponsible, without even knowing what happened, without even getting a preliminary report, without even looking dei. It's just dei. And that's just, it's irresponsible. It's misinformation, and it's out and out dangerous and terrible.
- [08:53]
Karen Friedman
It's a mole hunt that he's, that he is undergoing to root out transgender people. Woke etiology and dei. He's taken his eye off the ball. He's, he's, you know, he's like a surgeon that is operating in the dark. He's trying a, a thought experiment that would fail in MBA class on our national economy, undermining our national security. And we have to now look to the federal courts.
- [09:22]
Ben Mysellis
Now, I, look, I know that the.
- [09:23]
Karen Friedman
Federal courts have taken a hit primarily in the criminal cases, but not at the trial court level. And even at the appellate court level. It's really been at the Supreme Court level. But even this United States Supreme Court doesn't like executive orders, doesn't like a president trying to legislate through executive orders and try to take on major issues that are reserved to Congress, especially on budget and appropriations and the purse strings that all rely on, on Congress and.
- [09:48]
Ben Mysellis
Not on the president. So I feel pretty good of where.
- [09:50]
Karen Friedman
We are right now. That's why I only half joked with, with you in the audience when I said trust the process. Trust the process. We know where to file. There's a reason the courts of that we'll be talking about during today's episode are in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and Rhode island and Washington State and District of Columbia and Maryland and not in, and not in Alabama and Florida and Mississippi and Texas. Those were their states.
- [10:17]
Ben Mysellis
Those were the red states.
- [10:19]
Karen Friedman
That's how they tried to muck up and gum up the works for Biden during his four years and drive him nuts. We know where we're going. And for those that said, yeah, but the Supreme Court, I'll leave you with this comforting thought. 99.9% of cases don't end up at the United States Supreme Court even if they, even if they doubled their productivity, which they're not going to do, and took 120 cases to listen to for the, for the rest of this term and into next term. That leaves a thousand or three thousand or four thousand cases where the final, the final word on justice is going to be had by the trial court level or the appellate court right above it. It has nothing to do with the United States Supreme Court. That's why it's important to locate and situate these cases in the right courts. So now let's talk about. I gave the scorecard. But then let's dive in.
- [11:07]
Carolyn Levette
Before, before, just. Can I say one more thing? Before, as you mentioned, the Supreme Court and when we're talking about being prescient, I just want to read from Justice Sotomayor's dissent in Trump versus the United States because it really just talk about predicting exactly what's going to happen. And I want to give her credit for what she put in her dissent that people said was hysterical and was overblown and it's not going to happen. She said. And this is just a part of it. It President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way. Under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold on to power. Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon. Immune. Immune. Immune. Immune. Let the president violate the law. Let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain. Let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority's message today. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is Now a king above the law. And then never in the history of our republic has a president had reason to believe that he would be immune from prosecution if he used the trappings of office to violate criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former presidents will be cloaked in such immunity if the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain. The criminal law that the rest of us must abide by will not provide a backstop. So with fear for our democracy, I dissent. And I mean, and everyone thought, oh, she's overblown. He's not going to do that. There's all these things in place. And in 15 days, what has he done? He has slashed and burned and tried to wreak havoc in the federal government. And so I just wanted to put that out there because I think those words were just so prescient.
- [13:15]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, the context is necessary. The good news is we're talking about civil, not criminal at this point. And federal judges, including Biden appointees and Gen 6 judges in the District of Columbia, 15 out of the 32 cases are filed in the District of Columbia, which makes sense given the regulatory nature. The, the, the fact that these agencies and departments are based in the, in D.C. that's not the only place. Because if you're injured somewhere else, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, California. Pardon me. If you're injured somewhere else, you can.
- [13:47]
Ben Mysellis
Sue where you're injured.
- [13:48]
Karen Friedman
And so, but we're picking and choosing the right judges. Let me just give the stats and then we'll get into the FBI case and the Elon Musk case, because I think that's the one that's getting everybody's blood pressure up and boiling. Birthright citizenship. Donald Trump's attempt by executive order to rip out the heart of the constitution and the 14th amendment, which gives citizenship at birth by, by way of an executive order, has not only been temporarily restrained by Judge Coffinor to 2 weeks ago in Seattle federal judge finding it was blatantly unconstitutional, but it's now as of today, been preliminarily enjoined, which is one step higher in the injunction food chain, by a federal judge in Maryland who used to be a federal public defender. Shout out to the public defenders out there and she ruled on a preliminary injunction, meaning it's going to stay and nationwide, no less, that it is against 125 years of precedent, 250 years of American jurisprudence. She there's no judge that's ever ruled that that was appropriate to read the, the 14th Amendment the way the Trump administration does. And she wasn't going to be the first. And she went further to say she asked the this is where the Department of Justice is losing all credibility and you're only 15 days in. She asked, she asked the lawyer for the Department of Justice cite for me one case, say for me one case that goes your way in your argument that the framers of the, of the 14th Amendment didn't want to create a loophole so that quote unquote undocumented who were born here, your parents born here, wouldn't, wouldn't receive U.S. citizenship. Give me a case. You don't have a case, do you? And this is not going to be the first case. So that will now go up on appeal to I think the Fourth Circuit, which I think covers Maryland. And we're up and running here. There's going to be 150 preliminary injunctions before we're all said and done in the first couple of years. But this is the first one the ceiling has been broken. Then we've got so in temp birthright temporary restraining order and an injunction in federal funding, the freeze on federal funding that Donald Trump tried to unfreeze to try to avoid jurisdiction of the courts and was caught red handed. Rhode Island Temporary restraining order in place by Judge McConnell. DC Temporary restraining order in place by Judge Ali Khan in the anything related to transgender, particularly a new decision last night by a Reagan appointee, Judge Lamperth in the in D.C. who said no, you're not going to put transgender women in the male prison. I mean we don't even have to. I could read for you out loud all the things that Judge Lampert said. But, but the Trump administration agreed that's the other thing. They have no credibility. They agreed of all the serious physical and emotional harm to putting a transgender woman in a male population prison. And the judge was like, well, this will make it easy. I find it cruel and unusual under the 8th amendment on a temporary restraining order standard and I am going to block your doing. So you are not to transfer anybody during that time. So that was a TRO. So when you add them up, we've got four actually five TROs, five total and one preliminary injunction.
- [17:08]
Carolyn Levette
Hope to explain to people the difference between a TRO and a preliminary injunction. And then what happens after the fact of permanent injunction and there's different legal standards. Just explain that to people because I think we throw these terms around and I don't know that everybody knows what they are.
- [17:24]
Karen Friedman
That's a very good point. And one more coming, by the way. I think that'll be the fifth TRO. Judge Catelli in D.C. who's not a big fan of Donald Trump's. She has given the Department of Justice until later this evening. We just don't have it for, for when we're, when we're live to tell her why they're not going to agree to ban Elon Musk from accessing the Treasury Department servers for the Bureau of Financial Service, which is where our $5 trillion with a T of payments, entitlements, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, food stamps and everything else comes from. Why they're not going to agree to hold that and make her issue an injunction. They're going to come up with some crazy, insulting filing that one of us will cover tomorrow, and the judge is going to end up issuing a temporary restraining order on that. In the beginning of a case, there's really three types of restraining orders or injunctions that a judge will handle progressively at the very, very beginning of the case before she even, or he even has full briefing, full the law, the evidence, the facts, and have an entry hearing or anything like that. You can run in and sometimes convince a judge to put an administrative pin in things. It's called an administrative restraining order or injunction. It's, it's the lowest level and it's for hours, hours or days until the judge gets full briefing and pulls everybody in for a temporary restraining order, which is next up on the food chain. Once you get. And that's really done without a lot of elements, it's the judge's inherent authority to go, yeah, you know what? I need about three or four days, you guys, status quo. It goes back to before this order came in and I'll see you guys on Monday. It's a version of that. Then the temporary restraining order briefing schedule is set. The temporary restraining order and the preliminary injunction are very similar, except what is temporary and what is permanent. The standards are about the same. You have to show four things for a temporary restraining order, and it's almost the same four things for preliminary injunction. You have to show that you are likely to succeed on the merits of your case. The judge has to look under the hood kind of peer there. Think about what the case is at trial and conclude after reading your briefing, your law and looking at your evidence that you are likely to win a year from now, two years from now, six months from now, at the final trial of this case and enjoin the action that is being, that is being threatened. That's one. The other three standards are two kind of merged together. It's irreparable harm and inadequate remedy at law, which is like, I can't fix with money, you getting killed in prison because you've been put in the wrong prison. It's like that. So it's irreparable harm and inadequate remedy law. There's no money that can fix this problem if people lose their paychecks who are waiting on federal funding and they, and they don't eat that night, or their babies don't eat that night, or they get evicted because they're living paycheck to paycheck. She can't fix that after the fact with it with a, with a, with a monetary sum. So that's why equity steps in to do justice through injunction. So that's the combination of those two. And the last one is public interest tips in your favor. You got the better argument about public policy or public interest than they do. So the judge.
- [20:32]
Carolyn Levette
It's a pretty, It's a pretty like. So when you get an injunction, because we throw it around like, oh, we have an injunction, like, it's just something you go hard to get. It's like you. Exactly. It's not like, it's not like you could just. You're going and getting a ticket to get in line and. And so we get an injunction, right? Yeah, exactly. No, but it's not, you know, it's like, oh, they ran to court and got a temporary injunction. It's not like that. It's hard. It's a hard thing to get.
- [20:55]
Karen Friedman
And especially against the government.
- [20:56]
Carolyn Levette
Exactly. And so really, what these judges, these, these lifetime appointed federal judges are some, some of them are republic appointed by Republican presidents, are saying things like, there is a very strong likelihood you will succeed on the merits. This is meaning there is no law in your favor. This is not. What you're doing is wrong and lawless and there's irreparable harm. It's a big deal that, that they're getting these injunctions.
- [21:23]
Karen Friedman
And the judge has already decided on, let's say, a temporary restraining order in your favor. You'd rather be there than on the opposite side of it.
- [21:29]
Carolyn Levette
Exactly.
- [21:29]
Karen Friedman
Now, the judge will then set a full briefing schedule, more briefings similar as to what you just did, but you update it and now you get a bigger, better record. Maybe there's some depositions, some sworn statements, you get some evidence, maybe you hold an evidentiary hearing where the judge takes testimony from the Department of Justice or whatever department is up and running on that particular issue from the plaintiffs. Like pregnant women from other countries, full Evidential record is established, and the judge says, yeah, I'm gonna stay with my original ruling and the temporary restraining order. And now this injunction, like the one out of the birthright citizenship for Judge. It'll come to me in a minute. Is. Is permanent, sorry, preliminary until the end of the case. So that's.
- [22:14]
Carolyn Levette
So that's the Maryland one you're talking about.
- [22:15]
Karen Friedman
Maryland, right? Six months, eight months, a year. Whatever it is, it stays in place for that length of time. Now, I will tell you that in my 35 years, I figured this out once in my entire career, did I not? When I won the tro, did I not also win the preliminary injunction? So if you win the preliminary Injunction, you're about 80% home. You're going to get the preliminary injunction, especially against the Trump administration. So anything that you hear is TRO now is likely to be preliminary injunction. If we're doing our. Our home game is likely to be turned, converted into a PI. Once it's a PI, that's when you can likely take your first appeal. So that's when we'll start seeing appeals coming off of preliminary injunctions. That stays in place unless the. The appellate court vacates it or the United States Supreme Court thinks it's interesting.
- [23:01]
Ben Mysellis
Some things the Supreme Court will find interesting.
- [23:03]
Karen Friedman
Some things the Supreme Court's like, now we're not touching that. And if they don't take the case and they don't touch it, then the ruling of the appellate court just below the Supreme Court is the ruling that will stay for that case for its duration. This is a nationwide injunction that she's issued. Some people might ask, well, what about Judge Kaufmanor's tro? That stays in place, too.
- [23:22]
Ben Mysellis
He.
- [23:23]
Karen Friedman
He can enter his own nationwide preliminary. We have two nationwide preliminary injunctions, and they'll both go up on appeals or having seen this one, this is where the portfolio method of filing multiple cases in front of multiple judges on the same issues comes into play. These lawyers that are, you know, whether it's Norm Ison representing this party or attorneys general representing this party, they'll talk. They'll say, who's got the better case? Who's got the better judge? You know, where do we think the better path to success is? And they might dismiss one case and follow the track of another case. The only, the other reason you file five or six on, like, there's, there's literally eight cases on birthright citizenship that's been filed. Eight. New Jersey, Maryland, all different places. Because if you don't get a great ruling you hope to split, imbalance it at least. I got five good ones and three bad ones. Skip the three bad ones. We'll focus on the five good ones. But here I think with the Trump administration and they're outlandish positions, I think we're just gonna, it's just gonna be win, win, win, win, win, win, win. Will they hit a Trump judge eventually in one of these places? Sure, they exist, you know, and we'll report on it. But you know that then. So preliminary injunction stays in place and then at the end of a trial the judge can. Awards can say, yep, I was right. Tro. I was right. Preliminary injunction, I was right and I'm right. Permanent injunction, meaning this is it, man. I've declared you unconstitutional in violation of law, in violation of. And then fill in the blanks. 14th Amendment, Administrative Procedures Act, First Amendment, all the rest, boom, permanent injunction. And you can appeal that as well. But if you, I'll tell you straight, if you lose on the preliminary injunction matter, you're, you're about, you're about three quarter cooked at that point.
- [25:08]
Carolyn Levette
Yeah, yeah. It's so interesting because when you think about it, there was this when the, the big nationwide injunction that, that went in the opposite direction during the Biden administration was the Judge Kacmarek with the mythoprestone, if you remember the, the MAGA people picked that judge, hand selected that judge and went to a place that there was, that there was no chance of getting another judge. He's the only judge who sits in that, in that location in Texas and got this nationwide injunction on Miff of Preston. What's interesting is now it's happening in the opposite direction because now we are. Our side of things, democracy side, if you will, is in the plaintiffs driving seat. So you can bring the case, you can choose where to bring the case and you bring the case where you think you will have the most likelihood of success, where you're not going to hopefully get a Trump judge, et cetera. So in some ways we're in a better position now than before because we're on the offensive, not the defensive. Even though we're in a terrible place because we don't want to be in this position at all. But given that fact, I do think judge wise, hopefully this will be a little bit better than what we've seen before.
- [26:25]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, absolutely. Again, we're back to trust the process. And not only trust the process, trust Midas touch and Legal af. You've come to the right home.
- [26:34]
Ben Mysellis
If you didn't know us before.
- [26:35]
Karen Friedman
Welcome thank you for being here. The, the network is going to hit 4 million. It's hard to believe we were doing.
- [26:41]
Ben Mysellis
A 2 million counter just like a.
- [26:42]
Karen Friedman
Year and a half ago.
- [26:43]
Carolyn Levette
I know. And it was. And that they, they almost on our show. Yeah, exactly. On our show. We were so excited. How cute was that, right?
- [26:49]
Karen Friedman
It was, it was very cute. Salty items. So adorable. We're only at 2 million. Legal AF, the YouTube channel that I'm curating for us in collaboration with MTN. We're going to be 500000 before our half birthday. We're at 450000 subscribers as of today. We'll hit, we'll hit 4. We'll hit 500 in another week or two. And that's all because of, of, of of you guys. I'm curating. Sure. We got six or eight to ten videos a day. At the intersection of law and politics, you see why it's necessary to be over with Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network doing work on both places just to cover these 32 cases and their developments. I mean just to give you an idea from a, from a lawyer standpoint, a case will have especially of this sophistication in this level and federal court will have 2, 3, 400 filings, docket entries times 32 cases and we're only two weeks in.
- [27:47]
Ben Mysellis
Do the math. You need to be here. So you know what, so you know.
- [27:51]
Karen Friedman
What'S what's worth understanding. We're going to tell it to you, we're going to curate it for you right here on Midas Touch Network and Legal af. And we've got a great group of pro democracy sponsors who are, who are with us, who are with our first, who are with our first Amendment expression, who know what our, our values are, our DNA are and those of our audience and support it. We're people powered. We don't have outside investors. Right. Nobody tells us what to do or what to say.
- [28:17]
Carolyn Levette
We.
- [28:17]
Karen Friedman
But that means it puts a little bit more pressure on us to bring in sponsors, to keep the lights on, to bring in subscribers, free subscribers and to bring in our audience. Because the bigger we are, the more your voice is heard. So now we've got our first set of sponsors.
- [28:34]
Ben Mysellis
Even if you think it's a bit overhyped. AI is suddenly everywhere from self driving cars to molecular medicine to business efficiency. If it's not in your industry yet, it's coming fast. But AI needs a lot of speed and computing power.
- [28:49]
Karen Friedman
So how do you compete without cost.
- [28:52]
Ben Mysellis
Spiraling out of control. Time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or oci. OCI is a blazing fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, plus all your AI and machine learning workloads. OCI costs 50% less for compute and 80% less for networking, so you're saving a pile of money. Thousands of businesses have already upgraded to oci, including Vodafone, Thomson Reuters and Suno AI. Right now, Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in half if you move to oci for new US.
- [29:31]
Karen Friedman
Customers with a minimum financial commitment.
- [29:33]
Ben Mysellis
Offer ends March 31st. See if your company qualifies for this special offer@oracle.com legalafe that's oracle.com legalaf all.
- [29:45]
Unknown Speaker
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- [30:53]
Carolyn Levette
I mean it.
- [30:54]
Unknown Speaker
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Carolyn Levette
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Karen Friedman
Welcome back. Those are the ways to help support this network, our pro democracy sponsors, we vet all the products. We like the products. And, you know, listen, I'm not here to spend other people's money. If you can afford it, you think it's interesting and it fits with your life or lifestyle, we certainly would like you to try. It helps. It helps the network continue to grow. Legal AF, as I mentioned, the YouTube channel Legal AFMTN for the Midas Touch Network. Come on over there. We've got, we're building that pro democracy channel. And that also helps. I'm doing my work in both places, Midas touch and legal AF. And then of course, we've got the patreon patreon.com legal AF and of course, we got Carol Freeman McNiffalo with regular hot takes and legal commentary on the Midas Touch Network and when she can on Legal AF as well. So let's dive in. Karen, you got two, I think two of the many lawsuits that we've outlined tonight are, are indicative of a disease within the Trump administration. It's just, it's corrupt and it's, and the way they handle things. First is their attempt to decapitate the FBI, hollow it out. You've got Emil Bove, who in letter writing, knowing it's going to be public, says things like, we're not going to fire the Department of justice. Sorry, the FBI agents who worked on Jan6, as long as they were doing their job and doing the great job that they always do. Great job that they always do. Cash Patel, who's up for the FBI position, has said income in writings that he thinks the FBI is corrupt and that he should shutter the FBI headquarters and turn it into a museum dedicated to the deep state, while Emil Bove says, no, we weren't going to fire people for political retribution. What are you talking about? We just asked to have the core.
- [35:33]
Ben Mysellis
Group of FBI agents who worked on January 6th because we want to throw.
- [35:37]
Karen Friedman
Them a party at the White House. What are you seriously. So we have this brawl that's broken out in broad daylight between the holdover Biden administration FBI leadership who have told Elon, Elon Musk. That'll be the next story. Who have told Emil Beauvais, who, by the way, is aging before our very eyes. One day we'll put up side by side photos of Emil Boves in the last year. I mean, he's literally becoming the Crypt Keeper before. I mean, you could just tell what's going on corruptly by looking at Emil Bovet. So he says he's, he's, he's gonna basically, I want A names of everybody. Then when the leadership said no, go f off, literally said go f off. He then called them insubordinate and said, well, you're, you guys are definitely gonna get fired. But the rest of the rank and file, don't worry, don't worry as long as you. And then there's such a criteria to not be worried that it actually is an exception that eats the rule. Don't worry as long as you didn't use any discretion, aren't political, just were doing your job and following orders based on how we evaluate you, you'll keep your job. Does anybody really believe that? Well, two groups of FBI agents don't believe that. One group in particular, and they both filed versions of class actions or called Jane or John Doe actions. There's going to be a lot of Jane and John Doe actions because people need to have their names anonymous because of the tremendous acts of retribution that Donald Trump has already threatened. So it's a way to anonymize these people. The court, the judge will ultimately know and the lawyers know, but they're sworn to secrecy. So you and I are going to talk a lot in the next four years about Jane Doe and John Doe versus the Trump administration. But in these cases they're arguing, and there's one in particular that took my breath away by these FBI agents, Karen, where they took social so smart their lawyers to go look at social media on January 6, pardoned insurrectionist, including at the top of that food chain like, like Enrique Tario, who got 22 years as a proud boy. Or the Oath Keepers where they're putting a target on the back of individually named FBI agents who worked on their cases calling for their heads on a pike. And the, and the FBI lawsuits are like, see what's happening? A, that's why we have to be anonymous. And B, look what's going to happen to the Department of Justice with this retribution that's going on. And it violates the Administrative Procedures Act. It violates the First Amendment because of our perceived political parties. And that's a common denominator for our audience. You're going to hear a lot about the Administrative Procedures act, which is all government cabinet positions, agencies have to operate consistent with the apa. And if you do things that are arbitrary and capricious, violate rulemaking act in a way that's discriminatory, it can violate the, the, the Administrative Procedures Act. It's the number one way to get them. Then you argue it violates the Constitution. You find something in the Constitution, the Fifth Amendment the 14th Amendment, due process or something like that. And then you have the First Amendment because Donald Trump going after woke and DEI and Democrats and liberals. That's just code word for I don't like, I don't like the content of your speech because you're the opposite party of mine and you. That you cannot do under the First Amendment. So a lot of these suits are going to look sort of the same and same framework as they're being generated. You have a lot of experience with prosecutors. You have a lot of experience, of course, Karen, working with investigators, including with the FBI. But give us your take of the, the attempted political retribution and firing and the merits of these lawsuits that have been filed.
- [39:18]
Carolyn Levette
Look, make no mistake, this is trying to be a mass purge of the FBI. And they're doing this to be retributive. They view that the January six insurrectionists, all the people, as they're trying to rewrite history, they're trying to make it seem like we didn't see those videos of violence. We didn't see the people who were violently. This was not a peaceful protest on January 6th. We have it on video. And P.S. they were doing it to try and steal an election. They're trying to rewrite history and make that into this day of, of incredible patriotism. They're trying to change the national anthem. And so what are they doing? They're trying to be retributive against anyone who worked on a January 6th case. Well, P.S. that's the entire FBI because they were investigating this. This, these had tentacles all over the country. They were investigating people all over the country. And so they are. This is, this is their way of punishing the FBI, who, P.S. these are people who are doing their job. Right. You get handed an assignment, you don't get to say whether you want to do it or not. These are apolitical jobs. I was in law enforcement for three decades. You don't do, you don't go after people because of their political party or their beliefs. You go, you look at their conduct and what. And it has to be content, neutral. Right. It can't be about what their beliefs are or their speeches, and it never has been. And that's just the way law enforcement works, and that's the way FBI agents work. And so you get handed a file by your supervisor and says, go investigate whether a crime was committed or not. If a crime was committed, they follow those breadcrumbs and they bring that into court and they bring charges through the Department of Justice. They don't make up Facts, right. They don't, they don't go after some people and not others. It's just sort of ridiculous to think that that's how it's done. But. So they're literally trying to mass purge the FBI the way they are trying to do with the CIA, by the way. They've. They've offered buyouts for every single person in the CIA. They want to dismantle the ENT Central Intelligence Agency and make it go away. Just the safety and security of our nation if we lose the CIA and the FBI, if they resign in mass or if they get fired, is terrifying to me when you think about all the things that those agencies do together with counterintelligence, et cetera, to protect us from terrorism, to protect us from terrorism within our country as well. The white supremacists, the Timothy McVeighs of the world, the various things that have happened that, that without them we would have been in such a worse position. I mean, I credit the FBI with keeping us safe after 9, 11. I want to knock on wood. We haven't had another terrorist attack like that on our soil. And that has a lot to do with what the FBI and the CIA has done and the contacts they've made all around the world. And so all these things are related because then it gets to the USAID agency that they're trying to dismantle and that, that's part of our goodwill around the world. And why we can develop these types of sources is because we help people all around the world, but they don't see it like that. And so what they're trying to do is dismantle and do this mass retributive purge of the FBI. It's extremely aggressive how they're doing it. And typically though, FBI agents and Department of Justice attorneys, AUSAs, typically these are civil servants protected by civil service law. And you can't just fire them for political reasons. So normally you have to go through a procedure that takes, I don't know, 18 months where if you want to fire someone who's in that type of role, you have to give them performance improvement plans. You have to give them feedback and criticisms and all of that and give them an opportunity to try and get better. And then only after you go through all of those procedures can you fire someone because they're not doing a good job. You can't fire someone based on their views, frankly, it's a First Amendment violation, in addition to it not being lawful, based on civil service laws and rights that exist. So they're trying but what Trump is trying to do is he's trying to say, no, these aren't civil service roles, these are political roles. Because you can fire these political positions, like the US Attorney themselves, right? Those are always appointed by the president, whoever is the president. That's a political appointment. That's not a civil service appointment appointment. So those are ones that you can get rid of. And that's why typically when there's a new administration, every United States attorney hands in their resignation and allows the president, the incoming president, to either accept the resignation and appoint their own person or ask them to stay. Which, if you recall, Trump asked Preet Bharara, who was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to stay in his first term, which Preet did and lasted, I don't know, a couple of months. But Trump wanted to talk to him on the phone and talk to him about cases and really wanted to interfere with the autonomy. And Preet famously ended up getting fired because he wouldn't swear an oath to Trump. He would only swear an oath to the Constitution. And that's what Trump expects. He expects loyalty to him, not to the country or the Constitution. And so what they're saying is these FBI agents and AUSAs who they fired, right. Who worked on January 6th cases, or who they're investigating, they're investigating the investigators and prosecuting the prosecutors. What they're doing is they're saying these are political positions and they're not serving our country because they actively went and tried to prosecute the person who is now the President of the United States. How could they possibly work in the executive branch? So that's the theory under which they are doing these, these either investigations or firings or prosecutions, ultimately, what, what they could potentially do. But that's what they're trying to do here. And make no mistake about it. And I'm, I'm heartened by the fact that the FBI is joining together and trying to file lawsuits to basically protect us. I mean, we need them, we need the FBI in place. We need the men and women who are, dedicate their lives to saving our lives and to protecting us. And, you know, they'll do things, though. They'll, they'll, they'll send them down to positions, you know, if it turns out that they can't fire them, they'll, they'll try to put them in, in position, demote them. They'll put them in positions that are not desirable. They'll hassle them by moving them far away and making their families get uprooted. You know, they'll, they'll, they'll get a lot of people to resign one way or another. But it's a really dangerous, dangerous thing that they're trying to do. But it's fascinating. I saw there was a, there was a tweet or a blue sky from Mueller she wrote where she said, I'm hearing from federal employees that they're being told to file Freedom of Information act request if they want their employee records, meaning they've been locked out of their records and have to file a FOIA request to get them. I mean, unbelievable what they have, what these, what federal employees are having to do just to be able to proceed and move forward and potentially get information to use to protect themselves. So, so thankfully, the FBI is pushing back. Many leaders are pushing back. I love. There's one, this guy who's, I guess the accidental acting is. His name's Driscoll. They call him Drizz. He, he's sort of this, he was.
- [47:04]
Karen Friedman
The Newark field office.
- [47:05]
Carolyn Levette
Yeah, exactly. I think they accidentally suddenly his name was like he was up there and, and, and he sort of the quiet, understated guy with, you know, he's the real deal when you look at his background. You know, he's like served in all these wars and he's like a total true hero. And he is, he's sort of, he. When they were demanded that you give over the names of all 5,000 FBI agents who've worked on Jan6 cases, he wasn't going to just say no. So instead he gave them just like, like he gave them their employee number, you know. Yeah, exactly like, okay, I'm going to be compliant, but not compliant. And you know, there's, they're saying public safety concerns, like you said, Popak, they don't, you know, there's real public safety reasons to not have your name and information out there. And you mentioned one of the public safety issues, which is, you know what they said in their papers that there's MAGA people are going to come after them and retaliate against them. I read between the lines. I think they're just as scared of Trump and Trump's henchmen. You know, that's what they're afraid of, is that retaliation. So, yeah, that's, that's what I think is going on over there. But hopefully, hopefully the good guys will win because our, our safety depends on it.
- [48:21]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, I was looking up in one of the cases, FBI Agents Association, John Doe 1 through 1 through 4 and Jane Doe 1 through 3 against the United States Department of Justice they have reproduced just terrifying this one from Enrique Tario. This is on page 9 of the of the complaint. For example, on 2-1-2025 a leader of the violent Proud Boys gang publicly posted the following on social media. I'm calling for the firing and the arrest of special agent Nicole Miller of the FBI for perjury, tampering with evidence and violating 1512 obstructing an official proceeding. As this is now the the jail jailing the jailers. Throughout the trial Agent Nicole Miller lied on the stand, tampered with evidence. There's no evidence of this. Eavesdropped an attorney client privilege call. She hid her messages that showed her bias. She must be brought to justice. To all Jan Sixers, I encourage you to tell your stories and name those who committed these heinous acts. They try to take our lives for political gain. This guy went to jail for 22 years because a federal judge having heard the evidence in a jury a jury heard the evidence against against Enrique Dario and a judge, Judge Mehta sentenced him.
- [49:54]
Carolyn Levette
Only to be pardoned by Trump.
- [49:56]
Karen Friedman
Pardoned by Trump that night the the day of January 20th he was partying in Miami. Mr. Tario, it continues has threatened that the people who did this if they feel the heat they need to be put behind bars. They then went over another posting of another another Jan Sixer about the FBI better have filled out that survey today asking about his Jan6prosecution persecution involvement. You know, this is what happened. You put on the street all of the criminal crazies and now the FBI is going who's going to protect us?
- [50:29]
Carolyn Levette
You may. You. Exactly. And you may. You made a great point in one of your. I can't remember where you said it but it was in one of your hot takes or one of your podcasts. You made a great point about how these are the FBI suits are being brought in Washington D.C. in front of the same judges that are the judges who sentenced people like this judge who sent someone to enrich a 20 years who heard the evidence, who heard the threats against the FBI who sat got there and was was, was there when when they saw this the danger to the FBI agents. Those are the same judges who are going to be ruling on these cases.
- [51:05]
Karen Friedman
Think about how extraordinary it is. I wanted to tell our people because you and I practice so it doesn't seem this was the largest manhunt and investigation and prosecution in the history of the Department of Justice. Okay. It resulted in 1600 prosecutions in one courthouse, in one courthouse during one, two and a half or three year, let's say three year period. It's extraordinary. That means every judge in the District of Columbia had multiple, dozens and dozens of cases that touched on Jan.6. They heard the evidence, they saw the videos, they heard the audios, they saw these people act out in court. They sentenced these people and they are in horror. They're horrified by Donald Trump having released these criminals, convicted criminals, violent criminal who beat, maimed, try to brain and kill law enforcement and would have done worse to elected officials if they had the chance. And these people are now out directing traffic about how to go after the FBI. All right, so now it's going to be the same federal. This is the revenge of the Jan.6 judges and the Biden judges. I mean, I mean, they're going to be impartial, they're going to do their job, they're going to call balls and strikes.
- [52:18]
Ben Mysellis
But woe be the Department of Justice.
- [52:19]
Karen Friedman
Justice officials for the, for the Trump administration who are going to come before these judges. They're not going to have any credit. The only thing you and I have as lawyers, really the only thing we have is our credibility, credibility, our credibility with juries, with clients and with judges. You lose that and you have nothing else. That means everything that comes out of the word, out of the mouth of the Department of Justice is going to be cross examined by federal judges who are not going to take them at their word, who are not going to believe their arguments, who are not going to, they're going to tell their law clerks, read every case, make sure it says what it's supposed to say. And so there's not going to mean.
- [52:59]
Ben Mysellis
You as a prosecutor, at least when.
- [53:01]
Karen Friedman
You ran your office and you were in the courtrooms, I want to say you got the benefit of the doubt, but you had a tremendous amount of credibility when you said a case stood for a certain proposition. The judge believed you when you said the evidence supported a certain position. I mean, not to say you won every hearing or every trial, but you had a certain amount of wind at your back and wind at your sail. Department of justice has shredded that in, in their, all their acting attorney generals. And all because of the ludicrous positions they're taking. The telling the judges in writing that they're not going to try, they're not going to initially comply with orders. We just got a filing in Rhode island to tell Judge McConnell that the way they read the temporary restraining order, which has now been, now been. No, that hasn't been supplied. There's two TR in the federal funding area. But they're telling that judge in the compliance order that they're not complying, that they. Well, we don't understand your order. It's in plain English. There's ambiguous terms that could, that could infringe on separation of powers. I don't see that. And we don't think it applies to the executive order about funding at all. It applies to the OMB memo that's, that's too cute by half. And we don't think it applies to any of the departments under Donald Trump because they're not here actually as defendants wins.
- [54:19]
Ben Mysellis
This is the gamesmanship that they're going.
- [54:21]
Karen Friedman
To try to play. They're going to lose in front of federal judges. Cabinet members are going to be put in jail. I'm telling you straight now. And then we're up to the various appellate courts and maybe the Supreme Court finds any of this interesting. Can we switch gears and talk about Elon? How about this when we come back from our last break, let's do Elon Musk and Doge and, and his multiple ways that he has violated the separation of powers. He's not a confirmed by the Senate Cabinet member. He doesn't get to just roam around and look in our cabinets and our drawers and our personal financial data because he feels like it. And now federal judges are basically saying the same thing. So let's take our next break. Let's get our pro democracy sponsors in here. Let's get a our let's make our final push for the last round here, the final stretch here on legal AF. Let's be real, 2025's been all about change.
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Karen Friedman
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Karen Friedman
And we are back. So inside those 32 cases are also the ones that's getting everybody upset, which is Elon Musk. We said at the top of the administration after the election that after seeing the remit that Donald Trump was willing to give Elon Musk and the one he was willing to give RFK Jr. If he ever gets confirmed. Pardon me, what was left for Donald Trump to do? It looked like Elon Musk was going to be the president and, and about everything, technological payments, budget and foreign and, and government contracting and RFK Jr. Is going to do the rest. Medicare, Medicaid, health policies and everything else that makes the economy hum. And, and now it's sort of coming into fruition because Donald Trump's just thrown the keys of the government over to Donald Trump and said over to Elon Musk and said oh, you want to go rummage around the servers that control the payment system for those that thought where is Vivek Ramaswamy when you need him? He was like, oh, we'll never touch Social Security and Medicare. Oh, I'm double parked everybody.
- [61:42]
Ben Mysellis
See ya.
- [61:42]
Karen Friedman
And he left before the inauguration. Remember there are three co heads of Doge Howard Lutnick, who's now the Commerce Secretary, who stood there at a picture with, with Elon Musk and some, you know, weird, you know, like Jeff Bezos too tight T shirt thing with their arms folded, talking about how they're gonna slash and burn the federal budget and entitlements and all that. He's gone. And then Vivek Maramaswamy was like, I'm out. And it left, it left Musk, you know, who lost the battle to get his office in the White House is over and next door at another office building.
- [62:17]
Carolyn Levette
He sleeps there, by the way.
- [62:18]
Karen Friedman
Well, he's crazy. And he brought in all his people from the. The. The.
- [62:22]
Carolyn Levette
You mean his 6. His 623 year olds.
- [62:25]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, and all his 14 kids named X or whatever they are and. Right. Brings them all in and, and now talk about the, the crossing the Rubicon's not the right metaphor. He. I never thought I would see the day that the Treasury Secretary completely bent over and gave Elon Musk, subject to court super court orders, gave Elon Musk the keys to the Bureau of Financial Services, which is the entity that nobody ever heard of. But now we can't stop talking about it. Which controls two things. Revenue coming into the United States to the tune of $4.8 trillion, which primarily comes from income tax and foreign income tax and corporate income tax payments, a little bit of tariff and I'll talk about tariffs in a minute. And pays out based on congressional allocation to individual taxpayers who've earned their food, food stamp and Medicare, Medicaid, disability, all the rest of that. That about about the same amount. So like the back and forth is about $10 trillion worth of payments that go through this one office. Right. And so you got that. So he let him in to, to take control of the servers. On those servers are your and my, especially yours, Karen. Private it financial information that makes it a crime if anybody reviews your IRS information, anything related to your disability, medical information that supports it's all there on the servers and it is a crime to access it. Not only did Musk try to access it, leading to a guy quitting over it who'd been doing this job, just making donuts for 30 years, getting payments out, making sure they're on time, making sure the trains are on time. He's like, I'm out. Out. First he resisted and then he said, I retire. Boom, he's gone. But Musk then turned it over to.
- [64:30]
Ben Mysellis
Another third party contractor nobody's ever heard.
- [64:33]
Karen Friedman
Of to let him rummage around the servers and Muck up the works.
- [64:37]
Carolyn Levette
I heard they brought in their own servers to, you know, their own like computers that they hooked up to it and, and run through them. I mean, talk about, you know, that just don't interrupt. But you know, how upset they were getting about Hillary emails and Hillary's email server in the basement. Exactly. Her email server in the basement. And, and meanwhile they're just bringing in their, their, their test, their, their extra vacuum cleaners. Yeah, it's. No, it's like their extra Tesla. You know, they're, they're carry, you walk them in with your, with your computers and you plug them in and you're using those for all of our sensitive information. And you know, you joke about, oh, you know, especially you, Karen. But when I think about, but I'm thinking about somebody, a very close family member who receives SSDI because they are.
- [65:23]
Karen Friedman
Disabled and my mother gets Social Security.
- [65:26]
Carolyn Levette
This is, but this is, this is, you know, people. And when I think about what amount of information we had to provide in order to qualify, it is the most personal, the most sensitive of medical and other information that they make you give in order to get these government entitlements. To think that somebody like Elon Musk, who's not Senate confirmed, who is not been vetted in any way, who has actual conflicts of interest that we're going to dive into and brings in again his team of six 25 year olds who again, just kind of, they all sleep, they're all expected to sleep in the office and work seven days a week and they just plug in and do whatever.
- [66:09]
Karen Friedman
Ball in a keg.
- [66:11]
Carolyn Levette
Exactly. And just to think that they're in there going through all of, you know, all of our sensitive private information, it's, it's actually makes me kind of sick to my stomach.
- [66:20]
Karen Friedman
And they're trying to do through the back door, which they can't accomplish in.
- [66:23]
Ben Mysellis
The front door because they've been enjoined.
- [66:24]
Karen Friedman
In these temporary restraining orders from cutting off funding. Well, one way to cut off funding and attack the $3 trillion of our, of that amount that goes to people on Social Security, disability, veterans payments, student loans and the like is to slow down the check payment. And he actually had the balls to say out loud that they were justified to go in there because in their interview with the Bureau of Financial Services, that's been in one form or another in, in our, in our Congress, in our government since 1937 by FDR. It got put together in one agency by Tim Geithner, the former Treasury Secretary. I think in 2012. But we've had this thing forever. And he said, I asked them, have you ever denied printing a check or making a direct deposit because of some fraud? And they said, no, because.
- [67:15]
Ben Mysellis
No.
- [67:16]
Karen Friedman
You. You pay fraudulently. No, no, idiot. That. Because that's, that's the wall. That's the, that's the argument they wanted. That's the narrative, false narrative they want to make. It's not up to the checkbook to decide whether the payee that's being paid is a fraud or not. It's up to the inspectors general that, that Trump just fired from the various agencies and has not replaced to, to root out fraud and corruption within an individual payment process or system. That's what they get paid to do. Okay? And then people can also report fraud. There's other ways to catch fraud. There's investigations, the FBI. But when you hollow out all of our investigative agencies and you fire all of our attorneys general, and then you expect the paymaster, the checkbook, to investigate fraud. This is money allocated by Congress. They have the purse springs, purse strings, not the executive branch. And for Bessette, you know, who had a very tearful confirmation hearing, that actually touched me a little bit. You know, he's like the first openly gay treasury secretary. Had his husband there, you know, as a way for the Trumpers to say, see, we're okay with LGBT or some version of it. See, he's the first openly gate treasury guy. And I was like, well, that's sort of touching. And now he's just going to turn over the keys to Elon Musk and let him root around there. Not a federal judges have their way. Not a federal judges have their way like Judge Catelli. So we've got multiple lawsuits against Elon Musk, particularly that he doesn't have the right to invade privacy or to exploit. It's that it's a crime, that it is against IRS regulations, that it is against due process and the rest and Administrative Procedures act and besent as the Treasury Secretary doesn't have the right to delegate authority of this nature to somebody like Elon Musk. And those are up with judges now in two separate cases, one about Elon Musk controlling the Office of Personnel Management server to try to fire people through it with an address and also have access and make insecure all that server data, which is a lot of private information. Again, so it's data breach, privacy breach. And then you've got the lawsuit which Judge Catelli has. Right now. We're waiting for the Department of Justice for Trump to File their response. She's given them till tonight to say.
- [69:30]
Ben Mysellis
Will you agree to keep Elon Musk.
- [69:32]
Karen Friedman
Away from those servers and not use any of the data that he might have obtained? Or do I have to issue an injunction? Let me know by the end of the night tonight. And I, I think that's perfect. It's, it's a great way to trap the Trump administration and also call out how, how, I was gonna say unreliable, how untrustworthy the Trump administration's Department of justice is. Any self respecting prosecutor like or, or member of the Department of Justice would say, of course we'll, we'll hold the ring until the court has time to handle this matter. You don't have to do any kind of, anything rash. We'll do it. But you know, it's not going to be their position. I'd be shocked if that's their position. So she'll use it against them when they, when they trip over the wire she set for them. So that's where we are. Anything else you want to add to Elon Musk?
- [70:21]
Carolyn Levette
Yeah, yeah. Elon Musk gets under my skin more than almost anyone else in the Trump world for the following reasons. First of all, he is not appointed and he has not gone through any confirmation hearing. He is not, he's just sort of, he's getting around the requirements that are typically there if you want to head an agency. First of all, you have to create the agency. But instead they, they put DOGE under. They sort of subsumed the IT department in the White House and made that doge. And so they're trying to get around having to create a new agency that way. And they're not going through the process of nominating someone, getting the advice and consent of the Senate, and then having that person be put into the head of the agency, which would then be managed by the executive branch, managed by the President. But agencies are created through Congress, they are appropriated through Congress, Congress creates them, they pay their salaries, they appropriate money to them, and they literally make the decisions about whether to cut the checks or not and how to make that work. And so they're getting around all of that by just saying, oh, he's just helping out kind of thing. It's like he's not going through all the checks and balances that go there. Instead, I think they're using what is called a special government employee. And there's a law that talks about a special government employee, or an SGE as they call it. And it's an officer or employee in the executive branch of the federal government who's appointed to perform important but limited services to the government with or without compensation for a period not to exceed 130 days. So it's interesting because it also has to do with the ethics rules apply slightly differently to the sges than they do to other, to other normal government employees. But let's just talk a little bit about ethics and conflicts of interest. This is what gets under my skin. So first of all, he's getting around all of that. So you know, he, the big, his big thing is we spend too much money. We spend too much money. We spend too much money. We want more efficiency. Well, you can't argue with that conceptually. Right. Efficiency is good taxpayer dollars. You want to spend as you want to, you want to spend that gingerly, you don't want to waste any of that, you don't want fraud, et cetera. So no one disagrees with the concept, but he is slashing essential services. He is taking the money first of all. Well, forgetting the fact that it's lawless because he's, this is money that, that Congress has appropriated for these purposes. But there are decades and of reasons why these things happen. Whether it's goodwill, whether it's helping people, whether it's programs, whether it's things that, that we've learned through the years that are good. And so we have, you know, it's not easy to pass a law or get money appropriated for something and he's just really just doing away with all of this saying it's wasted money. And then he has the 25 year old press secretary stand outside and reading, oh well we paid for DEI here and we paid for this there. And she's picking out some ridiculous ones that I'm sure sound ridiculous. And no one would say, oh well I don't want my money going to that. You could see someone saying that. But we need to come out Popak and talk about the stories of the people who are affected who I think, think you know, who, who are really impacted by this and the, the real people who are impacted by this and, and it's really people who need it. Right? Anyone who gets government money, as you said before, it's like the, not for profits. It's the people who are struggling or the people who need these, this, this funding that has been appropriated. Those are the ones who are going to be hurt the worst. And the thing that drives me crazy about Musk is he probably receives more than anyone else in the United States States more government money than anyone, more tax levy dollars go to and go into Elon Musk's pockets than any other human being, I would argue, in the United States of America. I could be wrong, but I bet I'm not. With the number of defense contracts that he has, those are all taxpayer dollars. And so he has the biggest conflict of interest of all. I would love to see is he going to slash money for from that's going to affect him in his pocket. It's this country's taxpayer dollars that have allowed him to become the richest man in the world. That is our money.
- [74:44]
Karen Friedman
I think he's got $3 billion worth of contracts and about a dozen contracts currently.
- [74:50]
Carolyn Levette
Currently, okay. But if you look over time, I bet it's a lot more. And guess what? He's the one who decided, you know what I want, I want to send someone to. I want to send people to Mars.
- [74:59]
Karen Friedman
You know, and that, Karen, with all due respect, I don't know why you're worried about this, because Carolyn Levette, the press secretary, who I trust implicitly, as soon as she opens her mouth, I'm instantly comforted she said today that we should not worry as American people, because Elon Musk is going to decide for Elon Musk whether there's any conflicts of interest. Don't you feel better now?
- [75:23]
Carolyn Levette
You know, kind of like Clarence Thomas. Right. I'll let you know if there's a conflict here, if I, you know, take things from my Nazi billionaire friend. But that this even makes Clarence Thomas look like, okay, yeah, he goes on vacations every once in a while. What's the big deal? This is lining Elon Musk's pockets with billions of dollars to play with his toys, to go up into outer space. Right. I care much more about helping people who are unhoused or people who are disabled or people who are in this country who actually need by taxpayer dollars. That's what I want to spend money on. Or diversity. Right. I care about diversity. I think it's an important thing. I hate that DEI has been some kind of terrible word. DEI is what empowers people, you know, and I just think that their messaging is terrible. Meanwhile, we are forgetting the fact that he is the one who's lining his own pockets with our taxpayer dollars. And that message has to. I think that is what has to be hammered home. And no, I don't feel more comfortable that he is going to decide what's a conflict or not, because it really upsets me that my tax dollars are going to him so that he can send his little rocket ships space because, you know, he, he thinks that's fun with his friends.
- [76:38]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, we've all, we, we've, we've basically delegated from the, from NASA to, we've outsourced our space program to Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. And, and that's only going to continue.
- [76:51]
Carolyn Levette
If he made our satellite and our satellite program.
- [76:53]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, yeah, if, if he made $3 billion during the last administration. And that's why people say, why is he taking on Europe and why is he writing all. Because Europe has been regulating the crap.
- [77:03]
Ben Mysellis
Out of Musk and he hates Europe.
- [77:05]
Karen Friedman
And the European Union and he wants them to get off his back and.
- [77:08]
Ben Mysellis
Let him do all the crazy things.
- [77:09]
Karen Friedman
With Starlink and with Tesla. He builds his batteries and he builds his cars a lot in China, not in Mexico and not in Canada. So if you want to look for warped policy, just all roads lead back to Elon Musk. Look, he bought a presidency, he spent $200 million dollars to get Donald Trump elected, and he's gotten $200 billion already in net worth accumulation between his bitcoin holdings, cryptocurrency holdings, and that of Tesla since that time. That's a return in investment. That's eye popping and eye watering. While there are people in our audience that if they miss their next Social Security payment or food stamp payment, are going to live on the street. And because Donald Trump's, Trump's cabinet and those in his inner circle and those in his administration because of their wealth, because of their immorality, are so disconnected from the average American person and their life because they've never had a call utilities company and try to convince them to put the lights back on or put the heat back on, or convince an oil company to make a delivery when money was owed so they have heat in the house, right? Or figure out how to make a food stamp stretch to cover X, Y and Z, or explain to their child why they can't afford something that the other the kids in their class have in their backpack. See, they've never had to do that and so they don't know what it means. Like I, I worked for a guy that during his confirmation hearing declared that he's made enough money in his life it doesn't have to make anymore and therefore wants to be a good patriot and be in the cabinet. In the meantime, he's got a 90 page conflict of interest letter because he's a part of 1700 limited liability companies that he says he's going to quote, unquote, divest, which means he's going to turn it over to his family. And he wants, he wants credit for that as our audience. And people in our audience are like, I can't. I, I've had people write me here in a poock live, another show that I do, and they write me, they say if I miss a check, if it comes in even late, I'm hanging.
- [79:11]
Ben Mysellis
By a thread here, Pope Puck, you.
- [79:14]
Karen Friedman
Know, and, and I, believe me, my background, my upbringing, where I came from, I'm a public school kid, okay? My parents were ma, Were, I would say middle to upper middle class, you know, but, but, but that's it, you know, they didn't go to college. My mom went for a year. My dad went for a year. My grandfather's was a seltzer man and somebody that pushed a cart when he was 8 years old on the Lower east side selling trinkets and graduated from the fifth grade. Okay, Those are my people. So I'm connected, okay? I, I know what it's like, okay? I had, I had a period in my life when I graduated college crushed with debt from law school or graduated law school crushed with debt from law school and had my first paying job that didn't pay enough. And I'm not making this up. And I, I was 25 and I had to decide with my fiance at the, at the time whether we were going to go to Pizza Hut or we were going to pay the electric bill. Those were our choices at the moment. So I get it, I empathize. But that's not the people that are in government and that's not the people that are in Trump's oligarchy. Government. You know, Jeff Bezos biggest concern is, you know, how big his yacht is or how young his girlfriend is. Those are not my concerns and not the concerns of legal af. Let's do the last topic here, Karen. Right on that motion moment. What are we watching with this? I mean, he's really lost it. There's no other way to put it. It's just, it's not a policy, it's not a doctrine.
- [80:42]
Ben Mysellis
It's that he's, he's gone.
- [80:43]
Karen Friedman
He's mad as a hatter. He stands in front of the American people who voted, I thought, for America and America first and says they're going to take over Gaza while the peace process hasn't even played out and hostages are still being exchanged. He starts a trade war with three countries that collectively are responsible for 40% of our imports. You know, China is more than muscular enough to fight back against that. And has already Canada and Mexico won the trade war, whatever that was supposed to be. You know, while he pulls us out of foreign aid, that for every dollar of foreign aid, there's a US Job behind it. Where do people think the foreign ain't?
- [81:25]
Ben Mysellis
Who's making the stuff that's ending up in these foreign countries to alleviate poverty.
- [81:29]
Karen Friedman
And illiteracy and everything else? America.
- [81:33]
Ben Mysellis
So he's doing all this all at.
- [81:35]
Karen Friedman
The exact same time, regardless of what it does to the economy. Right. And so what are we watching, Karen? I mean, I'm asking it, I'm asking it legitimately.
- [81:46]
Ben Mysellis
What are we watching here in the first 15 days?
- [81:48]
Karen Friedman
What are you observing in his, in the chaos that is swirling around, around the Trump administration?
- [81:55]
Carolyn Levette
He's. Look, if you, if we open our eyes and, and look at what Vladimir Putin has done, frankly, that, that's the playbook. I think he is very much wants to be Putin. He's always had a kind of a man crush on him. He thinks he's tough. And, and I think Putin is eating, eating his lunch, you know, and showing these naked or suggestive things of photos of Melania on Russian television. I mean, Putin is just sort of showing muscular toughness, which Donald Trump likes. And Donald Trump sees how he's annexed Crimea, how he started the war in Ukraine. And so what is Trump doing? I could do that, too. I want Canada, I want Mexico, I want the Panama Canal, I'll take Greenland, and now it's the Gaza Riviera. I mean, he literally wants to be Vladimir Putin, I think is part of what we're watching. And I think it's so clear with the Russian misinformation that has come to this country that what does Vladimir Putin want? They want our allies to hate us. And what's happening with the tariffs and pulling out of all of the various treaties that we have engaged in provoking Iran. I mean, we're watching all of the hard work that has been done by this country get undone very quickly. And it's, and there's only one place that seems to be benefiting from it, and that is Vladimir Putin. I mean, it's just shocking to me how much this is really, really playing into that playbook. Right. And I mean, you know, again, I was, I was watching something, one of the hot takes on Midas Touch. I think this might have been Ben, where he was talking about how Marco Rubio went on Megyn Kelly and was parroting Vladimir Putin, saying the US shouldn't be a world leader, everyone should be self interested. China should be Their own leader, Russia, and us, too. I mean, it's like this is exactly what Vladimir Putin wants, right? This is what he wants, is to make it so that we are no longer a world leader. And so I just, I just think that's what's happening here. And it just, it's so obvious that that's what's happening. And the only place that I'm getting the information that's the truth is on Midas Touch, frankly. And I, you know, I read especially in preparation for Legal AF every week, but every day, too. I very much. I read all the papers. I, you know, whatever. I have all my different things that I do like you do, but where I get the real interpretation, like, what does this mean for us? And I get it with evidence. Evidence is on Midas, right? It's. It's watching you, it's watching Ben, it's watching the information that's coming out on Midas. And there's some other really good ones out there too, I think, as well. Just Security is a good one. You know, that's a great place for information. The Contrarian is a good place for information. And there, there are others as well. But what I love about, about what, what we're doing and what Midas is doing and what the Legal AF YouTube channel is doing is it's not just giving the information, but it's interpreting it and putting it into context. Context. And so hearing the words that Marco Rubio said about, about us, you know, about where, where he sees us in the world, and then having us, having Ben put that into the context of. That's what they're saying on Russian TV as well. I think it's just really important. And I think it's, it's, it's something that we need to really put into context for people and explain to everyone what's going on. But, but that's, that's what I see is. I see, I see. I see Donald Trump just acting lawlessness and trying to become an autocrat.
- [85:43]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, I think it's a perfect synopsis. And we're going to continue to follow the. I mean, this is 15 days in, 32 lawsuits, 4tr. A preliminary injunction, violation of human rights, a threat of genocide, trade, war, loss, bitcoin, cryptocurrency upside down, and a Department of justice that's lost all credibility in.
- [86:14]
Ben Mysellis
Front of federal judges that are not.
- [86:15]
Karen Friedman
Friendly to Donald Trump. And so trust that process, trust this process. Trust Legal AF and the Midas Touch network.
- [86:23]
Ben Mysellis
We do this show twice a week.
- [86:24]
Karen Friedman
For those that are New to the show Wednesday and Saturday at 8pm Eastern time right here. Wednesday's right here with Midas Touch Legal AF and Karen Freeman McNiffalo and me, Michael Popo. Saturdays, I do it with the founder, the co founder with me of Legal af Ben Mysellis. And then we do hot takes as Karen outlined here on the Midas Touch Network over on Legal AF on a regular basis. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go ping Karen on the way home and get her to do more content over on Legal AF because her voice and her point of view is sorely missing and lacking. We need that over there. At this trying moment in our history and as you can, intersection of law and politics is going to be the hottest and hottest of corners. And we're going to make, we're going to make sense of it all and we're going to do it in our way with our brand of analysis and commentary. I think like no other. But we need your support. You've heard the various ways to do it. You've got the sponsors, all our great pro democracy sponsors that help sponsor this particular episode. We have no outside investors, as you've heard. We, we are people powered. We are building this network with and channels with you, you, our audience together. We're humbled by your support and the growth of both of our channels and all of that. And then, you know, that's all we can ask for. So, Karen, why don't you give us the last word and close it out for us.
- [87:46]
Carolyn Levette
Oh, Popak, you once again were right as rain, as they say. You predicted that we would be in this position when Trump won, that we would have more, more to talk about than ever. Like I said, I was, wasn't 100% sure that would be the case. But there's so much, it's like a fire hose coming in of whether it's the executive orders, the lawsuits. There's so much to keep up with and I am so grateful to be on this journey with you with Ben, with the Midas mighty, with the legal A effers and all this amazing, unbelievable community. And I'm just gonna leave with one story. I went to a dinner party Friday night and people were, there's this woman who's like, I know you from somewhere. I know you from somewhere. I know you from somewhere. Were like, it couldn't be geography. And I was like, cnn. She's like, no, I don't know what it could be. But the way she was sort of talking to me, I looked at her, I said Midas. And she's like, yes, Midas. And we started hugging. And the rest of the people at the dinner party were looking at me like, what is going on here?
- [88:49]
Karen Friedman
You got a hug.
- [88:51]
Carolyn Levette
Because it's a different kind of hug. It's one thing. There are people who've recognized me from cnn. There are people who've even recognized me because of a particular client that I'm representing. That. But those people are just more like, oh, yeah, I recognize you. That's one that's different. The people who recognize you from Midas, it's like you hug, you cry, you feel like you're part of a community. It's a different kind of recognizing. It's like this. It's like. It's like we're part of some, like, secret freemason society or something. I don't even know what that is, but it's like we're part of something and we just found each other, you know? And. And it's. It's pretty incredible.
- [89:25]
Karen Friedman
My wife calls it. And she's. She's experienced it with me a couple dozen times. She calls it. It's a. And it's just a compliment. Like, it's like a vibration. Like, I. I'll see it out of the corner of my eye. Somebody will just be, like, waiting with a smile on their face to say hi to me or my wife or whatever. And it. You're right. It just goes to a whole nother level of instant connection.
- [89:50]
Ben Mysellis
Connection.
- [89:51]
Carolyn Levette
Right. It's like connection in a way that. Yeah. It's not. It's not celebrity, it's connection. Yeah. And that's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It. That's what's so incredible, and that's what I love about this place so much and about our community so much, and about people who watch our show.
- [90:07]
Karen Friedman
I'm laughing because one of my old law partners texted me recently from my Miami days and said, I've been hearing your name a lot lately. It's all good, but we should reconnect. I haven't talked to him in a few years. And so I talked to him, and he said, you're not gonna believe this story. I'll just leave you. You particularly, Carol, appreciate. Appreciate the story. So his son is a law professor at Loyola University. Criminal justice. Criminal law. And. But it doesn't really practice law. Always went right into being an academic and being a professor. So he's got a new relationship. So he goes out to California to meet the family and walks into the house. And there's like, a big family. It's like, there's always that uncle. You know, everybody. Every family's got that uncle. So there's an uncle there and other people. So he puts his hand out, and the uncle starts quizzing him, you know, interrogating him a little bit. Like, what do you do for a living as well? You know, I'm. I graduated law school. I'm a lawyer by trade, but I don't really practice law. I'm a law professor at Loyola. And this guy just.
- [91:04]
Ben Mysellis
And.
- [91:04]
Karen Friedman
And this. The son knows me because, like, he kind of grew up with me when I was at that law firm. And he said. The guy said to him, I only listen to one lawyer in America. And Michael's like, okay. And he goes, michael Popak. And Michael. This other Michael goes. In his mind, he's. He's like, it's got to be the same Michael Popak. How many Michael Popo are there? So he calls his father, and his father then calls me and says, this is what. This guy in California, out of the blue, just says that. Which was so heartwarming, but also hilarious. I'm humbled by it. But it's also funny.
- [91:42]
Carolyn Levette
No, it's adorable. That's adorable.
- [91:45]
Karen Friedman
So we're done with our adorable stories. Let's move on to signing off. We really love everybody that's on our audience. We can't. It's a. It's a unique audience like no other. I've spoken to other podcasters and other people that have channels and. And they don't have the level of support and community that the Midas brothers built here and that we joined with legal af. They just don't. They're like, oh, you read your comments. I'm like, yeah. They're like, what?
- [92:10]
Ben Mysellis
Why?
- [92:10]
Karen Friedman
You don't know. They're terrible. They're abusive. They're like, really? Like, I don't. We don't get that. I don't get.
- [92:15]
Carolyn Levette
Well, whenever I'm in a bad mood or something bad happens or I'm feeling down or insecure or something, I Straight to the comments, I'm like, oh, you know, I love it.
- [92:24]
Karen Friedman
But not every. Not everyone's like that.
- [92:26]
Carolyn Levette
But. But not all. Even the ones that are not necessarily. Yeah. Even the ones that are critical, they're still, like, loving. There's not. You don't have any people who are, like, mean and nasty. They're people who are genuinely trying to. To help and say, oh, you know, maybe if you got different glasses or.
- [92:43]
Karen Friedman
You know, stop shopping at Walgreens for your for your readers. Maybe you'd be. You'd be better off. Anyway, we reached the end of another great episode of Legal Laugh. I missed the last two I'm midweek I ran. I did miss it. I mean literally. But I'm glad I'm back here with you, my friend, Karen Freeman McNifolo and so shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal A.
- [93:13]
F
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