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- [00:01]
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- [00:30]
Michael Popak
When a federal judge looks a Trump Department of Justice attorney in the eye and says, I feel like I'm a cat and you are playing with me with a ball of string and every time I reach for it, you're jerking the ball of string away. When you're a federal judge, say that you that she feels you're playing cat and mouse or cat and ball with the federal judge, you're already in a losing position. You are, you are wrapped around your axle. You are in both feet in buckets at that moment. Judge Zinnis is not having it. She's up to here. My hand is under my chin. With the disobedience of the Trump administration in the Obrego Garcia case, it all spilled out in the open during a hearing that was supposed to be about whether, you know, Donald Trump is in his Department of Justice, is properly asserting privileges or not, like the state secrets privilege and the executive privilege to prevent the other side from getting any documents whatsoever about what they're doing, if anything, to comply with the court's order. Not just a court order, a federal, a single federal judge's order, as they like to say, an order that has been affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. A command of the United States Supreme Court 90 to take steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia 90 even with Alito and Thomas on the Supreme Court. And then they told judge, Judge Zinnis in Maryland, you are to take control over this case, administer this case and justice. You're doing the right thing when it comes to due process, the Fifth Amendment rights. Get him home and find out what steps have been taken to facilitate his release. And ever since, Donald Trump has been playing cat and ball or cat and mouse with the judge. I can't tell you. I won't tell you. I would never tell you. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State I would never tell a federal judge what we're doing diplomatically, publicly. They're bragging in social media posts about Abrego Garcia never seeing the light of day, never being brought back to the United States, never stepping foot in the United States during the Trump administration, all in open defiance of Judge Zinnis and the United States Supreme Court. She even said to the lawyer at the Department of Justice, how is that statement posted on the Homeland Security social media post those two statements about he'll never return? How are. How is that not an open confession of disobedience and contempt of my orders? Explain that to me. And all the. It's my favorite part. All the Department of Justice lawyer could say is, well, depends on the nuance, your honor. You have to take into account the nuance. What effing nuance? You're ordered to facilitate his return. She is ordered by her bosses of the Supreme Court to find out what you've done to get him to return. And you say you won't, you won't tell them, and you publicly announce you'll never bring him home. What is the nuance? You want nuance? Come to Midas touch and legal af. I'm Michael Popach. Let's dive into this. So we had a hearing, and during the hearing, the judge effectively said the following against the Trump administration. She said, I ordered depositions. Those are questions and answers under oath, like live testimony in a courtroom with a court reporter of four different people, five different people from the administration. And all of them shrugged their shoulders and said, we don't know what happened to Abrego Garcia. We don't know what the administration's doing to get him out. You're supposed to give me witnesses. You're supposed to give the other side witnesses. And so that I understand them, who know with knowledge what is going on with Abrego Garcia. I don't want to hear that. Yes, I'm happy that he's healthy. Apparently, you're telling me he's healthy and some other. And some other prison. You're supposed to tell me what you're doing to get him out, and you won't. I feel like a cat. And you keep moving the string, and that is a problem. They said, well, judge, we're in good faith. She said, you're not in good faith, you're in bad faith. And that is that magic language, bad faith. Just as the backdrop, Judge Zinnis is considering whether she's going to find the Trump administration in contempt and the Department of Justice in contempt. She would be the second judge to do so. Judge. Judge Boasberg, the chief judge of the district court in the District Court in D.C. already found probable cause for criminal contempt for noncompliance about the immigration deportation and Alien Enemies Act. Issues in his case, she'd be the second one. And this is what all the backdrop is. Just to put it in context, the hearing was about documents to give the other side ammunition to be able to complete their motion for contempt against the Trump administration. The judge is more than halfway there. I mean, the judge is on the one yard line on contempt, by the way, that Donald Trump and Department of justice is abusing the discovery process, the information exchange process. And she called them out. She said, you are in bad faith and I don't like your Department of Homeland Security filings either. She said, I'm taking quotes from people that were in the room for this. She said, I got a goose egg from depositions about knowing what's been done. And there's a split screen narrative. Everybody in the Trump administration is playing cat and mouse with a prego. Garcia will never return. And the lawyer for the Department of Justice interrupted and said, well, there's a nuance there. She said, what's the nuance? The statement by the Department of Homeland Security is that he'll never step foot back in the United States during the Trump administration. What is the nuance that I am missing? Well, they just meant, oh, here, now we're going to change the language. They just meant that he'll never be released from detention. Right, but you understand, sir, you're missing out a piece. You're missing a piece. The Supreme Court has ruled, as have I, that they're entitled to due process. Fifth Amendment due process. Do you get it? They're entitled to process rights. See, that's why at the very same time this was going on, the very same time this was going on, the United States supreme court issued a 7 to 2 ruling against Donald Trump in deportations and sending people to Venezuela against their will. And in it, in the order they mentioned the Abrego Garcia case, they said, we are grounding the planes of you continuing to fly people in the middle of the night or any other time to El Salvador or anywhere else away from federal jurisdiction, because we want to process it for these people and we'll tell you what that due process and notice looks like. But we can't do that if you send them off to El Salvador in the middle of the night. And they cited this Abrego Garcia case in their 7 to 2 decision against Donald Trump and said, you are taking the position in the Abrego Garcia case that he is long gone and in El Salvador, you can't get him home. But we want to avoid that situation today future. So we're grounding the planes till the issue of Alien Enemy act, proper application or not, is brought before the United States Supreme Court in good time and in our time, not your time. And we're tired. This is reading between the lines of the Supreme Court. We're tired of being whipsawed by Donald Trump. Turn off the engines, get everybody off the plane. Will in due time get this matter to the Supreme Court and make a ruling once and for all about the Alien Enemies Act. But in the meantime, stop trying to stampede us into decisions. That's my interpretation The Weather it's heating up and your nighttime bedroom temperature has a huge impact on your sleep quality. If you wake up too hot or too cold, I highly recommend you check out Miracle Maids bed sheets. Miracle made sheets are inspired by NASA and use silver infused fabrics that are temperature regulating so you can sleep at the perfect temperature all night long. 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But, but there is just a God smacking amount of sealed secret filings in this case by the Trump administration because they don't want the American people know either that they're not working to bring home Abrego Garcia in violation of the Supreme Court or they are working either way. They don't want to let anybody know what's going on so they can publicly declare like Donald Trump just did in his posting where he almost cried about the Supreme Court decision. They're not letting me deport criminals without due process. Yeah, yeah. Because we don't know they're criminals yet. We don't even know if they're subject to the Alien Enemies Act. That's for an adversarial proceeding. No, I was, I was elected by 17 battleground states. Joe Biden, Sleepy Joe Biden. It's like, it's like kitchen magnet poetry with, with Trump. Talk about word salad. It's a word salad every time he, he creates a social media post. I don't want to give everybody due process. Yeah, you have to. That's what the Supreme Court says. And you know, I'm sorry, I got caught up in my impersonation there for a minute. What's the end result? Judge is going to take it under advisement whether any part of the state secret privilege of things that she's entitled to know would be applicable. I doubt maybe a handful of documents. The rest of the documents are going to have to be provided to the other side. If they don't like it, they can take an appeal to the D.C. court of Appeals. In the meantime, they're not doing jack shit. Sorry, pardon me. You can beep that out if you like to bring home a Prego Garcia. And that's pissing off everybody, including the United States Supreme Court. I don't think it is a coincidence that the Supreme Court has issued four rulings against Donald Trump at the Supreme Court level just in the last month. And there. And it's, you know, seven to. So I'll do it in order. Nine zero on Abrego Garcia. Bring him home. Six to three in jgg. You got to use RID of habeas corpus and due process and notice for these people. Two cases involving something called AARP out of Texas. Ground the planes, give them due process. Bring us back the Alien Enemies act. Issue back to the United States Supreme Court. Those are his rulings. Four in a row as a loss. He's not helping his cause, pressing this losing hand, but we'll continue to follow it right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal A F. I'm Michael Popak. Slide over to the Midas Touch subscribe button. Boom. Come over to Legal af. Hit the subscribe button. Boom. A lot of booming here. And then the Legal AF sub stack as well. Till my next report. Till my next Legal AF podcast. I'm Michael Popak, and I'm reporting in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network. We just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and Politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at LegalAFMTN. That's @legal AFMTN.