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- [00:01]
Michael Popak
From unsolved mysteries to unexplained phenomena, from comedy gold to relationship fails, Amazon Music's got the most ad free top podcasts included with prime because the only thing that should interrupt your listening is. Well, nothing. Download the Amazon Music app today. This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. Last year I went through many different life changes. I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the inside to better show up for the ones who need me to be my best version of myself. When you're navigating life's changes, Talkspace can help. Talkspace is the number one rated online therapy, bringing you professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatry providers that you can access anytime, anywhere. Living a busy life, navigating a long distance relationship, becoming a first stepfather, Talkspace made all of those journeys possible. I could speak with my therapist in the office. I could speak of my therapist in the comfort of my home. I was never alone. Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off your first month with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com send save $80 with code space80@talkspace.com look at him eating whatever he wants, never gaining a pound. Well, I'm stuck with the boring special.
- [01:30]
Dina Dahl
And can't lose an ounce.
- [01:31]
Michael Popak
How's your lunch man? Amazing. Yours? So good. Oh, I'm so happy for you. Cool buddy.
- [01:38]
Dina Dahl
Weight loss isn't fair, but Mochi Health is the affordable GLP1 source that can fix your frustration with food.
- [01:45]
Michael Popak
So same time next week? No, definitely.
- [01:48]
Dina Dahl
And your friends? Learn more@joinmochi.com Mochi members have access licensed physicians and nutritionists. Results may vary.
- [01:55]
Michael Popak
We're now in the third phase of the Trump administration and it's lawlessness. This is where court cases by human beings who have been abused their civil rights, civil liberties abused bring their personal court cases against the Trump administration got over 4,000 of them in the United States and overwhelmingly the Trump administration is losing 93% of the cases they're losing at the federal district court level. We want to cover some of those examples here on Legal AF on Saturday and what the Trump administration is doing about what appears to be a completely lawless and out of control and corrupt ICE and Department of Homeland Security. We've got a new case in which the Department of Homeland Security and ICE had to admit that two ICE agents lied because video caught them lying about whether they were attacked with a broom and a shovel, which justified them shooting a Venezuelan in the leg. And then when they tried to cover it up, there was video that showed that they lied. They lied in an affidavit, they lied in a criminal complaint, they lied to a federal judge. They are not the only bad cops in this rotten organization called ice, led by ultimately led by a Homeland Security director, Kristi Noem, who has taken her eye off the ball because according to reporting in the Wall Street Journal, she's busy having an affair, a relationship with Corey Lewandowski, who is Donald Trump's campaign manager during the first campaign, who has a reported history of doing inappropriate and predatory things towards women. And it looks like she's too busy flying around on a private jet on taxpayer dollars with, with Corey. Then figure out how to reform and lead the Department of Homeland Security as the Democrats make good on their threat to defund Homeland Security until they get major changes in that organization. This weekend alone, that looks like we're going to have at least TSA and some other entities like FEMA who maybe be furloughed because the Democrats are digging in. And the and we're also going to keep an eye on how the different creative ways federal judges are dealing with an out of control lawless Department of Justice and ICE and other agencies who are breaking in contempt federal judges orders. And we have a new and I said this a couple weeks ago, federal judges have got to get off the stick and start issuing contempt sanctions against Trump administration Judge Stearns, maybe he heard me in Massachusetts and he's doing it about the illegal which was confessed by the Trump administration removal of a 18 year old college student at Babson College who was just trying to go visit her family at Thanksgiving, got swept up in this mess, sent to Texas and then to Honduras and they won't bring her back even though the Trump the judge, Judge Stearns gave them an opportunity to fix their and remedy their sin. So he took matters into his own hands with a new contempt order. We'll talk about that. Don Lemon. And it's not just Don Lemon, it's all independent journalists that Donald Trump has made it his business to try to crush dissent, crush First Amendment expression, crush independent journalism that he can't control. And Don Lemon is just a prime example along with Georgia Foote. But he's fighting back in many ways, having been recently arraigned on a manufactured charge of violating some criminal laws when he was all he was doing was reporting on a peaceful protest inside of a church about ICE and their civil liberties violations on the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul. And his lawyer has done something extraordinary in a new filing, which we will talk about during the show. As grand juries, which we're going to talk about with Don Lemon, are in the news again because they are the conscience of America, of the public. They stand between the accused and and the accuser and make sure that innocent people aren't indicted. Grand juries are rebelling against this Trump administration. We have a most recent example where they took a look at an attempt to indict six members of Congress for issuing a 90 second video that got under Donald Trump's skin. And they said a collective nope. And then I want to talk about Epstein bringing down a series of rich and powerful men and women in the last week or two. That performance, and the operative word is performance, that unhinged immolation by Pam Bondi of her career. I think it's a turning point in the Oversight Committee hearing, especially when she was caught flat footed, effectively crapping on the survivors and victims of the Epstein files and instead trying to use political talking points in such a disgusting and crass way when all she had to do was be a human being and acknowledge other human beings that had been sexually abused. And instead she decided to rattle off data about the economy. And I got news flash for Pam Bondi. Not everybody's in the situation where they've made millions of dollars working for Donald Trump and getting his stock. Okay. Most people know the economy's in the shitter. Most people know that the job numbers that just came out look like they're cooked. And the pain and suffering is happening every day in doctor's offices, at gas pumps, at supermarkets, at schools, et cetera. And then we'll wrap that into somebody did get fired after Pam Bondi's performance, but it wasn't Pam Bondi. It was somebody fighting for America from within the Department of Justice, the antitrust, the head of the antitrust division. And we'll connect the dots as to how Abigail Slater's firing is another level of COVID up by the Trump administration right here on Legal af with our special guest filling in for Ben, Dina Dahl. Hi, Dina. That was the big reveal. Good to see you bringing in Dina Dahl, everybody. Everybody's like, first of all, Popak doesn't get to talk this much at the beginning of Legal af, usually something must have happened to Ben. Now they understand Ben is doing some amazing, wonderful things with his family. And as he would step in for me, I've stepped in for him into the the anchor seat, if you will. And we brought Dita doll on, one of your favorites to help us go through all these issues. Dina, how are you?
- [08:56]
Dina Dahl
I'm doing great. That was a. We got a lot of stuff to get into Trump. It's a, it's a new. It's a new nightmare everywhere.
- [09:05]
Michael Popak
I used to joke that if the Kennedy administration was known as Camelot, this should be known as scam a lot or scandal a lot or something because I've never seen it before. It could be exhausting. Except I find it exhilarating to do what we do here on Legal af, which is to put the puzzle pieces together, train our sights on it, educate our audience on it, teach them a fair amount about law along in our legal system along the way, and give them what they need to fight for our democracy. Everybody in our audience is a warrior for the Constitution. You may not have signed up for that. That may not have been in your dream book, you know, in middle school, like, one day I'll be a warrior for the Constitution because we have an unhinged fascist president in office. But whether you've been conscripted or you have volunteered, and I know you have by being part of our amazing audience, this is where we are and this is the moment. There's a reason I left my full time career doing another type of law to dedicate to our audience and to do legal and political analysis, really on a full time basis. And you too?
- [10:22]
Dina Dahl
Yeah. I mean, I have to say, every person that I've come across who is a Midas mighty or legal a effort is so extremely informed. They know the facts, they know the law. They are so up to date. That is exactly the type of citizen that can fight authoritarianism. People who want to check out from the news because it's so awful can't do the work. And so I'm always super impressed. People will tell me a Ben video or pop video that I haven't even gotten to yet. They're so incredibly affordable. We have to have a purpose. Finding a purpose through this is how we get through it. But also on a side note, you know how normally you see presidents like really age from the beginning of their term to the end of their term. And it's just the presidents this time I think it's going to be, you.
- [11:03]
Michael Popak
Should all take photos. Is that your line? That's an excellent line. I'm gonna steal it. That's a great line. So we should all put in a time capsule, a photo from four years ago or. No, at the Beginning of this administration. Yeah, right. And then in four years, yeah, I know I'm gonna be greater.
- [11:23]
Dina Dahl
I'm scared.
- [11:23]
Michael Popak
That's a very good line. So with. With that, some good news coming out of. Again, federal judges, by and large, including a lot of Trump judges, are fighting the fight every day, every hour, every minute, with their staff in 93 federal districts or around the country in cases that we cover. And of course, thousands of cases that we don't cover. We might cover them in bulk. You know, in terms of. This is a trend, this is what's happening. But, you know, we try to bubble up the major cases in the funnel that we use in curating to bring you what you need. So. So let's kick it off with Alfred Aljorna and Julio Cesar Sosacellis. You may have heard the story about ICE claiming that they were attacked by a shovel and a broom, and therefore they needed to shoot Mr. Sosa Sellis in the leg. The problem with that is a little thing called video. And video came out after the ICE agents who are still being protected by ICE and by Homeland Security in terms of not having their names released. Why not release? They have no problem releasing the names of victims and survivors of Epstein when they're not supposed to. Why do we not know who these people are? But they filed false affidavits, sworn statements under oath in court to support a criminal complaint and also testify before federal judges to try to get these two criminally prosecuted, arrested and held in detention. Then the video came out. It turns out that none of that was true. And so in a one paragraph filing by Dan Rosen, the new head of the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota, they had to say that there was. They didn't. They didn't quite say it the way the new reporting is, which is they're now criminally investigating these two ICE agents for having lied. But they said that there was inappropriate testimony submitted to court, and therefore they want the complaint, get this, the criminal complaint dismissed with prejudice. But even the government knows it's so egregious that these two should never be prosecuted at the same time. They've been sitting until recently in my. In immigration detention, but until Judge Schultz, the chief judge, released them from that. Take it from there. From your perspective as an example, an indicia of the corruption and the cancer that is ICE under. Under Kristi Noem and Todd Lyons, the acting director of ice.
- [14:13]
Dina Dahl
I mean, this blatant lie, so blatant that they just had to dismiss it outright. I can't imagine how bad that video must be for the prosecution. It's not the first time this has happened. Just in the recent. Right. In addition to Mr. Sosa, Solis here, he was shot, charged, detained unlawfully. But Also in Chicago, Ms. Martinez, the same way she was shot. And now the government backtracked and video showed again, oh, it didn't happen the way they happened. You know, the first thing that you said, I think almost might be the most important in that we do not know the ICE names. Director Lyon came out and said, oh, you know, this was against how we, you know, federal agents shouldn't lie. You know, they are accepting that there was a lie. It must have been that blatant and that they are being, you know, put on leave. But they have not released the names. 1. First of all, that means that there's no way of actually checking that whether or not they have been on leave. When we talk about a secret police, and some people might think that this is hyperbole, this is a secret police. When somebody, when a federal agent has shot somebody, lied about it to the judge and that name still hasn't been released, it is the most dangerous kind of secret police. When you sign up to work for the government or to serve the government in a position, I mean, I'm a city commissioner. They know so much about me. Right. I have to file all sorts of information about myself. You know, you sign up to do certain things, you may not like that people will know your name if you shoot somebody unlawfully. But that is part of the job. You do not have to sign up for ICE if you don't want, you can go work for a private security company. But if you sign up for the federal government, we need their names. And what them still withholding the name in this moment, when they have announced to the world that these agents lied in federal court shows how unserious Trump regime is about democracy, accountability or transparency.
- [16:16]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. And it's not. This isn't the only rogue cops in ice. Their whole culture has been corrupted by bounties, by letting in people who are unqualified. Anybody that's 18 year old, 18 years old and wants to serve this country gets a badge and a gun. What could go wrong? With no training, with no training about how to interact with US Citizens, let alone how to interact with migrants. They're all on border patrol approach, even in the middle of the country where there's no border. Okay. Where they're more likely to interact with US Citizens and protesters than they are to interact with, with migrants. Look, we all that that just puts our cards on the table. There's not an American there's there. The vast majority of Americans, regardless of political strike, believe that violent criminals that are within the migrant or immigration population should be removed from the country. Okay, I think we all, if we're all sitting around a table, like, what do we agree on? We all agree to that. But you can't throw every migrant and immigrant into detention. Throw the, throw the immigrant out with the bathwater. Throw them all out, Violate their civil rights and due process rights when 90% of them are. I think, no, I think the new status, 75% of them have no record at all. Find the 25% that has a record and a violent record at that and focus the resources and the attention on that and not on chasing after other human beings through Home Depot parking lots or churches or schools or hospitals or other sensitive zones. You know, we shouldn't have to go to court to have a federal judge tell ICE and Homeland Security that they shouldn't conduct operations near a preschool or at an elementary school. This is not what we signed up for. Everybody, if you ask most people who are not living near a border and really don't see an immigration problem in this country, they would say, close the border. Okay, the border. Border's closed. The, the, it's so hard to get through that border. If you want to define it as Mexico, the southern border, okay, it's closed. This other stuff of trying to get several million people out of the country, many of them hard working representatives that we would love to have be in America paying billions of dollars in taxes, has to come to an end. So all we're watching is a corrupt organization and what that will do. It's not the, there's, there's over 50 people who have died in interactions with ICE and Homeland Security. This in the last, in 2025. Okay. And into 2026. For me, that's 50 too many. Okay. And you know, to, to Maga, who still, I guess it's the only group clinging to Donald Trump. You know, it, it's, it's a startup for me. It's. That should be the end of it. So there needs to be a total reform of this organization. You still see, as you pointed out, Dina, that they're covering up. You know, they won't tell us who the guys are. They say they've been put on leave. We still don't know the names of the five guys that jumped Alex Preddy like a pack of wolves and then shot him 10 times. Why don't we know their names. We're going to, because they're going to get sued civilly by plaintiffs lawyers, including some that you and I know. I don't know if you know Bob Simon out in California, friend of mine, he's representing victims of ice. So that's. Yeah, good.
- [19:57]
Dina Dahl
I think, I think until, I think until they start naming names, we have to accept that they are not willing to run this agency in any sort of fair and way. And I'm glad the Democrats are shutting it down to do that. It's a very simple catch, right? Like, you know, how do you catch a liar? This is a very simple catch. Until they reveal the names, they are not going to follow the law, period. Because we do not arm a federal agent without knowing their name, badge number, their face. That is the minimum. So the rest is all talk. You know, lions came out, you know, trying to, I say we don't do this and all that kind of stuff, but if you're not naming the names, it's, it's, the rest is all smoke. I think that's something we can follow here until they start naming names.
- [20:50]
Michael Popak
But we're going to get the names because the plaintiff's lawyers are going to use Freedom of Information act requests and other demands to get the name. We don't, we don't allow mass marauders to come into your town and shoot you in the head and drive off. And we don't know who they are. When they work for the federal government, they work for you and me. So that's all going to, I don't know, they just think it's really bad news. So they want to make it go slower. So they don't want to give us the names now, but we're going to get, we're going to get those names.
- [21:15]
Dina Dahl
Yeah, it's a way of covering, it's a way of signaling to the rest of the ICE agents. We didn't really mind what they did. And that's why I think it's a tell.
- [21:25]
Michael Popak
It's a very good point. So let's move to how judges are handling corruption. As I asked for, I demanded that federal judges start using the power, the inherent authority to find the Trump administration in contempt. So we have this interesting case of and of how a judge handled it, of Amy Lucia Lopez Biosa, who until two weeks ago, till Thanksgiving, no Thanksgiving, actually, you would never have known about her. She was a hard working young woman, proud to be in America, straight a student in Texas, got into Babson College in Massachusetts, and you never hear about her, except, you know, maybe if she ran for Congress or Senate or the presidency, but because she came here when she was 8 years old from Honduras and her parents applied for asylum but apparently didn't get it when she was 11, there was an order of removal, but you know, because of the DREAM act, because we had people in this country running the country like Obama and Biden, she didn't get deported or removed. Of course, now that we're throwing out every migrant and immigrant with the bathwater, she tried from Babson to go visit her parents, surprise them for Thanksgiving, goes to Logan Airport in Boston, and I guess her name's on a list and she gets brought into detention. A federal judge orders her not to be removed, but she already got removed to Texas. Okay, here she is. And from Texas there's another order for her not to be removed from the United States and she gets removed illegally and against the court order to, to Honduras where she's apparent, according to this judge's order, she's still doing her studies by Zoom with Babson College. So the judge, after the federal government admitted, like they did in an earlier case of Kilmer Abrego Garcia, admitted that she was illegally deported or removed from the country because an ICE agent in with a short staffing problem misread an order and sent her out. The judge says, all right, I, I, I can. It's commendable that you admit that you made an error. Another bring her back. He said, oh, no, Judge. And you don't have the jurisdiction to order us to bring her back. What are you talking about? I said, I, I'm wearing like. He probably looked down at his robe, Judge, Judge Stearns and said, I'm wearing a black robe here, aren't I? I have inherent authority. Oh, no. Well, I'm going to give you the opportunity to fix it. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State's got a lot of powers, right? Have her order her to have a student visa. Bring her back. And the just. And the Department of, the Department of Justice. And Martin, Secretary of State said, we decline the invitation. It's like it was an invitation. I've been in federal courts for 35 years. I've never seen a federal court's comment to be an invitation, like, I decline that invitation. Thank you, sir. And so the judge issued an order on civil contempt. Why don't you take it from there?
- [24:36]
Dina Dahl
Yeah, I mean, as you pointed out blatantly, there was an order. Do not remove her for 72 hours. Trying to give her a chance to fight the deportation order. Government blatantly ignored it and deported her. And so you know, Judge Stearns saying that they have until February 27th to bring her back, you know, fairly upset at the government, rightly so, for ignoring him to this day and saying he's going to hold them in contempt if that doesn't happen, which, you know, the trial judges for sure have been the most resilient part of the, I guess you could say, resistance to the lawlessness. They're the ones with the initial view of the case. They're the ones with the facts applying the law correctly. I think also, and you probably would agree, Popo, that they're showing less deference now to this administration than they would have in the past. This past year. They have seen that they don't deserve that deference, that the, the blatant lawlessness. So him acting quickly here and it will be will they agree. They tend to capitulate. Right. They, they have this bluster, I think the Trump administration, but I imagine maybe they will bring her back by the 27th at this point.
- [25:54]
Michael Popak
Let me read to you from, from this order. So whenever I see the Bible being cited gets me excited. So here's what Judge Stearns wrote in his order. Wisdom. This is first page, first paragraph. Wisdom counsels that redemption may be found by acknowledging and fixing our own errors. Proverbs 28:13. In this unfortunate case, the government commendably admits that it did wrong. Now it is time for the government to make amends. And he then goes through the case for Amy and the emergency judge's order that she not be sent to outside the country. In other words, the reason, and just a little bit of a tutorial here, the reason the Trump administration moves and removes people, moves and removes, moves them from their jurisdiction where they're picked up where they live to another United States jurisdiction and then removes them out of the country, sometimes in the same day or same 24, 48 hour period is to get them away from federal judge jurisdiction. The, the federal judges of choice for the Trump administration reside in Texas. So if you're picked up in Massachusetts or Chicago or Portland, Oregon or Minneapolis, all of a sudden, even though you have no connection to Texas, suddenly you're, you're chained, put on a transport and sent to Texas. But what you're really being, what really is happening is you're being sent away from a federal judge, maybe a Biden or Obama or Clinton or Bush appointees jurisdiction. Okay, so now the first move of the shell game, Texas. So now the jurisdiction lies in Texas for any Writ of habeas corpus petition, which is more likely. It's a conservative judge, maybe a Trump judge. So now they're in Texas. Now we get to removal. Why are they being removed out of the country so quickly? To get them away from federal court oversight. And judges are wise to this. So what they're saying is they're also wise to something else. A development at the United States Supreme Court from last spring involving Kilmer, Abrego, Garcia, in which they backed a federal judge who came up with the concept of facilitation. I call it the facilitation doctrine. It's really Judge Zitis. And now every federal judge is using it, which is, I'm going to order that the federal government facilitate the return to the United States of the illegally removed person. I have that power. You know, their argument had been, the Trump administration, no, Judge, you lost your jurisdiction as soon as we put those people on the plane. And the response is no. If I had an order in place like Judge Stearns, Judge Boasberg, Judge Zinnis, then I have the inherent authority to order you to facilitate the return. And the, and the Supreme Court, which never agrees on anything. They can't, as I joke, they can't agree on their lunch order. Who got the tuna salad? Okay, nine zero said that that facilitation concept was right for due process. So now all the judges are using it facilitate. And Judge Stearns uses it. Let's go. Let me go over it. So after he goes through all of it, he says that the, the respondents have readily acknowledged they violated the order on page five. So that's an admission. He says, I gave in this. He says, the judge says, in the, in the spirit, the court suggested, when a black robe judge suggests something, you better, you better follow it suggested that the Secretary of State, with his considerable powers, provide Amy with an expedited student visa. The sec. The Secretary of State regrettably declined the invitation. And now the court said, civil, we're now up to civil contempt. He then cites to John Adams, in his capacity as not only a founder, but in helping to write the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, which was the model for our Bill of Rights, does that as well, and says that this argument that the Trump administration brings up, which is, judge, what does it matter? Even if we brought her back and you ordered us to facilitate what she has, we're just going to put her in, in immigration detention and down the road, she's probably going to be removed anywhere. And the judge wagged, wagged his finger and said, not so Fast. That's not for the executive branch to be judge, jury, and executioner on immigration policy. It's up to the judiciary. So don't presuppose what's going to happen in the future after a court of appeals determines the extent of her due process rights. You don't get to crush her due process rights and say, well, she'll probably just be removed in the future anyway. Judge, that's not for you to do. So using the facilitation doctrine, on page seven of the order, it says the respondents, which is the government, are ordered and directed to facilitate Amy's return 14 days from the date of this order, and then transmit it to everybody, file status reports about it and what you're doing to facilitate, which is a page out of Judge Zitis's book and Judge Boberg Boseberg's book about facilitation requirement. Now, Kilmer, Abrego, Garcia, it took a United States Supreme Court decision, and even then, the Department of Justice manufactured a fake criminal case against Kilmer, which is likely to be dismissed in Tennessee before they brought him back to keep him in detention. 137 disappeared Venezuelans. The Trump administration, even though they just got ordered by Judge Boasberg to facilitate their return for due process purposes, you can see the Trump administration is going to keep fighting that. I'm not sure. I'm not as confident as you are, Dina, that they're going to bring back Ms. Boyoza. They don't like to admit mistake or defeat. Even though this would be easy. While Donald Trump's busy giving pardons to, you know, former NFL players for their corruption, which he did in the last couple of days, why don't you take pity and call it mercy? Call it, you know. You know, I mean, all these people that are being pardoned for fraud and billions of dollars wiped off the books, give this poor girl, okay, an amnesty and give her a student visa and let her come back to Babson College and let her be an American in the future and give her a path to citizenship. How about that? But I'm not sure he's going to do it, given these other cases.
- [32:43]
Dina Dahl
Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm just hoping, because right now, I don't know if the Trump regime is as focused on this, to be quite honest. I mean, you and I are focused on it because this is part of our, you know, making sure we see every illegal move they're making. But they are a little bit more focused on Epstein. And I think they took such a hard line with the Kilmar, Abrego, Garcia, because it was in so much the news and they needed to see that they weren't backing down. And I can sometimes be an optimist and maybe to a fault, but the fact that the facilitation doctrine even become part of our new legal theories, you know, Judge Zinnis will be in the history books as really being willing to stand up, the first one to really stand up. And it really isn't about, I mean, I agree with you, the mercy of her of like, gosh, isn't this exactly the kind of person we want in this country who wants to, you know, get an education and contribute to our society, but also just, frankly, her due process rights were violated. And if it's that easy, if they think they can show it, no skin off their back, go ahead and show it when she returns. Yeah, I know we're going to be talking about Pam Bondi in a little bit, but it just feeds into their whole mentality with Trump is personal mentality of never being able to accept a loss, but the actual loss lawyer in front of the court will be the one held in contempt. So perhaps that particular lawyer might not want to go quite as far as, you know, Trump would.
- [34:16]
Michael Popak
And, and here, you know, just to your point, she's not a member of Trent Aragua. She's not a narco terrorist. She's not right there. She's not a drug gang.
- [34:26]
Dina Dahl
She's a female.
- [34:27]
Michael Popak
She's a lovely young girl woman who's at, who's in college. Okay. You do what you, you know, that is the perfect poster child to, you know, where he could, he could be the bigger person, although I don't think that's even possible with Donald Trump. But we will see and we'll continue to follow that. When we come back, we'll talk about what I think is a turning point in the public's perception of the Department of Justice and Pam Bondi and her performance at the Oversight committee hearing, the judicial, the Judiciary Committee hearing. And then there's some new breaking news about the Epstein files, which I want to, with Dina, bring everybody up to speed on. And then we'll also talk about Don Lemon and this bombshell of a new motion that he just filed in the last 24 hours in that particular case. But we're going to take a quick sponsor break. For people that know our show, the reason we talk about our sponsors and talk about the ways to support legal AF is because, let me be frank. Without our subscriber base, without our audience, without their fervent support of the things that we do. Legal AF Midas Touch Legal F YouTube channel. We'd be off the air, you would go to where you thought your favorite show was and it just, just wouldn't be there any longer because we just can't keep it on the air. We can't keep our producers and our editors and we can't keep 12 videos a day going up on legal AF and handful. You know, Dean and I are involved with, you know, a handful of podcasts, you know, new ones like Unprecedented that she and I are now doing, which you can find over on, on anywhere you get your audio podcast about the United States Supreme Court. I've got one called the Intersection. On Tuesday nights I've got the Legal AF podcast. You know, on Wednesdays and Saturdays we've got Court of History podcast. This is all, you know, ways to bring you additional content. So if you want to Support us legal AF YouTube channel Become a subscriber or a paid subscriber. That that is gives us the street credibility to bring on the senators and the Congress people, the judges, the former federal judges, the ACLU and the rest. That's one. Then we've got this other world that I knew very little about until about a year ago called Substack. But now I've fallen down the rabbit hole. It's, it's amazing. And we are like the top five law and politics substack out there giving you additional creative content, essays, writing. Dina Dahl writes with us. I do two lives a day and I'm running a 35% off sale on annual membership comes down to about 650amonth on legal AF substack. And then of course we've got our pro. I love watching my various haircuts or the need for haircuts over time. And the graying of Michael Popo. It's not even the graying of America. This is the Dina Doll doct doctrine in practice for all of us under the Trump administration. But and I'm so glad to have Dina Dahl here as well. So let's, let's take a break from our pro democracy sponsors. 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But this is about independent journalism, which is Donald Trump's one of his main goals as any dictator fascist is to crush First Amendment freedom of press and freedom of expression. He said it a year ago. It's in Project 2025. He's used his Federal Communications Commission to go after reporting and Bend the knee of companies like ABC, CBS, 60 Minutes and the like. He's working behind the scenes right now to try to get CNN into the hands of a crony friend of his, a billionaire trillionaire family led by Larry Ellison of Oracle, trying to put his big fat thumb on the scale he. But the one thing he can't control is, like, what you and I do on YouTube and what you even though it's owned by Google. I mean, you think he could, but he hasn't yet, you know, and if that happens, it'll be you, me, Ben, the brothers, riding around in a van with a short wave radio, right? You know, it'll be, it'll be, you know, pirate radio, you know, in your neighborhood, like a, like a, like a Waymo, you know, broadcasting. That's what's going to end up, you know. But, yeah, he can't get us, you know, so he goes after Act Blue, you know, try to take away their First Amendment expression through money. Goes after corporate media, hold up your deal, you know, you like that license, you know, you better. You know, this, that and the other thing they're going after, the view of all things Whoopi Goldberg is now going to be and Joy Behar is now going to be the because, oh, they're putting on people. Well, they're not doing equal time under the equal time rules. And so they go after Don Lemon. And they don't just go after Don Lemon. Don Lemon was, whether you want to call him embedded with a group of protesters was or of course they knew that they were going to be doing protests. Don got the got the lead on it, and he went to the church in St. Paul in the middle of January where they were demonstrating not to interfere with the house of worship, as the indictment puts it, or people's First Amendment expression, but to protest inside the church about one of its leaders being involved with ice. And it's frankly, unchristian policies and approaches. I mean, you know, there's a lot to be said for what was going around during Christmas, which is, and I've been to Bethlehem to see the manger, okay? I mean, the location where they think it was, you know, that, you know, Mary and Joseph would have been deported, moved, removed and deported with little baby Jesus. So they picked that place to protest. Don Lemon, Georgia Foote, another journalist go there. Every judge that looked at it, from the chief judge of Minnesota to a magistrate judge, said Don Lemon, his producer. GEORGIA foote Journalists, First Amendment right, you want to put the other people in jail for violating various constitutional and civil rights laws by. Because they're. They're. They're interfering with somebody's right to worship based on a law that was to protect people from being bombarded with abuse on the way into abortion clinics, by the way. But. But not. Not the press. You can't. So Judge Schultz said it. Judge Schultz said it to the, to the. The appellate court basically exonerating Don Lemon. But they finally, knowing that federal judges wouldn't issue arrest warrants and wouldn't approve of criminal complaints, they went into a grand jury and they got a grand jury indictment. But this Trump administration, this Department of Justice, is so lawless that they are known for mischaracterizing the facts. That's called lying about facts about a case. We've seen it before. That's a domestic terrorist. That's an assassin. No, that's Renee Goode, who you murdered in cold blood. And that's Alex Pretty. So we know they misstate the facts, especially in this particular case that we're talking about, and they misstate the law all the time. And so Don Lemon brought a motion to unseal the grand jury transcript in order to. Under the argument that you can no longer give this Department of Justice the presumption of regularity, which is a doctrine that says before this administration, before this corrupt Department of Justice, we are going to presume, unless you can show us proof otherwise, that what transpired with an indictment or the actions of a prosecutor are in the regular course. But you can't give them that any longer. You can't give them the presumption of regularity. You can't rubber stamp it anymore. Before I turn to you, Dina, about the new filing, let me play two examples or show. Show one, and then an audio of where the Trump administration has completely misstated the law as it relates to Don Lemon. Harmy Dillon, the head of the civil Rights division, doesn't know her Constitution. And the fact that they misstated the law in public in an interview, Lord knows what they did before the grand jury. Look, we know from Lindsey Halligan's debacle going against James, Comey and Letitia James that she went in and violated, according to a magistrate judge, the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment rights of Comey and Letitia James. Lord knows what they did to get an indictment against Don Lemon. And that's the point of the motion. But let me show you Harmeet Dylan being interviewed on Fox and her misstatement of First Amendment law, which likely infected what happened in the grand jury room.
- [46:48]
Dina Dahl
Let's play it from Sunday.
- [46:50]
Michael Popak
When I first saw the video that Don Lemon himself put out about his.
- [46:55]
Dina Dahl
Conduct that day, it was clear to.
- [46:57]
Michael Popak
Me that we had the predicates for.
- [46:59]
Dina Dahl
Pursuing face act and conspiracy. We did our homework, sent prosecutors there.
- [47:05]
Michael Popak
To the ground, took affidavits, took evidence. They buttressed the case that we could witness from Lemon's own testimony and statements.
- [47:13]
Dina Dahl
And admissions against interest in his own videos. And we have aggressively and very rapidly sought legal process.
- [47:21]
Michael Popak
Now, I will say it's been a.
- [47:22]
Dina Dahl
Little frustrating because for 48 hours between the time that we saw it, these.
- [47:27]
Michael Popak
Arrest warrants, and the time that we were able to make arrests and say what the judge did in refusing to.
- [47:34]
Dina Dahl
Sign off on Lemons, you know, it.
- [47:36]
Michael Popak
Had to stay silent. We have certain protocols here at the Department of Justice, but he is not out of legal jeopardy and he has lawyered up. He has a prominent lawyer. And you know, we're going to pursue.
- [47:50]
Dina Dahl
This to the ends of the earth.
- [47:52]
Michael Popak
Good. Yeah. So let's, let's break that down for a minute. He. I love, I love when the Department of Justice at Harmeet Dillon, who, I'll just say it out loud, is a political hack of the first order. She failed up. She wanted to be the attorney General. She didn't get it. She wanted to be the chairperson of the Republican National Committee. She, she, she got the consolation prize. She didn't get it. So they gave her the civil rights division to effectively put out of business. So she goes on and she's. He lawyered up. You mean he got a lawyer to defend himself against a criminal charge? Yeah, he lawyer. I guess we all need to lawyer up, don't we? But the statement that his badge as a journalist is insufficient to overcome the criminal law that she talked about, it's the exact opposite of the criminal law. Congress, when they passed that law, made it clear that if you're properly exercising first amendment rights, media, journalists, you're not going to be criminally prosecuted. And yet you have harmony. So. So Abby Lowell, who represents a number of targets by the Trump administration, including Letitia James, including Lisa Cook on the board of governors, he said there is an example. Lord knows what they said in the grand jury room, which is why we need a copy of the transcript because look what they're saying in public. And then he said in the briefing that. And they're also mischaracterizing or lying about the facts. And they use for that example, one of Don's co defendants is an activist and they posted a photo. I don't know if we have it. If not, I'll get it. We posted a photo of his co conspirator, and they used AI to darken her skin and make it look like she was crying. There it is. Yeah. Nakima Levy Armstrong was. It was in the picture on your left. That's what she looked like when she's being arrested, not on the right. So if they're willing to lie, Dina, about this, basic facts in public, Lord knows what happened behind the closed doors of a secret grand jury hearing room, right?
- [50:07]
Dina Dahl
Absolutely. He should win this motion for sure. I mean, him deciding alone to what Lindsey Halligan did to Comey and the misstatement of the law in itself would be a reason to reveal this. And also because of all the statements he cites from Bondi to Trump to Emma Dylan talking about how he was really guilty. Before they were finished pursuing it, the magistrate judge gave the DOJ an opportunity to revise their affidavit if they had more evidence. They didn't do that. Instead, they went to, as you said, the circuit judge. He wasn't willing to do it either. And so they. What on earth did they say to the grand jury? I mean, Dylan was involved with California GOP politics. She, as you said, is a political hack. Don Lemon, as an independent journalist, there is nothing more risky to an authoritarian regime than an independent reporter with a microphone. Because we see not only the consolidation of media power, but a lot of those media owners run in the same, same circles, and they're. We've seen them be willing to bow to Trump. It's not that hard to call the boss, right, and say, hey, tone down your reporter. Nobody can do that to Don Lemon and Georgia for. And that's why they're so threatening and so powerful and why there's an attack on them. Now, this Face act requires there to be an intentional disruption of the First Amendment right to worship, which is what they are using for the protesters. And the protesters will have their day in courts as play all of that out. The reason why it is so astonishing and why we realize that this is really so authoritarianism that they're going after Don Lemon and Georgia Fort is because they were reporting on what the protesters and the parishioners and pastor were doing. I mean, I went to journalism school, right? I mean, I can think of no other way to actually protect somebody's First Amendment right to worship. Then to interview the pastor and the parishioner who made it super clear that they didn't like those protesters there. Don Lemon, in fact, amplified the Voice of the churchgoers. Let's say they weren't there, weren't live streaming it. There was no recording of it. You would have, you know, hearsay account of what exactly? Did the protesters even go inside the church? The parishioner said yes. The protesters said no. The irony is that by Don Lemon being there, he amplified the concern in some ways of the. Of the church parishioners. Yes, he amplified the voice of the protesters of why they were going there, because, as you said, this really unchristian detainment that's happening. But he also amplified the voice of the parishioners, and that is why it was so hard, if not impossible, for the DOJ to get an indictment against him, and why it is essential to see what exactly they said to the grand jury in order to get.
- [53:05]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. Let me, let me read to you from the filing. And then I want to show you both Don Lemon, our audience, and Georgia Foot, because I don't want them, these human beings who are doing this hard work of being journalists, holding a government accountable as part of the Fourth Estate. I don't want that to be lost either. Here's what Don Lemon's lawyers wrote in their introduction, which I thought was very, very powerful. And you and I are both lawyers, and we can admire great legal writing. I often do sometimes when I see amazing legal writing, I like just, I put it into a drawer that I keep for, like, the future. Here's what they said at the introduction. Grand jury proceedings are presumed regular and, with some exceptions, ordinarily protected from outside scrutiny. But the government has squandered that presumption here. Its conduct has been highly unusual, nakedly political and inconsistent with practice. In this district, multiple judges considered the government's evidence in quotes against Don Levin and Georgia Ford and declined charges. Undeterred, the government took the prosecution President Trump demanded to a grand jury in the United States of America. We do not prosecute, the brief continues, journalists, for doing their job. That happens in Russia, China, Iran and other authoritarian regimes. And yet the government sold this unconstitutional mess to the grand jury. And therefore, the grand jury proceedings must be disclosed to us to ensure that the government did not mislead or misinstruct it. Particularly, they say about the grand jury on page 10, the grand jury. We're going to talk more about the grand jury next, about what it did as a firewall to protect our rule of law, about the attempt to indict six members of Congress last week or earlier this week. Sorry. Here's what they said about the grand jury. The grand jury is a check against unfounded prosecution, a bulwark between the accuser and the accused. Citing to the Founding Fathers related to that, they then went through an entire series of dozens of cases just in 2025 and a little bit of 2026, in which federal judges have had to say, probably for the first time in their lives, that this is a lawless, rogue administration and Department of Justice who no longer can be given the presumption of regularity, who are going after their political enemies without regard to the rule of law, case after case after case after case. Citing back to the two cases we talked about, the case of Letitia James and James Comey, in which judges like Judge Fitzgerald, Judge Novak, Judge Curry all looked at it and said, I mean. I mean, Judge Fitz, Judge Fitzgerald, who is the magistrate judge for James Comey, said, I see three constitutional violations alone in the presentation to the grand jury. Fourth, fifth, and Sixth Amendment, which never would have been. Just to educate here for a minute, never would have come to light because grand jury proceedings are. There's no judge sitting in the room. They're down the hall, you know, But a prosecutor presents the case, the grand jury sits in judgment, and they decide whether there's probable cause to indict. Probable cause to indict somebody for a crime. That crime then has to be proved in the court of law beyond a reasonable doubt. So probable cause to indict, but beyond a reasonable doubt to convict. That's why people are presumed innocent until. Which is another bulwark against rogue prosecutions. And then it's all supposed to be done consistent with the Department of Justice manual and the principles of federal prosecution, which have effectively been put in a wood chipper by this Trump administration, and everybody knows it.
- [57:04]
Dina Dahl
So.
- [57:06]
Michael Popak
I would be shocked if the judge in this case does not grant this motion and take a look, at least in camera, meaning the judge look at it alone. First, what happened during the grand jury proceedings? Don Lemon has come out post indictment. You saw a little bit of a clip there that Catherine, that what now passes for journalism on Fox is snickering, sneering and giggling like 8th graders watching a school play or a musical and giggling through the performance. That is what now passes for it on Fox News. All you hear is Don Lemon coming out swinging and the Fox News anchor or host, whatever she's supposed to be laughing under her brow. I mean, that. That is now reporting for Fox News. Let's play Don Lemon, though, in his response. First off, I'd like to thank everyone again for their support to My colleagues, countless journalists around the world, the Lemon nation, my family, and my friends, you all have showed up for me in a real way, and I am extremely grateful for that. I feel it. I feel it. I feel it. For more than 30 years, I've been a journalist, and the power and protection of the First Amendment has been the underpinning of my work. The First Amendment, the freedom of the press, the bedrock of our democracy, the events before my arrest and what's happened since so that people are finally realizing what this administration is all about. The process is the punishment with them. And like all of you here in Minnesota, the great people of Minnesota, I will not be intimidated. I will not back down. I will fight these baseless charges, and I will. Will not be silence. Thank you very much. And I want our public to know, and we're. Listen, to be frank, I'm. I'm. I'm friendly with Don Lemon. I sat next to him at Ben Myelis's wedding. I, I, you know, I've supported him. You've been on his show?
- [59:05]
Dina Dahl
Yeah, I. I was celebrating New Year's with him. I was on live. No, he did. He had a lot of remote people, so we did, like, a watch party. So.
- [59:15]
Michael Popak
Yeah, but I would defend. Even if I didn't know the guy, I would be defending him as hard. And I don't know Georgia foot, but I want people to know more about Georgia foot. Let's play The Georgia foot clip today.
- [59:25]
Dina Dahl
Shows me that we are moving together. And so to all the media who made a statement on behalf of me, thank you so much. As I reflect, as a journalist who has worked in media for more than 17 years, I leave this federal, federal courthouse today with one question.
- [59:44]
Michael Popak
Do we have a constitution or not?
- [59:49]
Dina Dahl
I should be protected under the First Amendment. Just like all of the journalists who I've been advocating for, too. I've been advocating for mainstream media, journalists who have been brutalized for months. Do we have a constitution? That is the pressing question that should be on the front of everyone's minds. And so, to everybody who showed up today, thank you. Please continue to support the other people who are being charged. Obviously, because there's ongoing litigation, there is not much that I can say beyond what I'm saying now. But amplifying the truth, documenting what is happening in our community is not a crime. And the questions that were were asked a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning by concerned community members. Those questions still need to be answered. And as a journalist, I am committed to continuing to follow the story until their Questions are answered. Thank you so much.
- [60:50]
Michael Popak
Proud and honorable person. I'm glad to call her a fellow journalist and commentator. I now will continue to follow Georgia Foote's career, and I think our audience should as well. Let's switch gears, Dina, and talk about grand juries in another context. Donald Trump didn't like a video that six members of Congress, led by Alyssa Slotkin, senator from Michigan, and Mark Kelly, senator from Arizona, other members of Congress who have served our nation proudly as members of the intelligence community and or the military, and all they did was state a fact, an immutable fact, about the code of military justice, the Nuremberg principles and the rest, which is if you've sworn to uphold an oath as a federal officer in our or in our military, you cannot follow in a legal order of, of your commander in chief or any commander. That is not a defense. And it was a reminder not to give up the ship, that they had their back, that we have their back, and that you can't just do something that you know is wrong and against the Constitution and law and military justice. That's just, that's just a restatement of, of what is in the code of military justice. Trump didn't like it said hang him from the highest tree and George Washington would hang them right on cue. Pete Hegseth said he called them the seditious six, even though ten years ago, when he was at a military academy, on a video that Elisa Slotkin's office caught, he said the exact same thing about an illegal order. And we knew that the Department of Justice out of the D.C. u.S. Attorney's office, led by Jeanine Pirro, you know, she's the one that goes after anybody. Donald Trump says go after, oh, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell for cost overruns on a building. Yeah, I'll criminally investigate him. You know, she's the one that can't get indictments. You know, guy throws a salami sandwich. I'm not making this up. Guy throws a salami sandwich at an ICE officer, a paralegal I think he worked for, I think he worked for the Department of Justice, and she tries to indict him for assault on a federal officer. So apparently they went in, they went in, six members of the Congress and sitting senators for the video. And what happened.
- [63:13]
Dina Dahl
I mean, it's astonishing. That sentence right there is a huge wake up call. Trying to indict six sitting senators for a public service announcement. They are so against speech. It's insane. So many things. A deportation of students who have spoken out, you know, what they're doing with Don Lemon, what they're doing with the senators, because speech is a foundational bedrock for any democracy. But our founders were well aware of the risks of a government having too much control over the everyday person. That is something that they dealt with with the monarchy.
- [63:51]
Michael Popak
So they.
- [63:52]
Dina Dahl
And some things they did not protect us about. Right. I mean, there's a whole heck of a lot the founders did not get in. Right, right, right. Slavery was allowed. Women couldn't vote until not that long ago. They did not protect us from the oligarchs and the billionaires, because a lot of them were. But they knew the government was going to try to wield their power over somebody in a criminal trial. And it's perhaps one of the most strongest protections in the Constitution for the everyday person is in the criminal justice system. And that's what we're seeing. There's thresholds, like you pointed out, the probable cause. There's certain standards and thresholds the government must meet. And normally, as people always said. Right. You can always. A diet, a ham sandwich, because the threshold is quite low. Most prosecutors have never wanted to bring criminal cases that they. They didn't think they could win because prosecutors always talk about their record. Right, Pablo? They're always like, oh, it was undefeated. They only want to bring winning cases. So you've never really been in this situation where they are being directed to bring cases for political purposes that are unwinnable. And that's why we've seen not only a lot of failures of the grand jury to be able to indict, such as here with the six sitting senators, but also we've seen them go to trial and jury after jury ruling against the government. You know, in Los Angeles, there was a grand jury that the tow truck driver. There was an ice. Another ICE arrest, and the tow truck driver towed the ICE vehicle and parked it around the corner. I think the ICE vehicle was around the corner, I think for 13 minutes or something like that. They tried to charge him with a felony for that for years, punishable years in jail on the Grinch. And the jury there did it convict. We're seeing the DOJ bring cases that are unwinnable for the pure purpose of persecution. And thankfully, so far, our criminal justice system has enough safeguards in place to push back on a lot.
- [65:51]
Michael Popak
Thank God for the grand juries. I mean, this is just the justice system as you outlined it. Rebelling. No, that's not the right word. Protecting as a firewall. The lawless Trump DOJ administration, federal judges, as I Started the podcast tonight. Federal judges in 93 districts ruling 93% of the time against Donald Trump. The juries not convicting when there is insufficient evidence. Now, look, when there's, when there's sufficient evidence in a jury, I believe in the jury system. So like, so like, you know, and I believe in appeals. So when the judge in Milwaukee got indicted and convicted of interfering with ICE's operations to pick up somebody, Hannah Dugan, I'm like, all right, well, I wasn't there in the. When the jury ruled. So subject to an appeal, you know, that was the will of the jury. You know, a grand jury indicted John Bolton, you know, with a legitimate prosecutor in Virginia about, you know, him perhaps violating the Espionage Act. Okay, Subject to. He's, he's innocent until proven guilty. And an appeal. Right, okay, that happened. I get it. I reported on it. But. But juries are rebelling, and judges. Because Donald Trump has crapped all over the Department of Justice and in just has ripped away a reputation that was centuries in the making in just a matter of a year, reducing it to rubble and being completely untrustworthy. What did they think the impact was going to be? No, they don't get the benefit of the doubt in court any longer. The tie doesn't go to the runner. There's. The judges are. No, magistrate judges are no longer rubber stamps for what comes out of the Department of Justice's mouth, which they used to be. And so magistrate judges are rejecting the Department of Justice. Judges are rejecting it, juries are rejecting it, and now grand jury. So effectively the entire justice system is groaning under the strain, but is holding. Is holding. That's why Donald Trump has to lash out at boogeymen like Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society. Oh, you told me to get these judges on. These are the wrong judges. Forget that. Even Trump judges are ruling against Donald Trump, you know, time and time and time again. So I think that's a, that's a, that's a great report, great briefing for our audience and put that right in the law. In the long line of failed indictments so far, you know, they're, they're over three against Letitia James. Letitia James, the New York attorney general who I'm going to be interviewing next week. I'm so happy about this. Along with 13 other attorneys general at their conference in San Francisco. And we'll be doing actually three panels, and I'll be doing some individual interviews as well. She the grant. One of the grand juries not only would not indict but they wanted to publicly announce that they were returning. They were not returning a true bill of indictment that they were going to. No, no bill it. Which is unusual because they usually just go home and there's no indictment. No, they wanted to come back at open court and announce that they weren't going to indict Letitia James. And when the government found out about it, the Department of Justice, they freaked out, and they asked the judge to seal it so that you and I and the public would not know that the grand jury had gone that far. And the judge said, well, I don't know why they want. I can only speculate, he said, as to why they wanted to announce that in open court, But I'm not going. But having. Having them had made that decision to do it. I am not going to seal it. You know, to save you the embarrassment. Just shows you the grand juries are fighting back. And as Don Lemon said in his filing, to kind of bring this full circle, the grand jury is a check against unfounded prosecution, a bulwark between the accuser and the accused. And citing to a case of the United States Supreme Court in 1974 called Calandra, the founders thought that the grand jury, so essential to basic liberties that they provided in the Fifth Amendment that federal prosecution for serious crimes can only be instituted by a presentment or indictment of a grand jury in order to protect citizens against arbitrary and oppressive governmental action. And therefore, every defendant, every American, every person, has a constitutional right to an independent, an informed grand jury. Period. End of story. Something that harmeet Dillon. You know, the number five in the Department of Justice doesn't seem to understand. Todd Blanche, the number two in the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi, the number one in the Department of Justice, or the Solicitor General, the number four in the Department of Justice, John Sauer. This. This. This is basic. You and I and con law, Constitutional Law 101. Learned ingrained, right? I wouldn't be able to take that position if I worked for the Department of Justice because it's so ingrained in me. I don't know about you. We spent five weeks, five weeks in constitutional law in law school on Marbury versus Madison, okay? By a former Solicitor General of the United States, Walter. The late Walter Delager. Okay? So I can't. It's like I. I'm allergic to the concept that our Constitution doesn't provide under the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, these basic rights, which is the. Which is how we broke away and why we broke away from the monarchy of. Of England. All right? It's the foundational principles of our, of our existence, our very existence. And yet, and yet, just, they just. The Trump administration and its political hacks just blithefully pass it over like they're running through a stop sign, you know. Yeah.
- [72:02]
Dina Dahl
I mean, the law is there to serve the people. The government doesn't need the law. They have the power. The law is there to serve the people. And so I 100 agree with you. Those of us who care about our profession and got into this building believe in that fundamental principle and they are trying to twist it and thankfully not, not very successful.
- [72:21]
Michael Popak
Absolutely.
- [72:21]
Dina Dahl
In all cases.
- [72:22]
Michael Popak
So well put. So we're gonna, we're gonna take a little breather here. A little bathroom break for those of us and other things. But there's a lot of different ways to support what we do. If you, if you want to vote, early voting has started. If you want to vote for Legal af, hit the subscribe button for Legal AF on Midas. Hit the subscribe button, go over to legal AF YouTube and become a member or a paid member on Legal AF YouTube. We've got a dozen videos a day, including Dina Dahl you'll see regularly there. We have podcasts like Unprecedented, which she and I do at the intersection of law and politics and the Supreme Court every week. We've got the Court of History with Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wallentz and the guests that they get mind boggling court accountability action about federal corruption in our court system up to the United States Supreme Court does amazing work. A couple of amazing lawyers out in California do a show called Civil Action with their videos. We've got, we've got Dave Aronberg, Florida law guy. We've got Adam Klassfeld of All Rise News. We've got the American Civil Liberties Union, regular reporting by Democracy Forward. Dina's with them with me from the beginning. Right. That's quite a roster. Right.
- [73:42]
Dina Dahl
I know. I was thinking that it's amazing. Yeah. I mean, October 20, 14 months, something 15 call I have with you.
- [73:51]
Michael Popak
I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to, you know, that's where we are.
- [73:55]
Dina Dahl
Yeah, absolutely.
- [73:57]
Michael Popak
And of course we talked about our substack, which is a great way to get live reporting. I do it sometimes with guests like Dina and Adam Klassfeld and sometimes by myself. Lots of reporting there. Lots of written commentary and essays you can only find on substack. Become a paid member to encourage you to do it for Valentine's Day weekend, 35% off. Put a heart around that for monthly membership on Legal AF substack and then we've got our Pro Democracy sponsors. Some of some have just joined us, some have been with us. Dina like for like the whole ride. Like for six years. So and here's another word from our sponsors. Delete Me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, Delete Me does all the hard work of wiping your and your family's personal information from data broker website so you don't have to chase it down yourself. 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To get your 20% off, text legal AF to 64,000 text legal AF to 64,000. That's legal AF to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Welcome back to Legal AF at Saturday. I'm Michael Popak and I'm joined with our guest anchor Dina Dahl. And I thought a great way to wrap the show, Dina. And last but not least is this turning point and I want to debate it or discuss it with you. That I think has happened now with Pam Bondi, the Department of justice and the American people. I think there's been a complete breach. I think there's, there's the American people now see through having watched Pam Bondi twice at an oversight committee hearing that know that she lied to the American people when she said in her confirmation hearing that she'd be a independent Department of Justice head. She's nothing more than a partisan political hack who can't even bring herself to acknowledge the suffering of Epstein sexual abuse survivors and victims, one of which was my is my client, Lisa Phillips. There were a lot of moments in the six or seven hours. There were just some that were just too far even for maga. You've got Eric Erickson, who is a huge right wing influencer who wants her gone, who thought the moment for him, and I'm going to play it about the tie in Epstein with Bondi is when she refused in response to a question from Jamie Raskin to talk about how she was going to investigate and prosecute those people that are in the 3 million pages, including dozens of men and other powerful people. And instead of talking about it from a Department of justice standpoint and giving people some sort of comfort, including the victims, that the Department of Justice was going to do this and not continue to cover up, she instead became some sort of, I don't know what it was just this bizarre moment where she, it was almost like they gave her that binder, which she obviously had and she felt like she had to get in the last talking points about the economy, but we're talking about sex abuse and she felt like she was running out of time so she had to shove it in there. It was the weirdest thing. But for people like Eric Erickson and, and Laura Loomer, who hates her, who's a right wing, a right wing influencer over Donald Trump, calls her Pam Blondie. This, this might have been the moment. I mean the whole thing for me was the moment. But let's play the j, let's play the response of Jamie Raskin when she starts touting the economy. Instead of responding to the question about who she's going to prosecute next about the Epstein files.
- [79:35]
Dina Dahl
The dow is over $50,000.
- [79:38]
Michael Popak
I don't know why you're laughing.
- [79:39]
Dina Dahl
You're a great lady stock trader. As I hear, Raskin, the dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P at almost 7,000. And the NASDAQ smashing records. Americans 401ks and retirement savings are booming. That's what we should be talking about. We should be talking about making Americans safe. We should be talking about what does a Dow have to do with anything?
- [80:07]
Michael Popak
That's what they just asked. Are you kidding, Mr. Jordan? Am I. Mr. Jordan?
- [80:11]
Dina Dahl
Committee will be in order.
- [80:14]
Michael Popak
Mr. Jordan, am I going to get an extra 45 seconds added to my time? The committee will be in order. The time belongs to the gentleman from Texas. Ms. Blondie. The attorney General can respond.
- [80:25]
Dina Dahl
Thank you. The dow has shattered 50,000 for the first time. This is crazy. They said it couldn't be done in four years, yet President Trump is done it in one year.
- [80:39]
Michael Popak
And Eric Erickson took a look at that and said this alone should have her removed as the Attorney General. What was your. We got a few more clips to play, including one about Epstein and the survivors being. Let me play that first. Let's, let's, let's do. Then I'll turn it over to you. Let's play the clip now. Now, the infamous clip, which I think is the final nail in Pam Bondi's coffin, where all she's asked to do was to acknowledge the suffering and speak to the, the victims, who all raised their hand and said no one in the Department of Justice, the FBI, has spoken to them. I asked Lisa Phillips, when she was on the show with me, has anybody, Donald Trump, Department of Justice, anybody sat down with you? I mean, Donald Trump sits down with anybody in the Oval Office. And her answer was no.
- [81:30]
Dina Dahl
Let's play the clip to the survivors in the room. If you are willing, please stand. And if you are willing, please raise your hands. If you have still not been able to meet with this Department of Justice, please know for the record that every single survivor has raised their hand.
- [81:56]
Michael Popak
When you, when the photo came out of that, it was Pam Bondi staring down at her pad rather than turn around and acknowledge any of them in the room. For me, it, it is. I actually was. There. It is. Thank you very much. And, and my client is right above Pam Bondi's head. Lisa Phillips there as well. So for me, the first Oversight Committee hearing was such a debacle. I didn't think she'd make it to the next one. But Trump keeps trotting her out like the quarterback that keeps getting, I felt like it was a Super bowl again, like the quarterback that keeps getting sacked a dozen times and getting beat up at the line of scrimmage, but they have no other choice so they keep trotting them out. I mean she's getting, I mean any other era she would have not made it to this hearing, let alone act like this at this hearing. What did you make of it?
- [82:50]
Dina Dahl
Yeah, I mean she was speaking to an audience of one Trump and he was happy with it. He posted afterwards how much he liked it. I thought both Raskin and Congresswoman Jay Paul did an excellent job. That image where Bonney refused to turn around and apologize for the fact that they released so much private information illegally about the survivors is devastating. Never mind the fact that they're unwilling to prosecute, investigate, meet with them at all. So that is going to be again, we're talking about history books today. That picture is going to also be on the history books. But the irony is that I actually think her comment about the Dow Jones was maybe perhaps the one time she was telling the truth because Trump, this Epstein class, that is true. All they cared about was, was the money. Right. They were so willing to not investigate these billionaires and tech people. And all the people really haven't even, I think scratched the surface yet to find out all the people. But they were willing to give a sex trafficker like Epstein and Jacqueline Maxwell a pass in a large part because of the money. And so, and although it seemed like a, you know, non sequitur, like how is she talking about the Dow? The irony is I actually think that's exactly how Trump thinks about it. Trump thinks, I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want my rich friends to get in trouble because they're giving me money and doing who knows what behind the scenes to keep this under wraps. So ironically, I think that was revealing. And you know, I also think part of the reason why she acted that way, the bluster, the non responsiveness is because she really couldn't say anything that was going to be true. And we saw Cash Patel when he was trotted out, basically lie and say Jeffrey Epstein didn't traffic to anybody else. That's a complete lie. He can now be perjured for that testimony, nevermind impeached. And she knows, I mean she is a lawyer, right? As much as we feel like she's a failed lawyer, she is a lawyer. She knew she could not answer any of those questions in the way Trump would have wanted her to without lying. And so I think her bluster was actually an attempt to probably protect herself, because there is no way to truthfully answer those questions in a way that doesn't reveal how much they, Trump and Bondi and the rest of them are covering up with who knows how many co conspirators or abusers that are part of that Epstein class.
- [85:31]
Michael Popak
Yeah, there's a lot of magical thinking. I didn't realize there were so many people who were biting their fingernails and white knuckling the release of the Epstein files. You know, from Howard Lutnick, the cabinet secretary, to the general counsel for Goldman Sachs to the head of Paul Weiss, a major law firm in New York, all these people knew that, knew that they were in or thought they could be in Epstein, Epstein files and were holding on for dear life to their careers. And except for the people that are in Trump's inner circle, like Trump and Howard Lutnick, so far, everybody else has paid the price, especially in the last two weeks. General counsel of Goldman Sachs, probably the greatest financial services company company in the world. She had to resign in disgrace because of her close relationship with Epstein in which she was guiding him on how to attack victims and rehabilitate his reputation. And she and became friends with him after he was already convicted of child prostitution charges in. In Florida, which. Which predated his indictment on child sex trafficking and talked about massages and things with him. Okay, she's gone. But again, the magical thinking of these people, like they're the smartest people in the room. Oh, my emails will never be disclosed. Yeah, f that. So she's gone then. Now we have an explanation as to why Paul Weiss. I'm scratching my head why. Among the dozen law firms that settled that, Paul Weiss, of all things, was the first firm to sell $40 million of free pro bono work, which set the standard. Eventually it became $100 million for other firms. I was like, that's so weird. I know people at Paul Weiss. It was a competitor firm. I worked at Scad norbs. I'm like. And I know people from my class that work at Paul Weiss. I'm like, what? What happened there? It all comes down to Brad Karp. Brad Karp was the head of. Until yesterday, was the head of Paul Weiss. And now the question is, is the reason he led the firm to settle so quickly is because he was trying to curry favor with the Trump administration to keep the Epstein files under lock and key because of his unholy relationship with Epstein through the head of Apollo, a major financial services firm. And Leon Black, where they were, where they were in the Epstein files. Karp at Paul Weiss was trying to figure out how to get a survivor victim deported in order for her not to bring charges against Leon Black for sex abuse. So here, here's a guy that, that thinks part of being a lawyer is to deport a victim of child sex trafficking or sex trafficking so that they don't talk. So now it's sort of. Now I know why Paul Weiss settled. I'm just not sure his partners know that that's the reason he wanted a quick settlement there.
- [88:20]
Dina Dahl
Yeah. And he was the public facing of the whole capitulation. He tried to say, oh, it's going to be fine, we're going to just do some pro bono. And yeah, he reviewed Epstein's 2008 plea agreement and gave advice about that. And Leon Black, I mean he's the one who testified, if you remember, during the, to Congress about that 2016 election interference that he had been in Russia with Trump at a strip bar. Oh, I don't know. Right.
- [88:50]
Michael Popak
So.
- [88:50]
Dina Dahl
And Leon Block is a client of Brad Karp and that's how he meets Epstein. I mean, yeah, you really start to connect the dots. And honestly, Popo, I think we're just starting to your point about like we are just barely.
- [89:03]
Michael Popak
Elon Musk's brother is tied into Epstein through one of the victims. Okay. A brother we don't usually talk about, you know, and then even out by you and on the wet to do the west coast swing. Casey Wasserstein, who's the grandson of Lou Wasserstein, who's no Wasserman. Wasserman. Wasserman, Wasserman. Lou Wasserman. And Casey Wasserman, who, who is a huge talent agent out in Hollywood. He's the chairman of the 2028 Olympic Committee for LA. Right. He's, he just, he just resigned and has to sell his company in disgrace because he was playing footsie in emails with Ghislaine Maxwell of all people, while he was married, talking about massages and other things. I mean, so all. I just did not realize how many people were white knuckling in America. The release of the Epstein files of women and men of the rich and powerful, it's just, it's just mind boggling. Leo Black gave Epstein $160 million for, for advisory services. I mean it's just, it's just lawyers.
- [90:07]
Dina Dahl
Don'T make that much for trust and estate planning, let alone, let alone everybody would be doing it.
- [90:13]
Michael Popak
So then you've got, just to round out this, this segment, you've got this Donald Trump trying to make lemonade out of lemons because of the disclosure that in 2006, 2006, let's keep the timeline here. He reported to the local police chief for the small billionaire enclave of Palm Beach, Florida, where Mar A Lago sits that he had, that he thought Jeffrey Epstein was doing disgusting things, that all of quote, unquote, New York knew about it. And that Ghislaine Maxwell, you're the one who's thinking about pardoning and said nice things about him was evil. This is in a written report taken in intake by the, by the Palm beach chief of police. That's 2006. Okay, so if 2006, if Donald Trump knew about Jeffrey Epstein sexually abusing girls and young women, then how do you explain that in 2019 he denied knowing that when asked by a reporter? And then I'll throw one more piece into the timeline. 26, 2006, that 2010, Jeffrey Epstein gives a video deposition in which he takes the Fifth Amendment about Donald Trump and young girls. Let's start with the 2006 police report and the 2019 denial by Donald Trump of what he admitted to in 2006, which was that he knew that Jeffrey Epstein was doing immoral or dirty things under the table. Let's play the clip from CBS News. A newly surfaced record in the Epstein files alleges Trump told the Palm beach police chief 20 years ago about Epstein. Thank goodness you're stopping him. Everyone has known he's been doing this and that he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present, but got the hell out of there. That contradicts Trump's claim he was unaware of Epstein's crimes.
- [92:14]
Dina Dahl
What did Jeffrey Epstein mean in his.
- [92:16]
Michael Popak
Emails when he said you knew about the girls? I know nothing about that. The White House press secretary could not answer if the account was true.
- [92:24]
Dina Dahl
Look, it was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006. I don't know know the answer to that question. What I'm telling you is that what President Trump has always said is that.
- [92:33]
Michael Popak
He kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his.
- [92:35]
Dina Dahl
Mar A Lago club.
- [92:36]
Michael Popak
Yeah. When you, when Carolyn Levitt looks nervous and doesn't look like she's telling the truth, you know something's wrong because she's always, as the chief propagandist, always defending Donald Trump. Well, I don't know if that call took place. All right, now, the police chief of Palm beach county lied about a call he had with Donald Trump in 2006 to Republican to report that. I doubt that. And then let's play now. It all comes together right when Jeffrey Epstein is being deposed in a case under oath in a video in 20 in 2010. Here's Jeffrey Epstein taking the Fifth Amendment about his relationship with Donald Trump and about Donald Trump and young girls. Play it. Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump? What do you mean by personal relationships? Have you socialized with him? Yes, sir. Yes. Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump.
- [93:33]
Dina Dahl
In the presence of.
- [93:37]
Michael Popak
Females under the age of 18, Though? I'd like to answer that question at least today.
- [93:46]
Dina Dahl
I'm going to have to assert my.
- [93:48]
Michael Popak
5Th, 6th and 14th amendment right, sir. Yeah. So now it all sort of comes together. So what do you make of it, Dina, about the Donald Trump's knowledge going even going back even earlier in 2005, 2004, him telling the New Yorker magazine that, that Jeffrey Epstein likes young girls, likes young women. I mean, that's all, that's all consistent. What didn't track is when as he's running for the, running for office, he started to change his tune about his relationship, about his, about his, his, his BFF Epstein and his wingman for going after women through modeling agencies and phony beauty pageants and then denying there on the fly that he, he knew about Epstein and young girls. What do you make of all of it?
- [94:39]
Dina Dahl
Well, for one, a liar just can't keep track of their lives. And secondly, I mean reading, I read that Virginia Giuffre's book, her Nobody's Girl and she said anybody that spent a significant time with he knew what he was doing. The young girls were always around partially if not clothed at all. The pictures on the wall, she's like, you could not have spent a significant amount of time without knowing. Trump is one of his oldest and longest friends. He knew, he always knew, probably participated. You know, there's a lot of evidence on that. We'll see more to be revealed. But so, you know, he just can't keep his story straight. He says the thing he wants to say. Trump is the most litious person in general. The fact that he actually hasn't sued based on this I think tells you everything. He threatened to with Trevor Noah. I haven't seen a filing yet. He will never sue based on these claims because it opens him up to discovery which would only show the truth of the matter. He, you know, even Cindy McCain, no dog in the fight, said years ago, everybody knew this about Epstein. Everybody knew this about Epstein, and he was going to social parties with him, checking, you know, we see the videos of what he's checking out. Goggle, you know, the model agency. He knew. He always knew. But liars just can't keep their lives straight.
- [95:56]
Michael Popak
Yeah, that's right. Well, what a tangled web we weave. And this will be. You know, this. Donald Trump has spent years trying to get out from under the stench of the Epstein relationship. And the reason he can't get out from under it is he will never level with the American people. People, if you just took to a podium and said, I had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, we owned a modeling agency together. We did beauty pageants together. I was single for most of it. We had women, I believe they were all over age, you know, of. Of appropriate age. I didn't know much about his personal life. I didn't know about the massages and this and that. The other thing I suspected he liked young women, but not that he was sexually abusing them and etc. And I will be at the forefront to protect victims and survivors and release everything and lead my Department of Justice and my FBI to bring to justice those that abuse those women. This story would be over, but he can't bring himself to do it because, a, he doesn't know what the heck is in the, in the files. He knows he did bad things. He knows he did bad things. Do you think.
- [97:08]
Dina Dahl
I actually think that's why he doesn't say anything, because I fundamentally think he doesn't think he did bad things. And I don't even know if he thinks that what Epstein did was bad.
- [97:18]
Michael Popak
Well, we know what he did last summer, to paraphrase from a movie. So who is he fooling? I mean, I.
- [97:25]
Dina Dahl
But, you know, I think, like, really, really he doesn't believe, like, the reason why he won't, quote, come clean is he really doesn't think he did anything wrong. And I don't think he thinks Epstein did anything wrong. And that's really the base problem.
- [97:39]
Michael Popak
And then, therefore, it will be the first line in his obituary. It will be a stench, an indelible stench that will. That has carved itself into the Trump administration and Department of Justice that he will never be able to erase. And he wonders why. But the dow is at 50,000. But this and that. And I got. Why are, why are we still. We're still talking about it because it is a fundamental defect in character, potentially. Crimes has to do with abuse of women and sexual abuse of fragile and disadvantaged people. And it's a child. What Is it?
- [98:17]
Dina Dahl
And children.
- [98:18]
Michael Popak
Children, right. Yeah. Maybe because your best. I'm sorry, I've. Listen, I'm not my brother's keeper, but I also wasn't best friends with a. With a indicted child sex trafficker and a. And a convicted child sex trafficker. And if I was, I'd go, wow. Who knew? Wow. I mean, if I had a friend that it turned out behind my back or under was a major, like, cocaine dealer or trafficker, I'd be like, holy shit, who knew? But, like, if I, like, ran with them and I was on the. If I was on the power boat in the middle of the middle of Miami, Biscayne Bay, and he was dropping packages off the side, I'd be like, maybe. Maybe I'm complicit in something here. But this is what Donald Trump, as you said, will never admit, because it's political suicide for him to admit it. And. But I guess the byproduct of that is this is an issue front and center to the American people. They've already made up their mind. I mean, if there's anybody in America that hasn't heard about the Epstein scandal, that's a voter, I'd be shocked at this point. People have made up their mind already about Donald Trump. The illicit behavior, the immorality, the lawlessness, the abuse of women. This is not the first. It'd be like, if we heard about this, about Barack Obama, we'd all be shocked. Like, Barack Obama. But Donald Trump said he could grab a woman by her genitalia and get away with it because he's a celebrity and jam his lizard tongue down their throat because he's a celebrity. Okay? He.
- [99:55]
Dina Dahl
He.
- [99:56]
Michael Popak
We had a case involving E. Jean Carroll where multiple women took the stand against great personal sacrifice to testify about being sexually assaulted by Donald Trump on airplanes at Mar a Lago. Okay. You know, he paid off dozens of women, including former beauty queens and strippers. I mean, this is. This is Donald Trump. This is why I say, I don't know how he could ever maintain a defamation case. His reputation literally cannot be defamed. He doesn't have a good reputation. That can be sullied. This is always. Which actually came up in a recent. In one of the cases involving him saying that he was defamed by the Dow Jones and by the Wall Street Journal. The lawyers for the Wall Street Journal famously wrote in their pleadings that Donald Trump literally. His reputation cannot be defamed. Buy a birthday book with a pornographic cartoon supplied on behalf of Donald Trump into Epstein's birthday book, but we need to follow it. And yes, every time she sits in that seat, Todd Blanche sits in that seat, FBI Director Cash Patel. They're going to get asked questions about what are they doing for the survivors and the victims. And it's the right question to ask. And we're going to continue to train our sights on it here on Legal af. Listen, we've reached the end of our Legal AF episode with Dina Dahl and Michael Popak. We thank everybody for being such great supporters. You know what to do to support us. Hit the free subscribe button on Midas Touch. Do the same thing on Legal AF YouTube channel. If you can swing being become a paid member, all the better. That helps with giving us the resources to continue to grow to meet the moment. And then of course, we've got in addition to legal AF, the YouTube channel got this amazing thing you may not have yet discovered called Substack. Go to Legal AF substack. I'm running a Valentine's Day special, 35 off annual paid membership only on Legal AF substack. Dina, I'll give you the last word. I'm so glad you you sat in today. But but let's give you the last word in commentary.
- [102:09]
Dina Dahl
I'm so glad to be here. You know, we're starting to see the cracks of the foundation and we just hear where all of us in this community are opening the cracks with information to further divide maga, dilute their power. We can't, you know, keep going with this path, but it's, it's hopeful starting to see him lose so much support which he is even among that MAGA base.
- [102:31]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. Six Republic bottom Want to I said I'd give you the last word that I was going to comment. That's the last word. You and I love that. Hopefully I'm going to see you in California next week. We're going to try hard to make that happen. So until then, shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal A.
- [102:53]
Dina Dahl
With verbo care. Help is always ready before, during and after your step. We've planned for the plot twists so.
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Michael Popak
Support is always available because a great trip starts with peace of mind.
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Michael Popak
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Dina Dahl
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