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com welcome to the midweek edition of legal af and and standing in for karen freeman igniflo who's traveling is dina dahl and lisa graves who are amazing contributors on midas and on legal af and the hosts of the monday night live edition of legal af over on the legal af youtube channel so i thought it'd be a great opportunity for those that don't know them from there or otherwise to kind of bring the band back together again and co hosts here on legal af hi dina and hi lisa hey michael so much to talk about even since i did my show last night let's kick it off with something that happened just as we were coming on the air a friend of the show friend of the pod judge michael ludig along with thirty four of his colleagues filed a paper just in the last few moments with the southern district of florida judge williams imploring her to find that she's been had that she's been deceived that there's been a fraud on the court and that she should reopen the trump versus irs scam lawsuit that was used as a cover up as a cover as a smoke screen to use the doj's judgment fund in order to fund this one point seven seven six billion dollars victim weaponization thing and to absolve the trump family of sixteen years of tax and audit exposure we don't talk enough about that in the second part of the settlement but when i saw that settlement i said out loud on one of the shows when the judge sees this the way they've described the lawsuit as the basis for the settlement the way they lied about and ignore the fact that she questioned whether there was jurisdiction at all and i would have thought the thing that would have gotten her goat is when they said in the settlement document that the plaintiffs lawyers who represent trump were seriously considering amending a lawsuit that the judge was about to toss out the window to bring it as a class action i'm like okay this is too much the judge should use her inherent authority and reopen the case that's me saying it but when thirty five federal judges file a brief to get judge williams to do it has a lot more power including one that i'll when it comes back to me i'll talk about with you guys judge ungaro ursula ungaro who is a colleague or was a colleague of judge williams on the southern district of florida a very well respected judge i don't know if they went to lunch together i know i appeared in front of those judges myself but her being part of the thirty five i think was a very very smart move and the lawyer that helped bring it is a friend of the pod andres rivero a friend of mine at a firm called rivero mestri in miami florida so let me kick it over to you both now that you've had a chance to look at it lisa you and i will start with you you and i had have had judge ludig on a number of times probably have interviewed judge ludig a dozen times in the last two years what did you make of this filing and using rule sixty of the federal rules of civil procedure to bring a fraud on the court to the court's attention i think it really
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is an extraordinary breakthrough and so important this is very rare to have federal judges former federal judges weighing in in litigation but the fact that thirty five retired federal judges are weighing in to say that there's been a fraud on the court by this justice department by this trump administration is extraordinary and i think it's true i think they have a very well pleaded statement that they filed with the court this request to have the court reopen these matters and assess and address this fraud on the court because this really is a fraud in plain daylight in my opinion you have a justice department led by someone who is basically just doing the bidding of donald trump no justice department in my lifetime has ever engaged in this kind of activity where you you have the justice department not filing any motion to dismiss in the case that trump bought this ridiculous ten billion dollars claim against the irs for documents that were leaked along with dozens of other documents but other people during the first trump administration there were no motions filed as dean has pointed out there was none of the action that you would ordinarily see by a justice department defending the interest of the american people instead what you see is collusion in my view in plain daylight or where the justice department has agreed to settle a case claim to the court that there was no settlement allow basically or acceded to the plaintiff's claims that there was no settlement meanwhile announcing a settlement defending a settlement going to the hill to try to get congress to not be upset about this absurd settlement which is really designed to pay off donald trump his family his companies and anyone who claims that they were part of the january sixth or were convicted of crimes on january sixth including people convicted of very serious crimes of violence and seditious activity and so between that and the other part of this so called settlement which is that assertion that according to the justice department and the irs under donald trump donald trump and his companies and his family can never ever be investigated for any irs violations ever this is the most blatantly corrupt situation i've ever seen and i think it is right for these judges these former judges to have filed this extraordinary request and it would be appropriate for the court to grant it and reopen this case and sanction the activities that we've seen play
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out yeah dina what did you what did you we'll read some passages from it pretty powerful i don't know if judge ludig wrote it but i'm so i can see his hand his handiwork there dina what did you think about it and what do you think judge
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williams should do next i mean top blanche thought he would be cute this definitely a fraud of the court is something he could be disbarred over and he should be and that's frankly what rudy giuliani john john eastman disbarred over fraud of the court that's how serious this is the reason why they crafted this as a settlement agreement is because congress has authorized this judgment fund because the government settles civil lawsuits all the time right just like corporations they get sued they have to have leeway the lawyers have to have leeway the ability to settle cases in real time and not go back congress well trump sued himself and trump and tom blanch thought this was going to be some cute idea and that they were going to give him this huge multi billion dollar settlement amount through this preauthorized judgment but they knew that a judge wasn't ever going to allow that kind of a settlement so they didn't tell the judge about the settlement and as you pointed out pop the judge actually wanted to or question whether or not there was even subject matter jurisdiction at all so todd blanche essentially handed over a settlement of like almost two billion dollars without filing one motion in defense that's clearly malpractice clearly a fraud and that is what these judges are saying that the agreement the doj agreement specifically says it's titled settlement agreement and it says we are settling the case trump versus irs they caption this case and so they're telling the american people we don't need congressional approval it's coming out of the judgment fund but at the same time they're telling the judge oh we didn't have a settlement we're not filing a settlement we're just asking for dismissal they want it both ways they can't have it both ways great motion here by the judges it's clearly fraud and there definitely should be consequences as a result
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yeah i agree let me read to you from some of the filing here i mean powerful they don't they don't pull any punches they say on page two the court was deceived despite plaintiffs not having mentioned any settlement in their notice the department of justice publicly announced a settlement of this action shortly after plaintiffs filed their dismissal and then goes over all the ways that they've been deceived they say that the candor to the court obligation has been violated there's been a manipulation of the judicial system which threatens to undermine the confidence in the administration of justice in other words the court's been used the court's been had and then they remind the court that even though they're strangers to the lawsuit who else but strangers to a collusive fraudulent lawsuit can bring the fraud on the court allegation trump's not going to do it his lawyers aren't going to do it he owns the doj and the irs so who's going to do it so of course people might be saying how do they even have the right the standing to come in and file the brief because rule sixty says if it's a fraud on the court even an innocent bystander could step in and remind the court if the court doesn't do it on their own look i always thought that judge williams should have done it on her own i was very public about that that she has her inherent authority i thought that when she saw the settlement agreement it was public that she would have been like i've been had and i don't like being had and let's get everybody into the same room at the same time and have that kind of conversation but she didn't but she's being implored to do it now and to undo that collusive settlement if she finds that there was and announces that there was a fraud on the court and that this was collusive and that then there's no legitimate lawsuit to be settled pursuant to the judgment fund the judgments fund statute which is now we're back to where i said we were going to be a month ago then it's just donald trump robbing the treasury which congress is not allowing him to do but you see how they had to do it through this the attorney general has the right through the judgment fund to get money to settle legitimate cases right there always has to be that consideration but if this if she announces that that is a fraud they're going to have to figure out another way to fund that fund right yeah that's
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right i mean you know this this i think that i had also hoped that she would have rejected that motion to dismiss given what was being said in court versus what was being said in the public arena it was a dismissal with prejudice meaning it could not be filed again but but as you point out and as these judges have pointed out this is a fraud on the court and the court cannot allow it to stand and under this issue of what that settlement fund is i remember that settlement fund when i was working at the justice department and how it was used for settling cases just as you described it wasn't meant to be a slush fund for presidents it wasn't meant to be a slush fund to pay out people who engaged in violence against the united states it was designed to take to pay settlements where there was a just claim of a violation of the law for example it was used to pay black farmers for years of discrimination by the usda it was used to agree to a settlement that settlement took years to reach this is extraordinary to have this insta settlement that goes to the benefit of donald trump personally and his followers in innumerable ways and to your point about robbing the treasury i think it's robbing the treasury either way there's a famous lyric that says some men rob you with a six gun some with a fountain pen this is robbery by fountain pen by todd blanche and donald trump
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absolutely so so glad to see that friend of the show and i know lisa you and i are working on i think i shot ludiger an email already to get him on the show and now's his chance because last month i told him look when fox news was bored they're bashing legal af and you judge ludig i think they had a title on it i think it was ingraham laura ingraham little known fact she used to clerk for clarence thomas just you know where her politics are in case you thought she was an independent journalist of any merit she was also
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at john roberts priest swearing in and there's a photo of his arm around her yes by the way okay all
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right well we knew the arm was somewhere so the so she she she ran a thing a story against judge l calling him a small man because he's out now freed the shackles of being a federal judge speaking out against the department of justice and donald trump and he does it from a conservative republican although he said he's never gonna vote republican as long as donald trump's in control vantage point he's not a left wing marxist radicalist not that any of the judges are but you can't call him that he was this close to being john roberts the chief justice of the united states supreme court so hopefully we'll be able to get him back on let's switch gears for a moment and go to we're going to go to alabama we're going to visit alabama twice on this show roll tide we're going to talk first about the southern poverty law center who's been indicted in alabama and has brought a motion to dismiss for lack of prosecution motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution in the afterglow the immediate afterglow of judge crenshaw granting just such a motion in favor of kilmer abrego garcia that has now opened i think the proverbial floodgates of we're going to see you and i and dina we're going to be talking about dozens of vindictive prosecution motions being filed this is now the second one i want to talk about the southern poverty law center there and then later we'll talk after our break we'll talk about alabama and its maps it's inherently intentionally racist maps and the supreme court set an early briefing schedule again related to that let's kick it off with the splc dino why don't you take frame the issue of what's going on just so everybody knows because i'm very public about this i have been an admirer of the southern poverty law center since i was a teenager okay they would they are the leading anti hate group in america they've identified four thousand hate groups in america regardless of where they are on the political spectrum left right center socialist white supremacist whatever they are their goal is to put those hate groups out of business and to identify them their their hate map is is famous their their year in hate their annual report it just got under this guy under the skin of donald trump after the charlie kirk murder as he's going after all the lefties and he wants to go after the southern poverty law center so why don't talk to our audience about the indictment and then of course the motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution well and it really
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is to your point and this is why they have actually a very strong argument to dismiss based on vindictive prosecution now trump is going after them because of all of the good work they have done for years and we can really tie this to our first story about trump wanting to pay off you know the proud boys and the oath keepers and the doj dismissing those indictments against them we are in a period of time where trump is literally rewarding insurrectionists and trying to harm people who are trying to eliminate hate groups and of course as we know they indicted them because of you know payments they made to confidential informants that's kind of what the doj is hanging their hat on and the motion here really is saying that this is a charge their indictment is a violation of their first amendment rights and a vindictive prosecution and to your point about judge crenshaw kind of opening up the floodgates the doj's indictment of abrego garcia was just such an obvious vindictive prosecution the timing of it when he came back when they were forced basically to bring him back trump always gives the best evidence against himself he actually did that with the slush fund too that judge kathleen williams quoted him and questioning whether or not there was jurisdiction and here again the law center is quoting trump and what he's saying about them you know we're not even at the point where there's really any evidence being presented at trial of course we have innocent until proven guilty when you have the president of the united states going out there talking about how awful you are how guilty you are you know it's clear that this is not about justice but this is about trump and his vengeance and vindictive prosecution and so as awful as trump is that actually is helpful and will be helpful to them and this vindictive prosecution now the trump doj we have seen and i mean there's like so many cases we can cite where they go after somebody right and then they but they fail to get either the grand jury to come back with an indictment or or if they do like the broadway six in chicago they did it through such prosecutorial misconduct it gets dismissed trump's doj is really more about the pr strategy than whether or not what they're doing has legal basis unfortunately you have somebody's good reputation like the law center and all the amount of money they have to spend in defending it but this is a strong motion on their part because this is clear it's vindictive prosecution and again trump
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gives that evidence for that absolutely lisa
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take it from there about what do you know how do you think a judge is going to handle this do you think they've at least made their prima facie case on presumptive a presumption of vindictive prosecution to shift the burden to the government a la kilmer abrego garcia which puts the government back on its heels by citing all of the government statements out loud against the southern poverty law center you know one thing i'll leave you with is the fact that trump has captured the department of justice made himself the head legal officer and flattened the hierarchy made an argument about washington controlling prosecutions easier to make because there's no longer these barriers between main justice and the local prosecutor yeah
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that's exactly right and here as you said and dina everything you said plus one or plus one hundred that's exactly right in this instance what we're seeing is that dam break i think with the dismissal of the charges against kilmar abrego garcia where it was clear that was a vindictive prosecution and here i think the evidence is crystal clear that this is obviously a vindictive prosecution against someone who's perceived by trump as an enemy or by some of trump's core allies as an enemy because splc has dared to document the white supremacist violent white supremacist movements in the united states and groups that are tied to hate and promulgating hate this is a situation where i wonder in light of the revelations over the past week in the broadview six case where it's clear from the record at least the record that has been described in the press that the grand jury was manipulated to get that indictment initially out of chicago that jurors who were opposed to that indictment were dismissed that facts were hidden i wonder whether the court will take a closer look at the grand jury transcripts here to see the basis for this indictment whether there was any similar manipulation and we know that there's enormous pressure from washington from trump and from blanche and et al to pursue his enemies at one point a month ago todd blanche gave a press conference right after he became acting attorney general after trump dismissed pam bondi and he was asked about whether he feels any pressure any concern with the pressure from the white house to go after people that he directs him to go after and blanche said he sleeps fine because his only concern is whether he's going after them hard enough you know that that along with all of the very specific statements about the southern poverty law center i think are really damning and show that this prosecution is just another act of a vendetta now to be clear it's actually very hard to prove a selective prosecution or a vindictive prosecution case because they actually are pretty rare in the federal system this is like basically a case in point of how you can make such proof how you can put such proof forward and it's also a circumstance where you can with the other things that are alleged in this complaint how absurd they are on their face one of the allegations is that supposedly the southern public law center which has devoted its entire history to documenting hate crimes documenting lynchings showing who are the groups behind the violence the white supremacist violence the hate mongering in the united states that because this organization helps pay some people to help infiltrate these organizations to get evidence against them that somehow this organization is engaged in wrongdoing or illegal action i know for a fact that that's exactly what the justice department does that's what the fbi does that's why i had mike german come on legal af to sit down for us for a little while he's a former fbi agent who spent a big part of his career on behalf of the american people being paid by the american people to infiltrate white supremacists violent groups and help get them convicted for the crimes that they were plotting or the crimes that they had engaged in and so the idea that it is it is unlawful for a group to help pursue to infiltrate one of these white supremacist groups to expose them that supposedly they're violating the law by by aiding them could not be more wrong but that's the issue kind of on the merits in terms of the allegations and how wrong they are how absurd they are but on the bigger picture this is absolutely in my view a case of selective and vindictive prosecution i hope it is dismissed quickly it does cost an organization like splc a lot of money to defend itself against such criminal charges i hope there's also an investigation at least an examination by the court of the full grand jury transcripts to see how this indictment even was allowed to go forward back to you dina
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absolutely i mean that's what they are realizing with the broadway six the judge at first gets a redacted transcript from the grand jury then sees the full one and the prosecutorial mercies contact so now the defendants the trump doj is going after realizing we need the judge needs to see these full transcripts so they understand exactly what is happening so we have our first ad break the legal af sponsors so grateful for the sponsors help have this show and not censor us which right now is so critical it's amazing actually that they have sponsors that allow us to speak freely about truth and justice so we'll take an outbreak and we'll come back to talk alabama and the supreme court my
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so lisa the supreme court is not done with voting rights act alabama these the map out of alabama has gone through so many twists and turns as we know years ago the supreme court said that their congressional districts were unconstitutional violation of the voting rights act and they sent it down in order to draw another majority black district alabama was kind of still dragging its heels it was even under a court order to do so and then of course we had the new voting rights decision kelly and so alabama thought this was an opportunity to not do what the supreme court had told them to do and to not have the other majority black district as they were told to do now it went in front of the supreme court about two weeks ago and the supreme court sent it down to the lower court asked it to reconsider based on this new calais decision justice sotomayor dissented at the time saying the lower court has shown intentional discrimination you have said that that's the one carve out the one protection that the voting rights act still has is if you can actually prove intentional discrimination which as a side note is extremely hard to prove somebody's intent is almost impossible but it appears that is what they have done because a three court judge after the reconsideration request by the supreme court says that yes there was intentional discrimination by alabama and not drawing this extra majority black district that would have been a proportional to their voting population so now the supreme court is giving until monday at four pm we're talking they are fast tracking this thing very quickly for civil rights groups to argue why these districts should be allowed and so the supreme court not delaying things this is right around the corner what do you i mean we never have much hope with our supreme court but they did just two weeks ago say the intentional discrimination was not allowed but yet they did send this down for reconsideration what do you think is going to happen lisa well i have
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thoughts about this dina so let me let me unpack them because this is a situation where this goes back to the twenty twenty census in that twenty twenty census the white population in alabama was reduced it lost about five percent of the population more african american population in that state and yet that white dominated legislature the republican legislature in alabama drew a map that had six white majority districts and one black majority district that was contested in twenty twenty one twenty twenty two the lower court found that that map the map of six to one in terms of one black majority district in a pop in a state with a population of about one third of the state is black was a violation of the voting rights act and the lower court ordered the maps to be redrawn but john roberts and the roberts court did not allow the maps to be redrawn in twenty twenty two during that midterm election in that issue that decision was issued in january in february of twenty twenty two the roberts court said the election could proceed with six to one a six to one white majority map because it's too close to the election even though the election was months off too close the election to redraw the maps and so they allowed alabama voters to go forward with maps that were in violation of the voting rights act that diluted the black vote in alabama and that meant that the republicans took control of congress that helped the republicans take control of congress it helped make mike johnson speaker of the house then you fast forward to after that after that election after the republicans took over suddenly the roberts court decides they're gonna hear this case in full and they say okay you have to go back and redraw that map go back and redraw the map but what happens next is the alabama legislature refuses to draw the map because some of them connected to leonard leo who helped mastermind the capture of the supreme court some of them said that they had intel that the court never really intended for them to create that second map but lower court did order that to happen the second map was created and then that was challenged and so you have a situation where right now this supreme court is considering intervening in basically june of an election year to block that second map that this court just two years ago three years ago required be added to the congressional district and so this is extraordinary intervention by the court the easiest thing the court could have done the roberts court could have done is to let the lower court stand that lower court finding that three judge panel as you point out dina found that there was intentional discrimination found that this the maps as they were drawn not fully proportionate but more proportionate to have you know two and five versus maybe you know four you know four and four or four and three pardon me that that map needs to go forward and the the lower court judges in this case are very clear they the lower court found that that what was going to go forward was a racially discriminatory hori map and the lower court reaffirmed its own findings back in twenty twenty two that the maps dilution of black voters violated not just the voting rights act but also the united states constitution and so you have this court this roberts court demanding arguments right away to decide what it's going to do and we know just two weeks ago when this issue came up around tennessee and the tennessee white dominated legislature was trying to destroy black representation in congress by dividing memphis three ways this roberts court had briefs come in at five pm and issued a ruling in the face of thousands of pages of oral of argument written argument like thirty nine minutes later slapping down the people seeking to protect black representation and siding with that white legislature so what is the court going to do at like five thirty nine next week is it going to basically you know ignore its previous findings and allow alabama to go forward with with maps that absolutely dilute the black vote and intentionally so well that's the stunning part
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is the supreme court the point of the supreme court the point of there only being nine justices the point of them having a lifetime appointment the point of them only reviewing select number of cases is they are supposed to be a stable you know a captain of the legal ship let's say and they're not supposed to make that many turns chief justice roberts the most advocate talk about you know like activist judge the most activist supreme court ever upending legal precedent over and over and over but just this one case like you said we are talking about them saying that this same alabama map was a violation of the voting rights act two three years ago now they've completely changed their interpretation of the voting rights act despite the fact that congress has not done anything different congress of course wrote the voting rights act and now are they changing even their interpretation of intentional discrimination that they just said two weeks because to your point the easiest thing to do would just have been to let the lower court decision stand the lower court in you know re reviewing based on kla said okay we do find intentional discrimination and it really should be case closed the fact that there's any open issue to this point i can't imagine they're going to somehow narrow it even more i don't know how they could do that without completely losing any sense of justice but i don't know this is the supreme court you know the fact that they are even briefing it seems to me like they are planning on narrowing it even more and to your point about that purcell doctrine right we are at a point back in december if you all remember is when texas tried to redistrict and the court there said it was a violation of the voting rights act and the supreme court back in december said it was too close to the election and so that decision could not stand and we are in in the middle of primaries or right around the corner from primaries the fact that they are fast tracking decisions to perhaps rewrite a decision they made two weeks ago chief justice roberts not that long ago just spoke out about the fact that american people have it wrong and they think that this is too political of a court you know i think he needs to kind of do a little self reflection in the mirror because you're supposed to be the steady captain of the shift like things shouldn't be changing this rapidly if this is really like what the
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law is according to yeah i think roberts is gaslighting america about this these are the most political partisan decisions a court has issued in the modern era this is the roberts court helping southern states re segregate their legislatures and their congressional delegations the absolute obvious outcome of the clay decision was that white dominated legislatures were going to go through their maps claim it was all just for partisan gain while removing representation for black americans in congress and in the state legislatures and in other venues where people are elected we are looking at a return to the post reconstruction era in that brief twelve year period after the end of the civil war more than two thousand black legislators at the federal state and local level were elected but then the white supremacists got their hands back on the levers of power and suddenly for almost you know for more than ninety years there was no black representation in you know from those southern from those southern states in congress or the united states senate and that was you know by design that was the effect of jim crow and so here you have john roberts at the helm of the court this supposed institutionalist which he's not he's wielding the power of the court court in order to advance this very regressive agenda in my view and he's doing so knowing what the consequences would be they knew when they issued that calais decision where he handed the pin like a dagger to sam alito to crush section two of the voting rights act that southern states would take up their invitation and bleach out black representation in the south now it didn't happen at least this week in south carolina where the south carolina legislature felt that they just could not get rid of the one single black representative in congress james clyburn get rid of that seat but already a few years ago again john roberts with sam alito taking the pin the supreme court the roberts court had allowed south carolina to bleach out twenty thousand voters out of the first district put them into clyburns district in order to expand white dominance in the south in the legislature in congress by protecting that that first district in south carolina so right now at least in south carolina the map eliminating black representation in congress is not going to go forward it could go forward next year it could go forward the year after that because that's what john roberts has allowed but he's you know he's not a fair umpire despite his claims the american people that he made in his confirmation hearings he is not the institutionalist that he claims to be when he says there are no republican or democratic judges because this court is operating in a way basically at the back end call of donald trump who has said he wants these southern legislators legislatures and others to rewrite their maps to give him more representatives on the republican side of the aisle to protect him from any oversight investigations from having to negotiate with congress and possibly from being impeached for his wrongdoing and so the stakes are super high and the roberts court is putting its thumb on the scale of justice in favor of the white dominated legislatures you know it
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is though a very hopeful note and we should kind of you know give a shout out to that that the republicans failed in south carolina that is the takeaway republicans fail to redistrict representative clyburn out of his seat in part perhaps because of his popularity i imagine there in the state among the voters and the colleagues and perhaps that was the state step too far but that was a real failure by the republicans who wanted that even that extra seat so perhaps we're seeing the end of the redistricting in the south we'll see what happens with alabama but at least for at least the republicans did fail in south carolina yeah i mean it
- [40:41]
B
is i really think when you look back at the history in the united states and including the history of the voting rights act and how when it was signed into law with lyndon baines johnson the president signing law with martin luther king and others there who fought these enormous battles to get the voting rights act passed that right to vote the right to representation is such a vital right in our representative democracy and we know that there have been efforts by some republicans to try to nullify that right to make it meaningless through diluting the vote so that you can vote but it doesn't really matter because you're not going to win you're not going to get representation and we've seen the effect of a lack of representation when people don't have representation their issues don't come forward we saw in you know way back when in the mobile versus bolding case because the white state and the white county had basically jerry rigged the system so that they would basically only be able to elect whites then there was less trash removal the roads weren't clear cleared the schools were inadequate because all that power the power of having your voice heard was taken away from black voters and that's what's at stake here if you are going to take away the voices of black voters by basically diluting their vote you are diluting their ability and our ability to have a democracy that's more fair to have an economy that's more fair that reflects the desires and interests of working people versus the billionaires that that john roberts and his republican appointees have put in the driver's seat in our election and so i was going to say dina one of the things that i realize now after many years of really being such a devotee to the constitution and to these statutory rights that were earned with blood and sweat and tears is we have to remember that under article three of the us constitution congress has the power to change the jurisdiction of the court and if this court cannot be trusted to defer to the will of congress on protecting our voting rights if this court is determined to usurp congress's power which was given to it in the fourteenth and fifteenth amendment to implement those protections voting rights then i think this we have to have a serious conversation about invoking that clause of the constitution to limit the power of this captured court to issue rulings that are at odds with the findings thousands of pages of factual findings about the necessity of section two and section four and five the voting rights act in protecting our rights and we're seeing the effect of this court's intervention its usurpation of congressional power and so you know i'm watching this very closely as are you and it's really great to have the chance to have this conversation here on legal af with you
- [43:22]
C
dina yeah i mean it's definitely ushering a new jim crow area which is being coined the john crow era and it right he should have his name attached to this he is the one who is ushering it in and to your point you know i think that we can't count on the supreme court but this is a co equal branch of government congress we need congress to step up and to have a check either to enforce and write better voting rights acts because this is not a constitutional issue so much as you know congress can rewrite the act or as you say have limits on the supreme court but in in addition to it ushering a new john crow era it's also ushering some new civil rights leaders i mean congressman justin pearson in tennessee i mean his advocacy speaking out about the fact that memphis was being redistricted was so inspirational you know and we have to remember that we are the majority and to not get cynical and to vote and vote in numbers that even with this redistricting that you know people show their voices because as you said that's how people can be heard and represented so we will take another ad break you're here on the legal af if you haven't subscribed on the midas touch network be sure to do that michael popo has a legalif substack that has a great number of contributors check that out subscribe if you haven't lisa and i post articles there as well and as popak said lisa and i are anchoring a new monday night live legal af we love doing it help us grow the audience if you were one of the early members of the legal af podcast way back when michael pilbach started with ben in the early days of midas touch network come be one of the early people here with our podcast and help us grow it we love doing it we want to continue to do it and one way that all of this continues of course is with the sponsors so we will have our next outbreak and then we're going to talk about biden suing
- [45:33]
A
the doj i still love coffee the taste the smell the whole ritual but full caffeine was making me feel jittery and anxious so i started trying alternatives and honestly i really really been enjoying mud water their new low calf coffee blend is made with organic arabica coffee l theanine and functional mushrooms like lion's mane and cordyceps so you still get that rich full bodied coffee taste without overloading on caffeine if you want something even gentler they also have their original blend made with cacao chai turmeric and functional mushrooms for more sustained energy with without the spikes and crash of traditional coffee every ingredient in mud water is usda certified organic non gmo gluten free vegan and kosher with zero sugar and no sweeteners added are you ready to make the switch to cleaner energy head to mudwater dot com and grab your starter kit today right now our listeners get an exclusive deal up to forty three percent off your entire order order plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother when you use code legal af that's right up to forty three percent off with code legal af at m u d w t r dot com after your purchase they'll ask you how you found them please show your support and tell them we sent you this episode is brought to you by iq bar our exclusive snack hydration and coffee sponsor iq bar protein bars iq mix hydration mixes iq joe mushroom coffees are the delicious low sugar brain and body fuel you need to win your day the ultimate sampler pack it's a great way to try all iq bar products and flavors you get nine iq bars eight iq mix sticks and four iq joe sticks all iq bar products are clean label certified and entirely free from gluten dairy soy gmo's and artificial beneficial ingredients iq bars plant protein bars are the smarter snack choice with plenty of plant protein tons of fiber and no added sugar with over twenty thousand five star reviews and counting more people than ever are fueling their busy lifestyles with iq bars brain and body boosting bars hydration mixes and mushroom coffees their ultimate sampler pack includes all three iq bar has become part of my daily routine whether it's starting my morning with iq joe or grabbing an iq bar when i need a quick clean snack and right now iq bar is offering our special podcast listeners twenty percent off all iq bar products including the ultimate sampler pack plus free shipping to get your twenty percent off text legal af to sixty four thousand text legal af to sixty four thousand that's legal af to sixty four thousand message and data rates may apply see terms for details joe
- [48:31]
C
biden is coming out of retirement for a very good reason he's suing the doj in particular around those interview tapes as you remember he was interviewed in connection with the classified document investigation that his own doj did with him because trump basically was complaining that he was being targeted with his classification document case so they also investigated joe biden of course nothing came of it but the heritage foundation is filing a freedom of information act in order to get those tapes the obsession with joe biden no longer being president so joe biden is suing saying that this is politically motivated that there's no public interest in getting the tapes as we know that we have actually gotten transcripts of what was said during that time there was no indictments the prosecutor decided not to indict so at this point he's saying this is just a matter of politics interestingly this also this story is kind of breaking at the same time as we're hearing that trump is planning on having federal employees sign non disclosure agreements evidently it's voluntary but this like stunning development that a federal employee paid by taxpayer dollars and everything of course is public public government and transparent may be signing non disclosure agreements at the same time here a heritage foundation is trying to have these tapes released i have to say it's personally satisfying to see joe biden stand up for himself here what do you think lisa yeah i mean
- [50:10]
B
i think this is a well pleaded argument by joe biden and his lawyers he talks about how these tapes these audio tapes of his record recordings with the author he was writing a book with about losing his son beau biden i worked with beau at the justice department in the office of legal policy the office of policy briefly he was a very good man he died from brain cancer early on far too early and this was a very private book that joe biden was working with this author on this all came about as you point out because the justice department appointed a special independent counsel special counsel to look into allegations basically not even allegations what happened was the biden team after he left office disclosed that they had inadvertently taken some files some classified files not the way that trump did not the boxes of files stored in a ballroom bathroom at mar a lago but just in the name of disclosure that they had some and they returned them unlike donald trump who fought to keep them the contrast here is also that in the case involving the classified documents that donald trump took which were commingled with documents about business interests suggesting as jamie raskin wrote a letter to the justice department earlier this spring suggesting that the documents were actively being used and were used in part or being used potentially to aid trump's business interests in that investigation by jack smith another special counsel appointed by the justice department the biden administration eileen cannon the trump appointee to the to the federal district court down there in florida that has mar a lago within its jurisdiction eileen cannon who repeatedly tried to swing the scales of justice toward trump has ordered that jack smith's findings in that classified investigation case never see the light of day notwithstanding the fact that donald trump was indicted for those crimes numerous crimes related to keeping documents that were of top secret or letter clearance documents that were super important for the national security that donald trump took with him and that he tried to keep from returning to the united states government meanwhile joe biden was never indicted robert her did not choose to pursue an indictment against him for this inadvertent retention of a few documents that the biden team admitted you know voluntarily said that they had and so there was no indictment no no prosecution of biden but on the other hand you had an active prosecution of trump and the trump you know trump aligned judge eileen cannon is working to keep that under wraps i'm sure the justice department under trump with todd blanche the helm is happy to keep that secret but it seems like they may be more than happy to aid the heritage foundation's efforts to get information more than the information that's already been revealed the redacted information from those interviews with robert her about you know about that book about biden's recordings to get more information in the public domain the heritage foundation as people may remember was at the forefront of a thing called project twenty twenty five this was a project that was funded by groups almost the majority of which were funded in part by leonard leo the guy who helped capture the supreme court the guy donald trump chose to choose the his picks for the us supreme court the candidates for those appointments and the project twenty twenty five agenda has been fully embraced by donald trump it has russell vaught over at the head of omb who's doing all sorts of destructive things beyond what elon musk did in the first few months of what they call doge or i call dodgy so the heritage foundation is actively aligned with this administration and it is actively seeking these materials likely to try to embarrass joe biden for those interviews i'm not suggesting that there is actually embarrassing information what joe biden's legal team has said is that every american i'm going to quote every american including a sitting or former vice president has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home this is the part of the filing and they add and when the us department of justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation the department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure so these were private conversations about joe biden and his family and his sons his son who is still living who struggled with drug abuse his son who died prematurely from brain cancer these are private conversations the fact that they came into the hands of the justice department department don't have any bearing on criminal misconduct or misbehavior by by joe biden and yet this justice department is poised unless this lawsuit proceeds successfully this trump justice department is poised to release those private conversations and
- [55:09]
C
that's what's so disturbing is really to put a point on it these were recordings about seventy hours of interviews that he gave to his author the book author back in twenty seventeen this was not while he was president he wasn't working on a private project while he's president this was before he was president before perhaps even thought about running for president as you said he was talking about very private information about his family and the only reason why the government has it is because he turned it over in this investigation investigation and so the special counsel had it the special counsel didn't determine that it was worthy enough right that it wasn't as if the evidence was persuasive enough to file a criminal indictment so it seems like just a roundabout way for the heritage foundation to get some private audio of former president biden which just again it seems like the obsession with him is perhaps also a distraction as we see trump's health declining in real time is is is former president biden going to be speaking in a way that they are going to say oh he's not speaking fast enough or you know whatever i mean i don't know like you know like you said we haven't heard it but this was not a conversation he thought was going to be in the public eye who knows if it's emotional or not emotional but the fact is we see the man who's sitting in the oval office falling asleep you know with people standing behind him i mean in real time falling asleep again and again and again having his third health visit to walter reed having bruises on his hands and and he's turning eighty in just two short weeks i think honestly his ufc fight is probably trying to be a distraction of the fact that we are going to have an eighty year old president an eighty year old president and i just want
- [57:18]
B
to underscore what you said because these tapes are from after joe biden finished serving you know his dignified service as the vice president united states with barack obama i think biden was at the top of his game in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen twenty seventeen i certainly had some policy differences with him over the years but i really definitely believe in the goodness his inherent decency and his deep devotion to his kids and his family and so these recordings had nothing to do with the documents that were inadvertently retained in at the end of the biden at the end of the administration you know his time in government and as a vice president or as a president these were these these personal conversations with a with a writer where they're working on a book together and so some of those conversations probably made it into the book some of them didn't make it in the book because maybe they were sensitive maybe they might you know have an effect on his grandchildren or the spouses of his children what he might say and so he does have a right to privacy and this seems like the type of gamesmanship as you suggest by heritage to try to paint biden in a false light or paint him in a negative light as we see donald trump ten years older than biden was back then i think maybe even more than ten years older than biden was back then now really i think he is deteriorating before our eyes we can see it in these weirdo sort of posts at like five am or three am and the memes the disgusting memes that trump is putting out his statements the statements that he voluntarily makes to graduates like at the coast guard academy things that are totally inappropriate something that shows someone who does not have any mental capacity left to like limit his inhibitions in saying things that he just thinks whether they're true or not and then obviously we see this persistent falling asleep where they say that he's just long blinking or something you know where donald trump is falling asleep while his his you know operatives his cabinet and other members pretend like this is just normal and nothing to worry about and you know speak to the camera you know there are just so many ways in which donald trump is acting in ways that are abnormal for someone who is really healthy even like when that guy collapsed in the oval office and he basically everyone turned to help the guy who collapsed and he just like looked off into the distance it's strange it's sad it's disappointing but it's also the man who has drawn us into a war of choice with iran a man who has been seeking to use our funds to basically erect all these statues to himself to his name and someone who is actively using our department of justice to pursue his enemies including possibly this instance where the justice department would be complicit in trying to further cast aspersions on joe biden who donald trump continues to blame things for like the price of gas even though it's gone up under trump and the gershwin got up under trump so i think it's a distraction but i think it's it's important that biden has come in to defend his
- [60:21]
C
privacy rights absolutely and you know it's the contrast trump's doj giving him you know access to this almost two billion dollars fund to pay off his you know enemies and then biden's doj investigating him right i mean that this is how far we have fallen extreme and i am glad that biden pardoned his family members because i'm sure trump's doj would go after them and i am glad that he's suing the doj and i'm glad the former federal judges are intervening and calling the attorney general somebody who committed fraud on the court i don't think we can overstate how big that is actually right they are saying the attorney general of the united states committed fraud the court gloves are off people who care about the rule of law cannot care about tradition or what that means in the oval office or should we do them or not biden absolutely has a right of privacy over private conversations he had with an author years before he became president he turned over what he needed to the doj decided it was not enough and and that should be place case closed but the heritage foundation as you said with the project twenty twenty five you know i mean they are just pervasive and what they're trying to do but i do think that hopefully there's some hope here in this podcast also we're starting to see people stand up which they have to which they have to yes
- [61:57]
B
so it is it's wonderful to be part of this wednesday edition of the legal af podcast with you dina and with popak who had to go he'll be back we'll be back also on mondays and looking forward to seeing you all again thank you for tuning in and as always dina it's a joy to do these shows with you and talk about what's happening in our world and also the hopeful notes that we can bring from what we're seeing that where the mask has fallen where some of these strongholds are cracking and we can see people standing up in ways we've never seen before like those federal judges those foreign federal judges saying hey we cannot stand by and let a fraud be committed on the court and we know that the parties who are complicit in it are not going to bring that forward so i hope that that motion is honored i hope the case is reopened and i hope this fraud is investigated and pursued for all the ramifications of it because it really it it's so wrong what's happening with this slush fund with this theft of our dollars to aid donald trump's loyalists and as you and i were talking about i think on monday night like who knows how that money would be spent after enriching people who have you know been stockpiling weapons who were actively violent against the capitol police and more we have to make sure that that slush fund does not proceed it's illegitimate and i think it's morally wrong that's
- [63:24]
C
certainly my opinion oh absolutely morally wrong ethically wrong and scary whether or not he's trying to create some sort of private loyalist army for himself so if you haven't subscribed to the midas touch network or legal af channel be sure to do that check out the legal af substack subscribe if you haven't already lots of great articles and posts that michael popo puts up there great he has compiled so many contributors the legal af channel there's so much great news putting out there and lisa and i are monday night five pm eastern live we always take questions in the chat or comments love to grow that community and we will of course always hear on legal af podcast update on these many legal developments thank you dina thanks everyone thanks