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- [00:01]
Michael Popak
Introducing Meta Ray Ban Display, the world's most advanced AI glasses with a full color display built into the lens of the glasses.
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Ben
It's there when you need it and gone when you don't. Send and receive messages, translate or caption live conversations, collaborate with Meta, AI and more. Be one of the first to try.
- [00:22]
Michael Popak
Meta Ray ban display. Visit meta.com metaraybanddisplay to book a demo.
- [00:27]
Ben
And find your pair. Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless and if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should 1. It's $15 a month.
- [00:40]
Michael Popak
2.
- [00:40]
Ben
Seriously, it's $15 a month.
- [00:43]
Anna Bauer
3.
- [00:43]
Ben
No big contracts.
- [00:44]
Michael Popak
4.
- [00:45]
Ben
I use it.
- [00:45]
Michael Popak
5.
- [00:46]
Ben
My mom uses it. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right? Okay, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront.
- [00:53]
Michael Popak
Payment of $45 for three month plan.
- [00:55]
Anna Bauer
$15 per month equivalent required.
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Michael Popak
New customer offer first three months only.
- [00:57]
Anna Bauer
Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com a PSA from Instacart it's Sunday 5pm you had a non stop weekend. You're running on empty and so is your fridge. You're in the trenches of the Sunday scaries. You don't have it in you to go to the store, but this is your reminder. You don't have to. You can get everything you need delivered through Instacart so that you can get what you really need. More time to do whatever you want. Instacart for one less Sunday. Scary one. We're here.
- [01:28]
Ben
We've got a lot to discuss on this episode of Legal af. New York Attorney General Letitia James entered a non guilty plea in Virginia, also going on the offense right away. Against that Trump appointed prosecutor Trump's former personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan. A flurry of motions were filed. We'll talk about what happened there in that powerful appearance by New York Attorney General Letitia James. After pleading not guilty, Jack Smith is back and he's going on the offense as well. He's saying, I want to test testify publicly before the House and the Senate. You're saying a lot of lies about me. I'm ready to testify. I don't want to do it behind closed doors like the MAGA Republicans in the House and Senate want to do. I want to do it in public. Let me talk about what the grand jury said. Let me talk about what I showed them. Let's talk about volume two, which involves Donald Trump's theft of classified information which the MAGA Republicans in the House and Senate refused to release or refuse to allow that report to be released. The DOJ is under. Pam Bondi is deep sixing that report. And Jack Smith's like, look, if you want to talk about me, okay, you know, I'm a big boy, but let's do it in public and I'll go under oath. Let me talk about all this stuff. And Jim, Jordan, Comer, whoever, James Comey, you name it. I mean, James Comer, go and ask me, go and ask me questions. And I think that's what we see over and over again, you know, and if you think that I'm not telling the truth, then, you know, you could do what you did with Comey, which is, you know, go, go after me. But I'm here, I'm holding my ground, and that's what I'm going to do. We'll talk about that. Let's talk about the updates and all the cases involving the Trump attempt to invade blue states and blue cities with the National Guard. We've got an Update from the 9th Circuit, we've got updates from the 7th Circuit. This is all going to the United States Supreme Court. We're going to have big Supreme Court rulings both on Trump's use of the military to invade blue states and blue cities and his authority or non authority to do that. And also the Supreme Court will be hearing soon the case about Trump's tariffs against the world. And we've seen a lot of amicus briefs filed before the Supreme Court from states, from a group of 30 plus former federal judges, from former chair members or chair people of the Federal Reserve. We heard from Bernanke, we heard from Yellen, you know, all of these former treasurer, Treasury Department staff, former governors from the Federal Reserve, all kind of joining an amicus brief saying this can't happen. We'll talk about that. We'll give some updates about no Abrego Garcia is saying, I want to take the depositions of these Trump officials who were out there and making up all of these lies against me in the criminal case. There's already been a preliminary finding for a vindictive prosecution against Abregos. Abrego's like, let's go. I want the deposition of Trump's Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. He was out there running the show. How about Emil Beauvais, who's now a 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals judge? Let's get his deposition. So the response from the Trump regime, send Abrego to Liberia. They give notice. Here's a notice that you don't see too frequently on the federal docket notice of deportation to Liberia. That's what they said right before Abrego is about to take this critical discovery. The latest gambit by the Trump regime is send him to liberty Liberia. Got that? We'll talk about a lot more. Let's bring in Popoc. Pop, how you doing?
- [04:58]
Michael Popak
I'm doing great.
- [05:00]
Ben
Send a break. Liberia.
- [05:02]
Michael Popak
I got to cut this podcast short. I'm off to Liberia for some on the ground reporting. I learned a lot with the Trump administration, some of which you and I share in our various channels and on videos. Like I learned that you can tear down the White House if you're the current occupant without permits or approval and and build something else. I learned that you can fund the government without going to Congress even during a shutdown. If you just take gifts from friends, you can just circumvent the appropriations clause and the spending clause and the checks and balance. You can just run your own government. Or is all of that illegal and unconstitutional? These are just some of the examples of why Donald Trump has effectively screwed screwed himself and the American people. The shutdown which is entering quickly Day 30. We may be setting the record soon for this shutdown. MAGA has gone out of maga. Congress has gone out of business. It used to just be a doormat, which at least you have to acknowledge a doormat and wipe your feet. Maga. Mike Johnson's just decided that he's just gonna turn off all the lights. We don't need Congress at all even to hold Donald Trump account because why that'll go down in history for him. And then we have all these violations of the anti deficit or deficiency act by Donald Trump, spending money on ballrooms and military and all of this trying to circumvent. There are no funds to run the government and you can't take them in. They keep saying like on the $130 million that came in from Tim Mellon, everybody goes scramble to look him up. Showing everybody showing these old photos of him from the 1980s in front of a railroad. Go show the current photo of him. He funded the wall effectively by himself. He's a Mega Maga donor. Some months and some quarters, 90% of the donating or donations to Donald Trump is from Tim Mellon. So no shock that this $130 million anonymous gift to circumvent Congress comes in to pay, I don't know, 38 hours of the military operation and the government, because there's no. Let' just round it out this way before we get to Our first topic, we are watching a slow motion military coup by Donald Trump. And what you have to do in order to accomplish that is you first fire all the lawyers. So get rid of 5,000 people in the Department of Justice and don't replace them. Get rid of all of the guardrails within the Department of Justice like public corruption and Foreign Corrupt Practices act and Ethicist and civil rights and get rid of all of that. Then get rid of all the lawyers systematically who are inside of each of the cabinet level and departments and agencies. Get rid of them so they're all fired and not replaced. Get rid of the ethicists. They're all fired, not replaced. Get rid of the inspectors general. Get rid of them. Now turn to the military. Put an idiot meat puppet in charge of the Department of Defense in Pete Hegseth. Then get rid of all of the generals and admirals and others with legacy knowledge and and apolitical contribution to our national defense. You get rid of them. Then you militarize the National Guard and get it under your command. See where this is going now. Now get rid of Congress completely by bringing in your own funding. And what are we going to do about it now that we've identified it? We're going to continue to use what Rob Bonta, the attorney general for California told me is crowds, courts and courage to fight back with lawsuits involving federal judges that you are you and I now follow hourly in all of these MAGA cases. There's a thousand cases or so already been filed and it matters. And then we need the crowd and the courage of the crowd. That's our audience. That's people on the streets. The 10 million people during no Kings Day. That is to put public pressure on the elected officials. Right. And then you got to have the courage. And of course our audience exhibits that courage every day. We tried to and try to represent that here on Legal AF at Midas Touch.
- [09:19]
Ben
Yeah, I mean that story that this reclusive billionaire Timothy Mellon paying $130 million to help pay troops during the government shutdown. That's the headline for the New York Times. So you explored a little deeper and you go, okay, so what's the payroll on an annual basis for active duty reserve? $170 billion. What does that break down to per month? $14 billion or $3.3 billion per week or $466 million a day. So $130 million covers 6.7 hours of payroll for active duty reserve right now. And it's like what are other than showing that the Norms don't matter. And perhaps a full tax deduction from that payment. What is the purpose of this? And I think there needs to be transparency. The fact that we don't know the amounts that corporations and private donors purportedly gave to demolish the east wing of the White House and build a golden ballroom during a government shutdown, which is now on day 24 and will soon undoubtedly be the longest government shutdown in the history. But let's face it, the government was shut down six, seven, eight months ago, right? I mean, it's formalized that it's shut down, but they've been operating without the existence of a government for many, many, many months now. And, you know, finally, I think we see to your point, the crowds, the courts, the courage coming together. The crowds were there, the courage was there. I don't think the courts are fully there right now. Certainly not the Supreme Court, which has enabled a lot of this to happen by giving Trump absolute immunity. We see courage in district court judges like Judge Ellis from Chicago, Illinois, federal court judge who will highlight on this show. There are federal court judges who show courage that if Trump appointed judge in Portland, Oregon, for example, is another one, but not the United States Supreme Court. And we see Democrats, though, I think, finally fighting back and saying, we really.
- [11:34]
Michael Popak
Should have done this.
- [11:35]
Ben
We should have done this the first time. We shouldn't have continued funding this authoritarian regime and what's taking place right here. And then Trump leaves and goes to Asia. He's gone. He's left the building. He's in Asia right now. The first president in history to leave the country during a government shutdown. And then you have this phony Ponzi scheme like market, in my opinion, while we're in a government shutdown, while the government is not showing inflation data, you know, they. They show data related to Social Security, which showed inflation is above 3% year over year. Who even knows if you can trust that? But that's not the normal reporting that they do. They had to do that.
- [12:16]
Michael Popak
Have you shopped at a supermarket lately? You think, do you think inflation is 3% since Biden left office?
- [12:22]
Ben
Oh, exactly. Everything is double or triple. As I describe it, when you go to the register and it goes beep, beep, beep, you know, as they're showing the groceries, to me, it sounds like the monitor at a hospital.
- [12:38]
Michael Popak
You know.
- [12:38]
Ben
And I'm like, no, not that, not that, not that. You look at the bill, it's like $330, and it would normally be 120. I mean, that's that's what Americans are experiencing now. Their health care premiums are about to go up. Where $20,000 a year. That's what. Without the subsidies, it's not like $5 a year, which would still be a struggle for a lot of people. $20,000 a year. And Donald Trump's like, oh, the Democrats are doing this. Just extend the Affordable Care act subsidies so people can live. And so just. We'll get into New York Attorney General Letitia James in just a moment. We're giving. He's building a ballroom. He's demolishing. He's demolished the east wing. He's now saying he's building an ark. A triumphal Arc de Trump is now going to be built next, he says by Lincoln, $40 billion has gone to Argentina, while 20 million Americans are losing their health care and 42 million Americans are now losing their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
- [13:36]
Michael Popak
The press secretary said his number one priority is the ballroom.
- [13:42]
Ben
And we know that we didn't. And the thing is, people like, oh, you. That's out of context. She said that's his number one building project. No, it's his number. We don't need her to lie. Regardless, we see that all he talks about is the ballroom, the arcs, you know how rich he is while the American people suffer. Let's get into it. New York Attorney General Letitia James, she pled not guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia, where she's being prosecuted for, like, mortgage fraud. We already have a ton of information as well where it seems that she disclosed the only payment that she received from her second home, like thirteen hundred dollars or so from her, from her niece, and that there's no other payments, it seems like the indictment and what's listed in the indictment is a sham. When Lindsey Halligan, Trump's personal attorney, who went into the grand jury room alone when she became the probably the unlawfully appointed federal prosecutor. There's a motion on that as well, which Popak you'll talk about. Seems that she gave the grand jury false information both in the Comey case and in the James case. Just gave. You know, the defense attorneys aren't in the grand jury room. The judge isn't in the grand jury room. It seems the grand jury was just given fake facts, false facts. And New York Attorney General Leticia James has filed powerful motions over and over again. Here she is right here. This was the press conference.
- [15:05]
Anna Bauer
Let's it put put for the rights of New Yorkers and Americans. And I will not be deterred and I will not, I will not Be deterred. I will not be distracted. I will do my job each and every day. And that's why I'm headed back to New York, because there's work to be done. Done standing up for the rule of law. God bless you and thank you all and I appreciate you.
- [15:42]
Ben
Popak break down the latest developments with New York Attorney General Letitia James. Not guilty plea. The consolidation of her motion with Comey's to disqualify Lindsay Halligan, thus dismissing the case. The vindictive prosecution motion, which is now going to be heard in a few months, that she's going to file. The motion regarding the illegal leaks by Lindsay Halligan, who's been talking about the grand jury with Anne Bower. You did that incredible interview. Talk to us.
- [16:09]
Michael Popak
Yeah. First, let me shout out and just. I've always been impressed by Tish James. Donald Trump has picked the fight with the wrong person if he thought, I'm going to get my pound of flesh to pay back Tish James in her office because they were involved with a finding that still stands, of fraud against Donald Trump and his family and the operation of the Trump Organization. She's been involved with over 50 attorneys general suits, now, 100 in the first term, against Donald Trump's depraved policies, and it is on a winning streak of 90%. She worked hand in glove with the Manhattan District attorney's office on two separate felony indictments and convictions of Donald Trump or his companies. If he thought that he was going to extract some sort of pound of flesh from her by having her trumped up, you know, have these trumped up charges on mortgage fraud, he picked the wrong person. She is strong, she is courageous. She's a person of conviction. She is an ethical person, and she is a powerful person that we are not going to hear the last of. And if Donald Trump being embarrassed apparently by Barack Obama during a White House dinner triggered him to run for office, there is a higher calling for Letitia James that we're gonna see coming out of this. He has made his own destroyer. I believe in Letitia James, by the way, that he's had the Department of Justice vindictively prosecute her. And as we expected, not only did she show up in Norfolk, Virginia, in person for her arraignment and said aloud herself, not even her lawyer sitting next to her. Who. Who we know the lawyer. She said out loud, not guilty on both counts, your honor. Now sitting in the room. Talk about a mismatch. You've got the attorney general basically blowing the prosecutors out of the Water in the room, outmatching them, outwitting them, outsmarting them in every way. Lindsey Halligan, the would be prosecutor who's soon to be losing her job if these motions are successful. She wasn't. And you'll appreciate this, Ben. In our world of trial practice, the person who occupies the first chair at council table is the lead trial lawyer. We say they're in the first chair literally. The second chair is usually either a co counsel or a senior or junior partner or somebody working on the case, does other aspects of the case. Third chair, I don't know. Sometimes that's a paralegal, sometimes that's somebody else. So Lindsey Halligan sat in the third chair, didn't say a word. Imported somebody from Missouri carpet bagging Prosecutor obviously got the short straw to come in and make the case because no one in her own office in the Eastern District of Virginia would touch this case with a ten foot pole. They fired the prosecutor who is the head of the Major Crimes unit in Norfolk, Virginia. They fired her and now have come up with some phony. She emailed herself a report. Yeah, she emailed herself as a cya. If this is true. Liz. Liz. Sorry, Beth. You see, she sent herself the recommendation to Lindsey Halligan not to prosecute the Letitia James case, which Lindsey Halligan's office now says. I never got that. You know who's gonna get that? Letitia James as part of what has to be turned over to her for her ultimate case, if it even gets that far. So you've got all of that going on. And right on cue, the as she's in the office, she files or in the courtroom before Judge Walker, they file Letitia James's office file or legal team files two motions. One we expected illegal appointment of Lindsey Halligan. She should not only be the indictment should not only be dismissed because Lindsey Halligan is not appropriately appointed to be the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. But I love this twist. Even, even Kobe's lawyers do this one. They're asking to have her enjoined from prosecuting anyone or anything even if the indictment stands, that Lindsey Halligan particularly gets bounced from her job. And they're right on this analysis. Under 28 USC section 546, which is a statute, the Vacancy Reform act, which says that you get as the Attorney General one shot. You get one ticket to the amusement park. And once you punch that ticket, you can't go back into Disneyland. So she punched her ticket by. After the original U.S. attorney in the Eastern District resigned on inauguration Day they appointed Eric Siebert. Siebert is a Republican conservative. Donald Trump nominated him, had him up ready to go for a Senate confirmation would have solved the whole Eastern District of Virginia prosecutor problem. The judges of the circuit of the district extended his time. Everything's going fine except Seber took one look at the Comey indictment material and the one for Letitia James and said, I'm not indicting these people fired. You're, you're, you're Rhino, you're, you're this, you're that fired. We need Lindsey Halligan in there, the eight year auto accident lawyer in Florida who's never been in federal court, I'm sure, let alone a federal prosecutor, she's going to do it. So that whole single use he. Once Pam Bondi put Eric Siebert in, she was done. The next pick for that department for that office comes from the district judges of the Eastern District of Virginia. Pursuant to that statute, until Donald Trump can successfully get a permanent appointment confirmed at the Senate, that is the case. That's the Comey argument. That's the Letitia James's argument. Two different judges. Actually, it will be, it will be a judge. It will not be Judge Nakmanoff, the judge for Comey. It will not be Judge Walker, the judge for Letitia James on that particular motion. Because there's a conflict. Because if they're right, then the person that, the entity that picks the replacement for Lindsey Halligan or are the judges, including Walker and Nachmanoff. So this is likely, as they've given notice to the two separate judges, is likely to be sent to Judge Diaz, who's the chief judge of the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that sits over Eastern District of Virginia, to send it both consolidated, I assume send it to another judge who's not in the Eastern District, meaning another Virginia federal district court judge or one in North Carolina or in some place in the 4th Circuit, similar to what happened with Alina Haba when the New Jersey motion got filed, all those judges had voted against her already. It got sent to the Middle District of Pennsylvania. So that's. And that's got to happen soon. And that's got to move soon because she's. You think Comey's got a fast trial date on January 6 or January 5 of this year. Hers is even shorter, even faster. Jan.26 is the trial date, which is advantage defense. Exactly. Now, in the meantime, she files another motion. This is my favorite motion for many reasons. This one is to gag Lindsey Halligan and everyone in the government. And I Would, I would argue that includes Donald Trump from undermining Letitia James ability to get a fair trial by making public comment about witnesses and evidence and the case. And the entire central premise foundation of the motion is Lindsey Halligan sending signal messages while after Letitia James was indicted to a reporter, Anna Bauer, who's been on with me. I'll show a clip in a second. We're out of the blue in the beginning of October. She gets a signal message, the reporter that says, hi, Anna, it's Lindsay. And off we go with a dozen or more messages in which she craps. She craps all over the evidence or craps over Letitia James. She comments on the evidence. I'm talking about Lindsey Halligan. She comments about the grand jury violating its secrecy protection and all the things you're not allowed to do. So they used. They said, look, Judge, look at the article. Look at Anna Bauer's reporting. Look at the text messages. She violated her rules of ethics. She violated criminal rule, Federal rule of Criminal Procedure 6e. She needs to be gagged. In fact, let me. Let's play now. My. The day after, the day after the article came out, we were lucky enough to get Anna Bauer to come on Legal AF and do an interview with me. Let's play a clip.
- [25:18]
Anna Bauer
Becomes the top prosecutor there. And. And then one day out of the blue, I get a message from her or someone purporting to be her, which I didn't believe at first. You know, I thought it was a troll. And it turns out it really was her because she was able to tell me where we first met, who she was with. And then we confirmed that it was her by obtaining her phone number, which connected to the discussion, and the Justice Department eventually confirmed it.
- [25:47]
Michael Popak
So to be clear, you're. When you woke up that day to her text message, you're not planning to write an article about Lindsey Halligan, particularly, and some. Some of her prosecutorial work on Letitia James. So when, when she later says, I didn't know there was a story. There wasn't a story. The story is her communicating with you. Right.
- [26:09]
Anna Bauer
Right. And I, and I want to be very clear here, Michael, because, like, there's a lot of context here about how relationships between reporters and prosecutors work. So a few things that people who maybe aren't familiar with that context and just like, how unusual this is and why this is even a story, I think it's important to keep these things in mind. So one is that it is normal for prosecutors and journalists to speak to each other. You know, prosecute. It's the kind of thing that, that's how reporting happens, you know, so that's not strange. But there are a few things that are really abnormal here. One is that it's the sitting United States attorney who's one of the most high profile prosecutors in the country, who's already under immense scrutiny because of the circumstances in which she was put into this job and the cases that she is pursuing against Letitia James and James Comey. The other is that she is reaching out to me, who, you know, I, I, it seemed that she was reaching out to me about these tweets I wrote that was summarizing someone else's reporting. At no point did she say that we were off the record. And for people who don't know what that means, everyone who is a public figure knows very well that when you engage with the media, you can set at the beginning the basis on which you wish to speak. One way that you can do it is say, hey, I'd like to go off the record. And there has to be an agreement with the reporter that that is the basis on which you speak. And then they can't publish anything, you know, that you speak about in that off the record conversation. But if there's no agreement at the outset, the assumption is that you are speaking on the record and that everything that you say is fair game and no backseat and no backsies and there's no takesy backsies. It doesn't work where you can retrospectively, as a source, say to a reporter, oh, hey, by the way, that was off the record.
- [28:15]
Michael Popak
Okay? That is the heart of it. And that is now, that is now evidence to support their motion to gag everybody. And then of course, as you predicted, they're going to do a motion for vindictive prosecution which will parallel and, and, and line up with Comey's motion. It's easy. You just use every word that came out of Donald, Donald Trump's mouth or Ed Martin's mouth or Pam Bondi or Cash Patel to show that. And Halligan, of course, in her selection, that's going to get filed very, very soon. That motion will stay with Judge Walker, as it will stay with the judge in the Comey case.
- [28:54]
Ben
Now, Popak, Lindsay Halligan is likely going to have to take the stand at some point. She's going to be cross examined about everything that took place in regarding a potential vindictive prosecution. She's not ready for prime time now. I mean, we know from what people have described her appearances like in the court, very Nervous, she bobs side to the entire time, sweating, like, literally scared to be there. And, you know, you should have thought about that when you went into the grand jury room alone to try to take down the former FBI director and a top lawyer and James Comey and the top lawyer in New York, New York Attorney General Letitia James. And Comey and James are not messing around. I mean, I am, I am very interested in that hearing that's going to be taking place in a few weeks on Halligan's disqualification. You know, and part of me, as though I want these cases to be dismissed because they're frivolous, part of me wants it to go on a little bit longer to see the vindictive prosecution motions play out so we could have Halligan take the stand and all of that discovery can come out. I'd like to know about Donald Trump's direct messages to Halligan and to Bondi using the Truth Social app. I'd like to see a situation and you could imagine this is coming where Donald Trump becomes a witness in these cases in the vindictive prosecution claims, the defenses. And it will get to an area which we will be discussing soon, where Todd Blanche, for example, in the vindictive prosecution defense being asserted by Abrego Garcia, you know, someone like Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, is saying, I executive privilege, I don't want to testify. I don't need to be there. And the response from Abrego is great, then dismiss the criminal case. If you, if you're too scared to take the stand after engaging in all this conduct, okay. And you want to assert all of these privileges, then you're prejudicing my defense and then the case gets dismissed. So I would like to see the scenario develop where Trump has to show up or people in the office have to show up. And after the tough game, they talk right on Fox and all of their preferred media outlets. This is what we saw before, right before the election. They talk tough, they go on Fox. Then when it came to testifying, they were scared. And I think we're going to see that paradigm play out again over with these prosecutions. And, you know, and because Trump's character is Trump's character, which is very low, vile, grotesque, scared when it comes down to it. And we see this play out over and over again and contrast that to what we're going to talk about in the next segment, Jack Smith, Jack Smith's like, I want to testify publicly. The facts are on my side. Bring me public. And then the MAGA Republicans in The House and Senate go, no, no, no, no, no. That would be theater. That would be theatrics. We want to keep it quiet. And Jack Smith's like, what? Let's do it in public. What are you talking about? Regardless of your political views, that dynamic should tell you everything you need to know. Who wants to do it behind closed doors, who's afraid to show up in court, who's afraid to do the depositions, and who wants to do it in public? Transparency, sunlight, important things. We'll talk about that. We'll take our first quick break of the show. A reminder, everybody, Michael Popo's law firm, they're taking on cases of people who are watching the show. So if you or someone you know has a case, whether it's a car accident case, a, a trucking accident case where you're the victim, a sexual assault, sexual harassment case, if you or someone you know has been killed in an accident in a wrongful death case, call 877 Popak AF. That's 877 Popac AF. Or go to the popoc firm.com for a free consultation. Popox representing a lot of people who watch and listen to the show. So don't be shy. Give a call if you think you or someone you know, our family or a loved one may have a case. Also, check out the sub stack by Legal AF by Michael Popak and the YouTube channel Legal AF by Michael Popak. Just search Legal AF on Substack and Legal AF on YouTube. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. When we come back, we'll talk about what's going on with Jack Smith. In the same segment, we'll give you updates about what's happening in a lot of these cases where excessive force is being used. Abrego worked by the National Guard. Abrego Garcia's case. Big updates there. Then we'll talk about these circuit court decisions regarding the National Guard invasions where Trump's sending the military into blue states and blue cities. All right, first quick break of the show. We'll be right back.
- [33:40]
Michael Popak
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- [36:27]
Ben
Welcome back to legal af. Thank you to our sponsors. Keep this show going. Support our sponsors. The discount codes are in the description below. Two topics I want to talk About POPOC during this segment. First, I want to talk about special counsel Jack Smith saying, I would like to testify before the House and the Senate about not just volume one, which is the January 6th insurrection case that he was pursuing, which had to be dismissed after Trump unfortunately won the election. And I want to talk about volume two, the Mar A Lago document case, where classified information was taken by Donald Trump, including nuclear secrets potentially, and it was hidden throughout Mar A Lago that was dismissed by the infamous Trump appointed judge over there. And we'll talk about those, you know, and we'll talk about those cases. But Jack Smith's like, I want to talk about them because we're MAGA Republicans. Bondi, Trump, they keep on bringing up my name. So let me do what every special counsel has done before, which is testify about volume one, volume two. I want to get permission from Bondi. You know, you. You are talking a big game about all these things that you think I did wrong. Great, Let Congress ask me all of these questions. But then also, I don't want to fall into a trap. So just give me the authority to talk freely about everything, and I'll talk freely about everything. Happy to do it. And you know what? What's the response from MAGA Popo? No, we want to prosecute Jack Smith. Prosecute him. Okay, you can do that too. But why don't you allow me to testify in public first? It just says everything, you know, as we were talking about in the last segment that, you know, remember when, when Hunter Biden wanted to testify publicly and the MAGA Republicans said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you can't. Like, I just don't. I don't even get the mentality, you know, with all of these, you know, these, like the MAGA followers or like, even like the podcast bros, Right? Like, yeah, go get them, go get them. And he's like, yeah, okay, I'm here. And then, you know, they're like, no, no, no, we actually don't want to get you now. And they're like, the podcast, bro. Yeah, that's the right move. Do it in secret. We're too scared. Hope I break it all down.
- [38:39]
Michael Popak
Yeah. And I. Well, Jack Smith, who we hadn't heard from in a couple of years, is back with a vengeance. As I joked recently, started with knowing that the drum beats to get him indicted, being led by Donald Trump and ordered by Donald Trump are getting louder and louder. He said, I got an idea. Why don't I start talking to the American public? And he did an Interview in London, which I'll show a clip from in a minute with Andrew Weissman, another prosecutor colleague of his, which he addressed many of the issues. Now when they have a cardboard cutout of Jack Smith to punch at MAGA like Jim Jordan and Grassley will say things like he obviously weaponized the Department of Justice to silence Donald Trump was all a political witch hunt and we want to hear from him. That's how they, that's how they set it up. And he's fired back with two back to back letters. One was the one you and I reported on a couple days ago, which was we stopped calling it wiretapping. I know you got a lot of political mileage during the Pam Bondi hearing to have senators clutch their pearls about I was wiretapped. How dare they. No, they sent a letter. They said, first of all, whatever we do, we do it through federal judges who authorize the search warrant to obtain what's called tolling information. It's the equivalent of, remember the old phone bills we used to get? I'm sure I still get it digitally. I just don't look at them. Which would list the date, the time, the duration of a phone call, who you called, phone number, that's it. The difference is a wiretap and I've been involved with wiretapping cases on the civil side, is when you intercept in real time. A could be an email, could be a social media post, or it could be a phone call and you're listening in and watching. You're peering in as the government. That's not what Jack Smith did. For a three day period, 5 January to 7 January, he wanted to see the phone calls that were being made to Congress and the Senate to see if they were trying to slow down the peaceful transfer of power at request of Donald Trump, which is why they pulled polls like Lindsey Allegan and Marsha Blackburn, other people who were public about it, to see, just to see if there were phone calls. We're not at the point of they don't have the recordings of the phone calls. So that letter went out first, but now in the last day, the lawyers who you and I know, for Jack Smith at Covington, a huge firm in Washington, it's very well, very well respected. Lanny Brewer sent a letter that said, sure, actually we have it here. Let me read from it. Mr. Smith respectfully requests the opportunity to testify in open hearings before the House and the Senate Judiciary Committee. And then buried in that letter in the second paragraph is something you and I have talked about, but I don't think it's enough attention. We always demand the release of the Epstein files and showing Donald Trump's cover up of himself and powerful people. But I've been calling for and you know it because I did it almost immediately. Volume two of the final report of Jack Smith has been buried by Pam Bondi since the day she took office. There were two volumes that he did to wrap up his investigation. One was about the election interference case. Hundreds and hundreds, thousands of pages with exhibits laying out the prosecutor case as to why they had the evidence to not only indict but to convict Donald Trump for election interference. That was released to the American public, much to the chagrin of Donald Trump who tried to stop it at the appellate level, even tried to stop it at the Mar A Lago Judge Eileen Cannon level, even though it wasn't her case. Volume one got released. You and I spent a lot of time with it. It sort of matched except it had new information from what the Jan6 committee had released in their 900 page book. But volume two was about Mar A Lago. Now, I've always said I thought the Department of Justice and Merrick Garland made a mistake. I thought they should have dismissed the case against Walt Nauta, the butler for Donald Trump, the valet and the IT guy, Carlos de Olviera. Because by that case still being alive after the immunity decision came in and Donald Trump getting immunity, but that, but them not getting immunity and being represented by Stan Woodward, who's now the number three in the Department of Justice. By keeping that case alive, it gave Cannon an ability to block the release of the Mar A Lago final report, Volume two to the American people. Instead, Merrick Garland left it in the top drawer of his desk with a post it note. I'm not making this up. It's pretty close to Pam Bondi saying, well, you're the new attorney general. You do. We were begging him, remember, at the end of the administration, before the inauguration. Release volume two. Well, here's what Jack Smith has to say about volume two. She says in his letter. To that end, Mr. Smith needs guidance from the Department of Justice. We're looking at you, Pam Bondi, regarding federal grand jury secrecy requirements and authorization on the matters he may speak to regarding, among other things, volume two of the final report of the special counsel, which is not publicly available. In fact, we've got a clip of Jack Smith just in the last two weeks giving that interview and breaking his silence. Let's play it now.
- [44:13]
Jack Smith
Idea that politics would play a role in big cases like this, it's absolutely ludicrous, and it's totally contrary to my experience as a prosecutor. These are team players who don't want anything but to do good in the world. They're not interested in politics. And I get very concerned when I see how easy it is to demonize these people for political ends. I worked in the department for years. Republican, Democrat, Republican. I worked in the. I was the Acting U.S. attorney in the first Trump administration in Tennessee. See, nothing like what we see now has ever gone on. There's rules in the department about how to bring a case.
- [44:53]
Ben
Follow those rules.
- [44:54]
Jack Smith
You can't say, I want this outcome. Let me throw the rules out. The problem is not prosecuting high officials who did something wrong. When you do it according to the processes of law in your country, it's the retaliation that's the problem.
- [45:07]
Michael Popak
He has said on the record he had more than enough to convict Donald Trump of espionage and obstruction of justice as it relates to Mar? A Lago, and he wants the American people to hear it from him. Here's what Jamie Raskin had to say about this, about this, because the letter was CC to Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Smith has made clear that he is prepared to address those allegations publicly. And I can think of no reason to to deny the American people the opportunity to hear his testimony under oath and with questioning from members of both parties and to let all Americans judge for themselves the integrity of Mr. Smith's investigation. There is no reason his appearance should be in the shadows of a back room. Jamie Raskin wrote and subject to the usual tiresome partisan tactics of leak and distort. They're the party of leak and distort, and we're the party of truth and justice. We're not hiding in the shadows. Our people want to come forward and look the American people in the eye and, and be cross examined. That's fine. But in public. And that, as you said, is the sharp contrast between the two parties that exist right now with law and justice.
- [46:23]
Ben
Let's pivot and talk about this case going on in two cases. I want to talk about, I want to talk about, because it involves the same issue about transparency. And I think this is a big deal where on the one hand, Jack Smith saying, I'd love to testify publicly, give me the chance, just give me the protection so you're not going to set a trap and then I'm free. Ask me, I'm an open book. Then you compare Abrego Garcia, the criminal case against him in the middle district of Tennessee. And then we'll talk about what's going on in Chicago, Illinois, where a federal judge there, Judge Sarah Ellis, who's been a federal judge since 2013, has demanded that depositions be taken of top Border Patrol officials there. Greg Bevino and other crew who are the top kind of Border Patrol people, and they're trying to do everything to avoid testifying in that case in Chicago, where the judge had basically said, you can't be engaged in chemical warfare against the people of Chicago. You know, and there's a video after the order was issued by Judge Ellis saying, wear body cams, stop the chemical warfare. I mean, just think what I'm saying. A federal judge had to tell the government, stop using chemical warfare weapons that are banned in war. Stop using these weapons on the people who were peacefully protesting. Then there's a video of Greg Bevino throwing the gas canister himself. Bevino himself, the head of the Border Patrol, like, literally the top person involved in these operations, basically, under Kristi Noem, he's the one directly throwing gas at Americans on the streets throughout Chicago. So she said, I saw that video. I want to see him there. October 28, 2025. Show up next Tuesday, and let's talk about what the hell just happened there. And she's not messing around. But first, let's talk about what's going on with the Brago Garcia Middle District of Tennessee. Remember, there's two cases with Abrego, the Tennessee case and the Maryland case. The Maryland case is not a criminal case. That case was filed by Abrego, where he was the petitioner first to be returned from El Salvador, where he was sent to a concentration camp. And then that court retained jurisdiction to try to continue to provide at least constitutional protections and safeguard for all the torture and terror the Trump regime was trying to do and the pain they were inflicting upon him. So that court retained jurisdiction over things like deporting Abrego to other countries, removing Abrego from this prison to that prison. So that's what happens in this Maryland court, then in Tennessee, when Trump had Abrego finally brought back to the United States after saying, I'm never going to do that. And then Trump, like, literally would show, like, altered photos that had the letters MISS and the numbers 1, 3 on Abrego's hand. They then did a criminal prosecution against Abrego for, like, for a traffic stop that happened three or four years ago where they said, you're involved in human trafficking. At the traffic stop. He Wasn't even arrested. He wasn't detained. And I guess the allegation now is that the people who were in the van, they were working in St. Louis as well, and Abrego was driving with a group of undocumented individuals to another state. Who. Who knows who these people are? The highway patrol person in Tennessee didn't arrest Abrego. But then they tried to be like, you see, he's a human trafficker. They tried to imply he's a gang member sitting on the play. They basically said it. He's a sex trafficker. He's a gang trafficker. This is what they're doing. He's a. He's a smuggler of children. And Abrego's like, oh, like, if you're prosecuting me, you better show the evidence about what that is. And then the government's like, yeah, no, let's just send him to another country. Let's just get rid of him. And Abrego's like, no, you filed this criminal case against me, so let's fight this case. Vindictive prosecution motion is filed by Abrego. The court makes a finding of vindictive prosecution at the threshold of yes, you've made a showing that the prosecution of Abrego was vindictive as a response to Donald Trump. Finally, like, retaliating for bringing him back to the United States, ordering that this prosecution take place, that Todd Blanche and Emil Bove at the DOJ were intimately involved. And so the court said, because you've made a showing. Time for discovery. Time for discovery. So Abrego said, great, Todd Blanche, you've been out there leading the charge, saying, I'm a terrorist and I'm a gang member, like, directly. Yes, you're the deputy attorney general, and normally I wouldn't get the deposition of someone so high up in the doj, but this is an extraordinary case where you're out there making these comments about me. So if you're making these comments and Emil Bove, show up. Time for your deposition. So Abrego Garcia notices the deposition pursuant to the court order finding vindictive prosecution to depose Todd Blanche. So Todd Blanche wants to avoid that at all costs. That deposition supposed to take place in the next 10 days. So what does the Department of Justice do in the Maryland case, not the Tennessee case? Because the Maryland case is about the deportations and all of that. They do notice of deportation to Liberia. And the day before or a few days before Todd Blanche would have his deposition taken. The Trump DOJ's gambit right now is, dude, let's just send Abrego to Liberia. That will moot the criminal case that we brought against him. That case goes away. If that case goes away, there's no discovery into Blanche or Emil Bove and we get rid of Abrego and we send him to Liberia and never hear from him again. I think Abrego goes, if you send me to Liberia, they're going to kill me there. Someone's going to kill me in Liberia. I'm going to wake up one day, probably shot. Basically, if you send me anywhere at this point, I'm probably going to get shot and killed or disappeared somewhere with someone thinking that that's a way to cozy up to Bukele in El Salvador or Trump and their authoritarian machinations. So here you have Todd Blanche, Emil Beauvais, Trump and others making these comments about Abrego. Abrego saying, okay, you're saying these things about me in violation of what's supposed to take place in federal court. Well, then just show up for a deposition the same way. Just think about this the same way. Jack Smith is saying, I want to voluntarily do it in public. Let's go. Let's do it. Now. The Trump officials in Abrego's case are saying, we don't even want to keep pursuing the criminal case against you. Why wouldn't you want to? If you believe he's a Ms. 13, gang member, sex trafficking, child predator, whatever you want to say he is, wouldn't you want to prosecute him in the case, have him guilty, throw him in jail? I would want that if he did those things.
- [53:37]
Michael Popak
I don't.
- [53:38]
Ben
I want the guy prosecuted to the fullest extent. But now you wanted to send him to Liberia and not do the criminal case anymore. And then Todd Blanche doesn't want to sit for a deposition. I just want everybody listening and watching to remove politics from it. And just think of that basic logic. Who wants to be in public, who wants to do it in private while attacking and eroding our constitutional norms. That should tell you everything about what's, what's, what's going on here. And then I link that to what's happening in Chicago, because there the border patrol is also desperately trying to have his agent, their agents not show up and hide and avoid depositions. And you'll go back to our first segment. I guarantee you, Popak, that, you know, these Trump officials are not after wanting the smoke. They're not going to want the smoke now that those cases are filed and they have to be under oath and Sit for depositions. They're whiny. You know, here's the thing. No one's saying that they have to be, you know, tough guy or tough gal in the first place and do these things, but when you then do it and then you're afraid to, like, deal with what you did, that's one of the things about MAGA that just pisses me off.
- [54:52]
Michael Popak
You did it.
- [54:53]
Ben
Now deal with it like a responsible person or don't do it in the first place.
- [54:57]
Michael Popak
So here's what I would comment on now that you put together the whole mosaic. Judge Zinnis better get off her backside and do something within the next 72 hours to stop Abrego Garcia from being sent to Liberia, 3,000 miles away from his home and his US citizen wife and children. It's really sitting with her. This is obviously an attempt to bury a mistake, continue to bury a mistake who happens to be a human being named Kilmer Abrego Garcia by the Trump administration by sending him on 31 October, five days before the trial that Judge Crenshaw was planning to hold. Is planning to hold. Kind of need a person being sitting, sitting there in order for the trial about the hearing on vindictive prosecution. He's, they already know from Crenshaw's prior ruling that he's bending over towards the defense side and is very close to ruling that this was vindictively prosecuted and therefore should be dismissed. Fearing that and fearing the hearing and fearing the discovery and fearing. And triggered by the Todd Blanche taking the stand. And so for people out there, that, that, you know, are critical. We want our, our, we want critical minds in our audience who are thinking, why would Todd Blanche. I mean, the number two. Yeah, because Judge Crenshaw said in his order that the number one piece of evidence for him that suggests vindictive prosecution, either presumptively or actually is Todd Blanche going on Fox with Laura Ingraham and making a statement about. Well, we indicted because Judge Zinnis in Maryland challenged us. He said, well, that seems like pretty, pretty good evidence. So of course, Todd Blanch would have to testify based on that kind of finding. So now the ball. I think that the powers inherent authority of the criminal Judge Crenshaw are kind of limited here. I don't think he can. He can, he could maybe issue an order. Listen, he's not going anywhere. We've got a hearing of addictive prosecution. He's the criminal defendant. He stays. Could happen. But Judge Zinnis, who is, as you noted earlier, is the constitutional due Process. Judge who said, I want note. The reason we got a notice that we've talked about this literally that just says notice. We I posted it on Legal AF substack so people could read it for themselves. The reason is, is because Judge Zinnis had said he is staying in Virginia unless and until I understand there's an immigration process that's going on. But he is not to be sent anywhere unless I am given notice. Okay, here's your notice, Judge. We're sending him to Liberia. It's a very nice place. It's got a capital named after James Monroe. I mean, this is the stuff they wrote. Like they were writing a brochure for travel. Like, hey, everybody want to visit Liberia? No. And what his lawyers have come out and said, Abrego Garcia, is that we've offered Costa Rica, which is close to his family, is Spanish speaking, and they're trying to vindictively punish us and prosecute us all over again. Now, what they originally had offered, because this is where the vindictiveness comes in for our audience, among many examples, they offered to let him go, Abrego Garcia, to Costa Rica. He had to. He had to agree to confess and admit guilt in the human trafficking case in Tennessee. And his lawyer said, no, drop the charges and we'll agree to let him go to Costa Rica. So the fight right now is the Trump administration saying, no, you'll go where we say you're going to go. And since you didn't take our deal and you made us and you're embarrassing us every day in court, you're now going to go to Liberia. Here's what the lawyer for Abrego Garcia said. Simon Sandoval Moshenburg. After failed attempts with Uganda, Eswatini and Ghana, ICE now seeks to deport our client to Liberia, a country with which he has no connection. Thousands of miles from his family and home in Maryland, Costa Rica stands ready, the lawyer wrote, to accept him as a refugee, a viable and lawful option. Yet the government has chosen a course calculated to inflict maximum hardship. These actions are punitive, they're cruel, and they're unconstitutional. So after the show is over, you can come over to Legal AF substacks. I'm sure I'm going to be doing an update about Judge Zitis pulling everybody together over the weekend, if not on Monday, to talk about why Liberia. At some point, Ben, I believe she has the inherent and equitable power. I'm going to go on to live here, to even grant asylum based on the abuse of the constitutional due process rights of him. Just like she would be able to let somebody out of jail if they were being abused and tortured in an American prison. I think she's got that power. She's been letting it play out watching all the chess pieces in Tennessee and the immigration court and here. But she, and she's shown that she's got the gravitas and the power to do it. She got a firm 90 by the United States Supreme Court when she ordered that Donald Trump and his administration facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia from the torture prison. He was literally tortured upon arrival in El Salvador. It was affirmed by the 4th Circuit twice. And now she's got his liberty and our entire justice system in the palms of her hands. Get ready for the hearing with Judge Zinnis.
- [60:51]
Ben
Get ready for that. We'll be covering it every step of the way here on the Midas Touch YouTube channel, but also especially at a very detailed level on the Legal AF YouTube channel, which is on its way to 1 million subscribers. Subscribe to Legal AF on YouTube. Let's get to 1 million subscribers this year on Legal AF's YouTube channel. Also, subscribe to the Legal AF Substack to search on Substack Legal AF. A reminder, Michael Popo's law firm, the Popo firm has been taking a lot of cases from the Legal AF community. So if you or someone you know has been in an auto accident, a trucking accident, if you've been the victim of somebody else's negligence, if you know somebody who's been the victim in a wrongful death case or the victim of somebody else's negligence and accidents, or sexual assault or sexual harassment cases, the consultation is free. Give a call, 877- POPOC-AF is the phone number. Or go to the popoc firm.com consultation 100% free. They'll let you know if you have a case and let your friends and people you know as well, if they have cases that they should call popac, and popo's got lawyers across the entire country. When they take the case, if they take the case, do it on a contingency basis as well, meaning they don't get paid unless you get paid. All right, last quick break of the show. When we come back, I want to talk about two things. POPOC will break down what's happening in the circuit courts regarding Donald Trump's military invasions of blue states and blue cities. And then I want to give a special shout out to our friend Michael Wolf who sued Melania Trump, sued her for anti slap violations, strategic lawsuits against public policy in New York for threatening to sue him if he didn't retract stories on relating to her and Epstein. And Wolf just said enough's enough. We are filing a lawsuit against you and I want discovery into your relationships, if any, with Jeffrey Epstein. We'll talk about that and more. Final break of the show. We'll see you right after this quick break.
- [62:59]
Michael Popak
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- [65:24]
Ben
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to our sponsors. Discount codes in the description below for those keeping score. Two topics for us to cover on this final segment. Number one, how are the circuit courts and district courts ruling on Trump's military invasions of blue states and blue cities? Hard for me to believe I even utter that sentence, but here we are. And then we'll talk about Michael Wolf, author, Trump's former biographer, and someone who was potentially going to be a biographer for Jeffrey Epstein, filing a lawsuit against Melania Trump after Melania Trump threatened to sue him through that lawyer, Alejandro Brito, who's been filing a lot of those Trump related defamation lawsuits. And Michael Wolf said, enough's enough. You're threatening me, you're threatening my reporting. I have a First Amendment right to be coming up with opinions and reporting on things that I believe are established facts. And you're misrepresenting some of the things that I've actually said publicly. But you know what? Enough's enough. I have to incur attorneys fees now. So you're chilling my free speech suing you in New York. And it'll be an interesting one there, Popak, because she threatened to sue Hunter Biden and then never made that lawsuit against Hunter Biden when he made certain comments about connections with Epstein that she claimed were defamatory. She never followed through on the litigation threat. So now it'll be interesting as she's been going around threatening to sue this person and that person, is she gonna, is she gonna countersue? Michael Wolf, at which point she'll be subject to all of the discovery that I don't think she wants to sit for those depositions. There's a lot of questions about her background and how she got here, where she really went to school and what'd she do. You know, she had to like retract where she said she went to this university when she didn't, and how she met Donald Trump at a KitKat club from these weird modeling agencies and how she got her visa and how she got here. What, you know, all of that would be subject to discovery if she sued. So, and, and she doesn't want to address any of that. And I think Wolf views this as, okay, you're threatening me. So let's, let's get into it. Let's just do it. Hat tip to him. I guess I gave away that segment already. No, no, no.
- [67:42]
Michael Popak
Stay there for a minute. Stay there for a minute.
- [67:43]
Ben
We'll start. We'll start there and then we'll go. You, you.
- [67:45]
Michael Popak
Yeah, we'll do it reverse. So you and I both interviewed Michael Wolf. And funny, the interesting thing about Michael Wolf is when you and I interviewed him the day of the filing, you know, he was understandably, he felt like, like you said, he had to file a preemptive strike because he had gotten a letter from Donald Trump, Donald Trump's lawyer of choice for defamation cases. It's based in Miami, right down the street from me. Guy named Alejandro Brito, who's never litigated successfully anything for Donald Trump. He's never had a jury or a judge award Donald Trump anything. But he's been good at writing letters when he has a pressure point on corporate media to get them to pay up. You write a nasty letter to ABC about George Stephanopoulos calling Donald Trump a rapist instead of a sex abuser. Oh, that's 15 million. You write a nasty letter to ABC about Jimmy Kimmel. Oh, Jimmy Kimmel pops off the air. You write a nasty letter to CBS about Kamala Harris's interview. Oh, we got a $30 million, $40 million settlement related to that. Never litigated a darn thing. So Melania, sorry, Melania, uses him to send a nasty letter to Michael Wolf 10 days ago, giving him until a couple of days ago to either retract and apologize for a whole series of statements, some of which he made based on his reporting, some of which was other people reporting about his reporting and frankly, having gotten it wrong. For instance, Melania having sex on the airplane with Donald Trump, Epstein's airplane. That is his reporting of something that Jeffrey Epstein told him. And he's got the recordings of when they were thinking about writing a book together. He was going to be the biographer for Jeffrey Epstein. So he's said back to her in his filing, which is a very strategically interesting filing. It's a lawsuit asking the court to declare that each and every one of the things that she claims is defamatory, either could not be defamatory because it's not capable of defamation or is true or is misreporting or is accurate, and he's not going to rescind and retract and Apologize because of the First Amendment rights that you just talked about. They also, of course, you know, Donald Trump's typewriter and his lawyer's typewriter is always stuck on the b. It's always a billion dollar demand. 50 billion, 20 billion. Michael Cohen, I think got a break. I think he was in the millions for his defamation. These cases ultimately go nowhere. Remember that case? I really just to the audience, remember that case that he filed a case against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch for billions of dollars. Case is just sitting there. He's not prosecuting it. He's not doing anything about it. Case in the New York Times case, he refiles something that's likely to get dismissed again and get them sanctioned. So it's easy to do all of these things. So he's also asking in the lawsuit to once and for all have the defamation declared to be improper, should he be sued for it? Which I think is a great tactic. If Melania counters him or even if she doesn't, he has the right to have people testify like Melania. Were you on the plane? Were you not on the plane? Ghislaine Maxwell? We have on our legal AF YouTube channel, we've got Sidney Blumenthal. He knows Cindy Blumenthal, knows Melania's agent. Let's get Melania's agent back when she was a model, back when she was dating Donald Trump to talk about the relationship between her. Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. This is the can of worms that Donald Trump has opened by having Melania write that nasty letter. Now, Michael Wolf, since he's filed the lawsuit, has now been more, a little bit more aggressive. He's like, yeah, I'm suing and I'm, and bring it. When I had him on, it was more like, I'm going to get countersued, folks, and I need crowdfunding. I may come back to you to have your audience to help pay my legal bills. But in either event, it is an important case because he's the only guy, the only person who's who's gone on the offensive against Donald Trump's threats of libel and defamation in this case for Melania. And I think it's the blueprint for what should happen in the future. We're so tired here on Midas Touch and Legal AF of covering corporate media because they've got stockholder interest at heart because they're worried about their license or they're worried about a transaction or they're worried about something with Donald Trump in the future that would take away money from them. Capitulating and throwing their crown jewel of a news agency into the trash bin. It's so refreshing to see Michael Wolff, who has been nothing if not consistent. This is what happens when you have recordings. He's nothing if not consistent about his reporting about Donald Trump, about Melania, about Jeffrey Epstein. He doesn't waver because it's, because it's easy to remember the truth. It's the lies that you can't remember.
- [73:13]
Ben
You know, people may have heard the term like controlled opposition. It's like controlled opposition litigation against Donald Trump. When even an entity like the Wall Street Journal gets sued and it looks like they're fighting back, or the New York Times gets sued and it looks like they're fighting back, or because they file a motion to dismiss, well, they're not taking the steps that any litigator who was really trying to litigate this case and be aggressive the right way would do. Which is okay. If you're the Wall Street Journal and Donald Trump sues you about the letter, right. What do you do right about the birthday letter from 2003. The first thing you do is what Michael Cohen did when he was sued by Donald Trump for $500 million. What happens is, is that you take his deposition right away. You ask for it. Donald Trump doesn't show up for the deposition and he dismisses the case. That's what you got to do. So, you know, even in the Wall Street Journal case, they didn't, they didn't ask for Donald Trump's deposition. Trump was all aggressive. I'm going after Murdoch. I want Murdoch's deposition. Then they ended up coming to some agreement where all discovery gets paused. It's like, well, why, if you're the Wall Street Journal, why would you pause that discovery? If you were a real litigant defendant, you would take Trump's deposition right away and you would seek a protective order against Murdoch or limit the deposition to whatever Donald Trump's call with Murdoch is. Because you don't, just because you sue the Wall Street Journal, you don't get Murdoch's deposition. That's. You would never get Murdoch's deposition in that case at all. Or if you did, it would be like, what did Donald Trump say to you? And that would be the limitation. It would be a 10 minute deposition, whereas Trump would be exposed to a 7 hour deposition. And we're not seeing that take place. So I like that Wolf is saying, enough is enough. I want Melania's deposition. You're threatening me, I'm suing you. And I want to see you in court right now. And he sued her in New York. So Alejandro Brito is going to have to find a New York lawyer to join forces with because he's been filing those cases in Florida, and they're going to have to do motions in front of a New York judge, and then they can decide it. It goes back to a theme of this episode, which is.
- [75:24]
Michael Popak
Or one thing, Ben. It might get removed to federal court, but we'll leave that for another, another show.
- [75:30]
Ben
If it gets, and, and then maybe it does get transferred, but it's in state court. If it gets removed to federal court, it could be removed to New York federal court, then possibly transferred. You know, I mean, there's venue motions and things like that. That, that could happen, sure. But there'll be questions. Think about, talk about that issue for a brief second.
- [75:50]
Michael Popak
Okay. Okay.
- [75:51]
Ben
The issue for federal court and why I would be in federal court is that Melania would say that there's what's called diversity of citizenship. I live in Florida, you live in New York. The amount in controversy is above 75,000. So it goes to federal court. Well, if I, Michael Wolf, I go, I want jurisdictional discovery on that basis because are you living in Mar a Lago? Are you, you're not living in the White House.
- [76:17]
Michael Popak
Are you on Fifth Avenue in New York?
- [76:19]
Ben
And she's living in New York. So I think that Melania, if Melania makes that move to federal court, Wolf counters right away. Let's do two hours of jurisdictional discovery on where you live, and then we'll find out that she doesn't live in the White House, she doesn't do anything, and that she's been staying in New York for all of these years. So anyway, so there's that. But, but I'm glad that there's this lawsuit. Before we go, though, Popak, you got to give us the update on what's happening in circuit courts across this country on Trump's military invasions. There was the en banc. There was different en banc rulings in the Ninth Circuit, one not favorable, one favorable, but procedural. The Seventh Circuit has made its voice heard. It's all going to the Supreme Court. Break it down.
- [77:07]
Michael Popak
Yeah, we'll. We'll do it. Reverse order. The 7th Circuit decision over Chicago, which blocked the deployment, putting the military, the National Guard military on the streets, was appealed by Donald Trump. He was, it's the only one. He appealed the 9th Circuit stuff over California and Oregon. He hasn't taken appeals from. He's been on the winning side of Most of it. So of course, he's not the one to appeal it. So the first case that shot up to the Supreme Court, it's still sitting there as we're on tonight. We don't have the ruling yet for the United States Supreme Court. Could happen at any moment. When it does, I'll update everybody on Legal AF Substack Live. You know, and, and Ben and I will do videos on it. What it has been sitting with the Supreme Court on an emergency application to block the block, meaning allow the deployment of Illinois National Guard for like over a week now. That usually is a sign, not that they're trying to figure out how to count to five, which is the amount of Supreme Court justices you need to make the ruling. It's because somebody or many people are writing opinions to go with it because as we know, it chaps our ass. But as we know, on an emergency application, you get a one paragraph order that says we're blocking, it's not substantive. If there's a future appeal on the merits, we, we may or may not. That's all you get. But, but then you get the concurrence, the descent, the double descent, the concurrent. So that's what's being written right now. If I was a betting person, we're waiting on a descent, a scathing descent from somebody like Sotomayor and, or Kagan or Katanji Brown Jackson. My guess is Sotomayor. My backup is, is Katanji Brown Jackson. And they, they get the courtesy of being given the time to write it and circulate it and all that. And then other people can, you know, like Kavanaugh, you know, my, my colleague got it wrong, or Amy Coney Barrett can jump in and try to punch the nose of Katanji Brown Jackson again. So that's what's going on. And it's taken them a minute to do it, just like we waited for. What are they doing in Abrego, Garcia? And all of a sudden, like you and I, our phones blew up 1am on a Saturday Eastern time. But they just ruled. So get ready for that ruling. I think it's going to be in favor of the Trump administration, unfortunately, again with them saying but it's not on the merits, so, you know, we can sleep at night even though the rest of us can't sleep at night because of all their rulings. So that's the 7th Circuit case. I'll go back to Illinois in a minute and talk about the trial court just to remind our audience, even though things go up at the Top level on appeals, it doesn't stop the below the trial court judges doing their job in progressing the case either towards a preliminary or permanent injunction or new facts, new hearings, new motions, new complaints, that all still goes on below the surface as these other top level issues get appealed. Doesn't stop the case usually. I mean there are circumstances where it can. In the 9th Circuit, the 9th sits over both Oregon and California. So when people hear 9th Circuit just did something, oh, you know, you have to then tie it back on a graph which we try to do on Legal AF and Midas, to which case we're talking about which order is being blocked. And then it's a block of a block. And if it's a block of a block, what does that really mean? Well, that's why you come to Legal AF and Midas touch. So on the, and then what's on banc. All right, so in the, in the Federal Circuit, the Ninth Circuit, for instance, there's 25 plus judges, but the en banc panel is, is 11. It's 10 randomly selected judges. And the chief judge, that panel, if there's enough votes to have an en banc decision, will review what a three judge panel, which is your normal panel. Most, when you hear a circuit court, a 9th Circuit, 7th Circuit, 5th Circuit has ruled, that is generally unless it's en banc, three judges randomly selected, that is your, that is the Ninth Circuit's decision on that matter. Most cases, 99% of cases do not get en banc review. You then have to request somebody, either the judge, a judge on that circuit, or the parties have to ask for it en banc. There has to be enough votes like a majority that think it's interesting for en banc. Then they set up the en banc panel, new briefing, new oral argument, new ruling. So we've had the en banc panel for California keep in place the original decision to allow Trump to use California National Guard and other National Guard people in California, even though he seems to be making his policy now by whatever, whatever the tech bros tell him, since the tech bros told him San Francisco is copacetic, he's not sending in the National Guard. That's who the president of the United States relies on friends to give him money, friends to give him advice about his policy. We don't have a president of the United States. This is, this is just, he's just a kipitzer in moral, you know, in his golf course picking up tips about how to run the government. So the ninth Circuit said on California, we're going to allow deployment. Oregon three judge panel ruled in favor of the Trump administration in Oregon and allowed for a moment the deployment. But then an en banc battle. The three judge panel blocked their own decision to stop the deployment until another en banc panel of 11 judges get together to talk about Oregon matters, all that. So we're all block, block, block, block, block, waiting for en banc. California allowed to be deployed. We're still waiting to see what happens with Oregon. Switch back to Illinois for one quick second. Hot second. You got Judge Ellis, one of two trial court judges dealing with things on the streets in Illinois. She's dealing with, as you said, this eye popping. The fact that you and I have to talk about the fact that a federal judge had to order the government not to attack journalists, clergy and First Amendment protesters and shoot them in the face with pepper balls and use other instruments and equipment of war against American citizens on the streets of America. It's just mind boggling. She ordered them to wear their cameras because they weren't like wearing their cameras regularly, their body cams. And they tried to blame the shutdown. Well, go borrow money from Timothy Mellon and get your cameras on. So she said, I'm not buying that. Get the cameras on. And then when the local news, this is where, you know, our brethren, our colleagues in local reporting are so important. You do a lot of good coverage about, you know, today in the abuse of civil liberties on the streets of America. Look at this video. But a lot of that's coming off the streets from Americans. That's where the crowds come in. And from journalists who are reporting on these things. And as soon as she said no more tear gas without warnings, no more use of this type of non lethal munitions, local news reporting was like, well, this happened today in a neighborhood in Chicago and this happened today. Why isn't this a violation of Judge Ellis's order? She got to see the videos and she wants to know the same. She wants those questions answered. So she's pulled in multiple people at the head of the Customs, Border Patrol and Homeland Security to testify under oath to her why this is being done and why her orders are being violated as a first step, I'm sure, towards contempt. But a thank God we've got judges like Judge Ellis, but look at what their orders have to look like against the Trump administration who. Let's just strip away all of the bullshit and the nomenclature. Donald Trump is attacking Americans and their civil liberties on the streets of America for political gain every day. That's it. You can, you can Sugarcoat it. You can, you control me. You can say what you want, but these are not trend to Aragua. These are not illegal migrants with undocumented status. These are Americans that Donald Trump disagrees with, 61% of them and instead wants to do. You know, AI fighter jet video of him crapping all over America while he tears down the White House. If, if, if you were on the fence before and there were people that were, who were independent voters or Democrats that didn't like Kamala or Joe Biden at the end or Republicans that were like, yeah, but he's great for taxes, you know, while they're playing around a golf, get off the fence. Now is the time to take a stand. This is where the courage is of the three Cs of Rob Bond to come in. You must take a stand. You must be able to look your family and friends and future generations in the eye. And when they say, hey, what did you do in 2025 and 2026 when the out of control, unconstitutional, depraved Trump administration was running amok, where were you? What did you do? You need to be able to answer that question.
- [86:54]
Ben
And we'll be here by your side the whole step of the way, every step of the way to make sure we all answer that question, that we stood together shoulder to shoulder and fought back. And what we try to do in the show is give you the best information that we have. We try to bring in the experts to supplement our coverage where we want to bolster it. And we try to do it relentlessly each and every day here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal af. So with that, we appreciate you watching this episode of Legal aforementioned. Make sure you subscribe to Michael Popo's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel. Subscribe to Michael Popo's substack, the Legal AF substack. And if you or anybody you know has been in a car accident, an auto accident, you've been the victim of somebody else's negligence. If you know someone who was the victim of a wrongful death case where they died based on an accident or the conduct of somebody else, call 877 Popoc AF right now, 877-popocaf or go to thepopoc firm.com Michael Popak has lawyers across the country on standby. They're going to let you know an initial consultation call. If you have a case consultations free. Then if they take the case, it's done in a contingency so they don't get paid unless there is a recovery. So don't be shy, give a call no matter where you are in this country, and they'll be able to find someone for you if, if you've got a case that they can take on. With that, I thank you all. I thank our sponsors. I thank you, most importantly for staying in this fight together. Shoulder to shoulder with us. Popak always enjoys spending this weekend with you. Happy Halloween to everybody. We don't see you before the next one on Legal AF with me and Popac together, but we'll be seeing you a lot more. The videos we're doing throughout the day. Thank you. Shout out Midas Mighty and Shout out Legal A effort.