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- [00:01]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
A Mochi moment from Sadie who writes, I'm not crying, you're crying. This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi because I didn't have to convince him I needed a GLP one. He understood and I felt supported, not judged. I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy. Thanks, Sadie. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com Sadie is a Mochi member, compensated for her story.
- [00:31]
Michael Popak
Welcome to Legal af the podcast oh Lord. So much to talk about. Government may or may not be open by the time we're all together here. In any event, so much has happened in the Epstein cover up scandal, just the last 48 hours, including Donald Trump using the Situation Room to browbeat Republican women to get he thinks it's a situation. I agree to get them to change their vote and their signature on the discharge petition, including Lauren Boebert, because he knows now the government has reopened. Representative Adelita Grijalva, who I had the distinct honor to interview about a week ago, has been sworn in and she's going to be the 218th vote unless Donald Trump can peel away things. So see, this is how Donald Trump thinks, ladies and gentlemen of our audience. He doesn't think about you. He doesn't think about honest service. He doesn't think about how to make America better or how to stop starving babies. He thinks about how do I continue to hide the Epstein files as his first order of business and pulls together the Department of Justice and the FBI into the Situation Room to talk about the Epstein files. Just released the Epstein files and of course to cut him off at the passage. Not just the Democrats. A bipartisan oversight committee released a few choice emails today which suggest that Donald Trump was involved in the child sex trafficking more than he may have admitted. At least one email can be interpreted that way between Epstein and Maxwell. We'll talk about. That also puts a lie to a lot of what, if not all of what Ghislaine Maxwell told Todd Blanche as she lobbies for her pardon. We got three new emails we'll talk about. We've got this brow beating going on. We've got new reporting. David Schuster come out with new reporting that the four Republican people that are leading the charge on the discharge petition have been briefed by the Department of Justice and led to believe that the documents that are being withheld are even worse for Donald Trump than we first thought. It's all coming together as Carolyn Levitt, who is just, you know, just the propagandist number one for the Trump administration tells the American people, and we'll show it later, that she's being transparent by being opaque, that she's being transparent by not telling anybody what happened in the Situation Room and what they're doing to convince Boebert not to release the files, that in the world of the upside down world of the Trump administration is being transparent. We got a huge hearing tomorrow. I mean, I, I, I, I don't, I don't deal in hyperbole much. But tomorrow's hearing in Alexandria, Virginia at 10:00am in front of Judge Curry, who's coming in all the way from South Carolina to preside over whether Letitia James's and James Comey's prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan, the Insta prosecutor, is going to be bounced from her job. It's a motion to dismiss not only the indictment, but also to strike and get rid of and disqualify Lindsey Halligan. And it's being handled by Judge Curry from South Carolina. We'll talk about why South Carolina federal judge is sitting in Virginia for this particular matter. And I don't think it's going to go well for Lindsey Halligan tomorrow. But news flash, now I don't want to be a spoiler alert. Lindsey Haugen's not going to be arguing this motion tomorrow, I assure you. But we will have an insider in the room who's going to do live reporting for Legal af Adam Klassfeld, All Rise News. Last I spoke to him was on a train from New York to Virginia to be in the be first in line so he can report on what's going on in that room. And we'll have that live reporting tomorrow exclusively on Legal af. New scandal broke out Southern District of Florida. My stomping grounds. I'm in Miami and It involves the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida seems now to be have been handpicked by Donald Trump and his lackeys in Washington to go after Donald Trump's political enemies under some sort of quote unquote, grand conspiracy. But career prosecutors like my colleague quit in protest, freaked out the U.S. attorney. And there's also an alien Cannon Judge Cannon connection because they've got this whole thing mapped out except it's got discovered by the media with breaking news. And we're going to talk about this new scandal to go after Barack Obama and the intelligence community and the rest using Aileen Cannon in Fort Pierce, a U.S. attorney in Miami, a grand jury in Fort Pierce and all the rest why isn't she recusing herself from this? We're going to ask those hard questions here on Legal AF at the midweek. And then Donald Trump hates porn hungry people. There's no other way to put this. He tried to starve them through the election on Tuesday and beyond. He has his Department of Justice run into court at numerous times over the last 72 hours and get permission to starve Americans, 42 million of them, one out of eight people that are on public assistance for food and for anti hunger. He's still doing it. And the Supreme Court made a ruling which if, if this isn't a political ruling, I don't know what is. We're going to talk more about it, what it means as people still as we're on the air today don't do not have their full food program entitlement funds to be able to shop for their family. As Donald Trump, who's never missed a meal, returns to Washington with his other fat cat oligarchs and tries to screw poor people, including in red states who are voters in order to make a political point against the Democrats. We're going to talk about the reopening of the government as well. Let's bring in Karen Freeman. Hi, Karen.
- [06:31]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Hi, Popak. How are you today?
- [06:32]
Michael Popak
I'm doing great. And you are on the road, but always with us, always reporting on the.
- [06:37]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Road, traveling for work as we sometimes do in our profession.
- [06:41]
Michael Popak
That's it. So let's kick it off with Epstein files. So much to cover. It's funny, I was, I was putting together my week's sort of topics that I was going to do Sunday night. I was like, I really heard anything about the Epstein files lately. David Schuster had that new reporting that I liked a lot that had finally come out about how bad the Epstein files are that are being withheld by Donald Trump and the COVID up. And then we get the bombshell this morning of the oversight committee releasing the three emails which we're going to read and put up on the screen and all that good stuff. And the fight for Donald Trump to try to prevent the discharge petition from getting the bill to the House floor so that Americans know which side the various parties are on. Are they on the side of child sex traffickers or are they on the side of sexual abuse survivors? And we need to know that. So Karen, did you get a chance to read the, the emails?
- [07:45]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Yeah, I, they were very surprising that they have these emails and that they're out there and there's so much to talk about. For example, did Todd Blanche have these emails when he interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell? And if so, why didn't he ask her about them? Because clearly shows that there was this discussion between Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein about Donald Trump. And why didn't Todd Blanche ask her about it? Why didn't Todd Blanche pin her down and ask her why it is that they were talking about this, there was a police investigation and that Trump was at Epstein's house with a girl for hours? I mean, it's pretty bad, these emails. So I want to. What did the Department of Justice know? Why did they give such a softball interview to Ghislaine Maxwell? Why didn't they ask her about these emails? The other thing that really surprised me, or I shouldn't say surprised me, but the other thing that I saw that I was like, really? Everyone's going to see through this, which is as soon as the Democrats dropped these terrible emails, the Republicans then did a giant dump of more Epstein files and thousands of them, I think 20,000 of them, to try and I think deflect and confuse, to make it seem like that there aren't. That these emails aren't that big of a deal and to give everybody other stuff almost to like drown them in information and some, some irrelevant information. And the reporting, I think, is just really going to be surprising. I shouldn't say surprising, but it is surprising every time you hear about this, every single day, when people start going through this giant document dump and all the stuff that's coming out and will come out once they release the full files, when they get the 218 votes, when representative, you know, Grijalva was, was sworn in. But, but they have to let it ripen. They have to let the issue ripen for at least, I think, seven to 10 days while the House is in session before they will actually vote on it and then release it. So there's more to come. This is, this is just day one of a story that's bigger than any of us imagined.
- [10:01]
Michael Popak
Well, let's catch everybody up. So let's play the. I'm going to do it reverse order. I'm going to play a clip from Ghislaine Maxwell's interview under oath with an immunity deal with Todd Blanch, Donald Trump's former and probably current criminal defense lawyer number two in the Department of Justice, in which she denied the, the level of friendship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, that Donald Trump had ever been at the House with Jeffrey Epstein. Everything was all, no, I don't think so. He's Lovely man. I never saw him do anything wrong. And let's play the audio. And then I'm going to read you from an email she must have forgotten from 2011. And certainly Todd Blanche either buried his head in the sand and didn't want us. Look, he got prepared 8 hours, 7 hours to take the interview. There's no way he wanted to see these emails, nor let's remind our audience, Maureen Comey, James Comey's daughter, who prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell and knew the case like the back of her hand and, and would know if Ghislaine Maxwell was lying or not. She would have been. The truth serum in the room was fired two weeks before or three weeks before the interview. So he went in with nobody that knew anything about the case. He certainly didn't go through hundreds of thousands of documents to pull out documents about Ghislaine Maxwell. He just went in cold. So she was able to lie because he wanted her to be able to lie. Here's the clip of Mr. Epstein and President Trump together. Yes. And there's photographs. I think you're, you're in some of.
- [11:34]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
The photographs as well. Those all appear to be social settings. Yes, that's my memory.
- [11:40]
Carolyn Levitt
If there was social settings, I don't.
- [11:42]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Know Epstein's, if he had, whatever the.
- [11:45]
Carolyn Levitt
The nature of the President's.
- [11:49]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Friendship, if you will, or however you want to define that with Epstein, I was never witnessed. I think they were friendly like people.
- [11:56]
Michael Popak
Are in social settings.
- [11:57]
Carolyn Levitt
I don't, I don't think they were close friends or.
- [12:02]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
I certainly never witnessed the President in.
- [12:05]
Carolyn Levitt
Any of, I don't recall ever seeing him in his house, for instance.
- [12:10]
Michael Popak
So that's what she said. I never saw him in the house with Epstein. And now we have the email that came out today, Saturday, April 2, 2011, from GMAX, Ghislaine Maxwell to Jeffrey Epstein or from Epstein to, to gmax. First, I want you to realize that that dog that hasn't barked is Trump victim's name redacted. Spent hours at my house with him. At my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. And then another reference that I'm not aware of. And Ghislaine Maxwell says in response, yeah, I've been thinking about that. So she just said in her interview, I don't think he was even in the house. And here Jeffrey Epstein says hours were spent between Donald Trump and this victim. And all the victims were girls at the time, meaning they were raped. Now, I'm not suggesting, I don't know what, what happened for Hours in the house with Jeffrey Epstein or if this is true, but this is 2011, this is in real time. This is years before Donald Trump even thought about running for the presidency or ran for the presidency. And then that's not all right, Karen, Then we've got the other email, which I think is as bad, if not worse, because Donald Trump has taken the position publicly that he, as soon as he figured out that Jeffrey Epstein was a creepy, he, he banned him from Mar A Lago or fired him from Mar A Lago. Now we know the real story. The real story is they fought over a $40 million piece of oceanfront property, and Trump didn't like the fact that Epstein bid up the price and competed against Trump and made him pay more than he wanted to. And that's why he stopped talking to him. But here's, here's in real time in 2019, what, what Epstein tells Michael Wolf, the reporter victim, Mar A Lago. I'm not sure what that is. With another redaction, Trump said, he asked me to resign. Never a member, ever. Of course, he knew about the girls as he asked Ghis to stop. Now, the only way that I can interpret that is that Donald Trump knew that Ghis Maxwell was using as a hunting ground, as a predator, Mar A Lago to pick up girls, to have them be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein and or others, and told her to stop, not report her to the officials, not report her to law enforcement, not stop sex abuse, trafficking, just tell her to stop. Girls. Ghislaine Maxwell, stop. I mean, they can come up with all sorts of other crazy ways to interpret that. Karen. But how do you read it?
- [14:51]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
I don't think there's any other way to read these emails. I mean, the one you mentioned in 2011, they talk about a police chief. That means they're talking in the context of a police investigation. I mean, there's just no way you can try to pretend that not everyone knew what was going on here. And the more we see the emails that are coming out, the more we see that this is about Donald Trump, who was very much closer to Jeffrey Epstein than Ghislaine Maxwell is saying he was, that he spent time in his house. We know he's been on his plane, and now we know he also spent time with girls. Girls. And the Republicans have now said, oh, well, the girl they were talking about is Virginia Jeffrey. And the reason the Republicans are saying that is because in her book that was published after she died, she did not mention any sexual activity with Trump. And so they're trying to say, oh, that see, that's a lie. That didn't happen. And we don't know first of all that that's who they were talking about. But I just think the more we see about this, the more it just stinks to high heaven, to tell you the truth. Because I just can't believe why is it that Donald Trump is so furiously and desperately trying to get the Republicans to block this, to not allow the rest of the stuff to come out? I mean, we're just getting drips and drabs, certain emails that maybe were obtained by the House Oversight Committee, Jeffrey Epstein's estate or other places that they're getting this stuff. The full documents, the full investigation is with the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi and Cash Patel. And lo and behold, today, and as you said in the Situation Room, which is usually reserved for like, let's talk about war, let's talk about really important things that are happening in the Situation Room means there's a really important situation going on. You know, as you said, we're going to talk about SNAP benefits. There's millions of Americans, including children, who are, who are hungry, who are starving, who are being deprived of food. That's not a situation. What's the situation? What's the single most important thing today that they have to summon the troops like, like Pam Bondi and Cash Patel to try to talk to Lauren Boebert because they think she's the weak link, because they don't think that the other Republicans are going to pull back. That's what they did today. That was the most important thing for them to try to stop this. So I want to know what else is in there. What are they hiding from? I mean, look, it's pretty what's coming out, these connections and what's what they're saying about Donald Trump. But he's clearly hiding something and he doesn't want it to come out. And hopefully this will all come out.
- [17:37]
Michael Popak
Even Michael Wolf, a journalist who's been on Legal af, might as touch. You know, there's an email there. I know people on First Blush were like, oh, this looks bad for Michael Wolf because it looks like he's coaching Epstein about certain things. But, but buried within this exchange, which I don't have the context for, in fact, I think Michael Wolff's going to be on with Sidney Blumenthal on Legal AF sometime tomorrow to talk about this email. But in it, in 2015, there's a back and forth between Epstein and Michael Wolf, who's working with him on a book at the time. And he says, Epstein says to Wolf or Michael Wolf says to Epstein, I hear cnn, this is in the election campaign arena. I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you. Epstein either on air or in a scrum afterwards. And Epstein's worried about that and says, if you're able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be? And Wolf says, I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the House, then that gives you valuable PR and political currency. See, Michael Wolf has seen the evidence and the photos from Epstein putting Donald Trump on the plane and in the House, which is again counter to what Ghislaine Maxwell just lied in order to get her pardon to Todd Blanche, the clip we showed earlier. So he's saying, well, you could hang him there if he lies because that's easily refutable. And then if he says you're a great guy, well, then you could use that, too. I mean, he's giving him some crass political advice to somebody that we now know is a convicted child sex trafficker or an indicted child sex trafficker. So let's fast forward to Donald Trump's main concern, playing golf while Americans suffered. He did not return to Washington until recently, made his way down, got booed at the Washington Commanders game, and then ends up back in Washington. And his first order of business is not to help the American people, not to figure out how to get the bill passed to reopen the government. It is how to browbeat MAGA and Republican members of Congress, women, women again. And put them in the hot seat of the Situation Room and get them to change their sick, take their signature off of the 218 signature required discharge petition, which would then bring the the bill that's stuck in a committee to the House floor for a full vote, which we have the 218 votes as long as Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with two other Republicans or one of the Republicans stay together. So they're trying to figure, they're trying to figure out the weak, weak link. And so we have a press scrum today with Carolyn Levitt, propagandist in chief, in which she actually is able to say these two things out loud. She says we're the most transparent when it comes to Epstein. She comments about the three emails being released. And then the transparency apparently stops when they ask her about what happened with Lauren Boebert in the Situation Room with Pam Bondi and Cash Patel. Let's play that clip.
- [20:53]
Carolyn Levitt
Mary.
- [20:53]
Michael Popak
Thank you.
- [20:54]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Kelly. Two questions on this. In the interest of transparency, why not just go ahead, release the full files on Epstein, get this all over with?
- [21:01]
Carolyn Levitt
We have this administration has done more with respect to transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein than any administration ever. And it is not a coincidence that the Democrats leaked these emails to the fake news this morning ahead of Republicans reopening the government. This is another distraction campaign by the Democrat and the liberal media. And it's why I'm being asked questions about Epstein instead of the government reopening because of Republicans and President Trump.
- [21:28]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Why are White House officials then meeting with Representative Boebert in an effort to try and get her to not sign this petition calling for the release of the files?
- [21:37]
Carolyn Levitt
Doesn't it show transparency that members of the Trump administration are willing to brief members of Congress whenever they please? Doesn't that show our level of transparency? Doesn't that show the level of transparency when we are willing to, to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns? That is the, that's a defining factor of transparency. Having discussions, having discussions with members of Congress about various issues. And I'm not going to detail conversations that took place in the situation room, in the press briefing room.
- [22:05]
Michael Popak
Reagan, yeah, there's your transparency for you. And that was not Nancy, that was not Lauren Boebert asking for a briefing. Surety got the briefing. This was the Trump administration trying to strong arm her to remove her vote. Now, I disagree with Lauren Boebert on almost everything, including Nancy Mason. I find Nancy Mace to be disgusting in most, in most situations except these people, the three, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert apparently had sex abuse in their own personal histories and have come out strong here against the Trump administration. In fact, Lauren Boebert after that meeting today issued a press statement in which she said she is not changing her vote. Now that means the signature on the 218. Whether she changes her vote on the actual release, that's still up for grabs. But she's, she's holding the administration feet to the fire. Nancy Mace too. Here's a clip of Nancy Mace in the last few weeks in which she, after meeting with Epstein survivors and coming out teary eyed, which reminded her of her own sexual abuse that she's been upfront about, she says she's not changing her vote either. So I think they're, they're barking up the wrong tree when it comes to Nancy Mace. Again, before we get into Nancy Mace, she is a disgusting human being that attacks transgender people and other people that are disadvantaged in our society on a regular basis. But here she's come up strong. Let's play the clip.
- [23:35]
Carolyn Levitt
I wasn't prepared for the meeting. I should have been better prepared, but it hit very close to home for me yesterday, and the least we can do is disclose information. These women have been fighting for justice for 30 years, and they still don't have any. And there are people here who don't want to give them that justice. I said today, too, that why aren't we prosecuting Prince Andrew for crimes committed on US Soil? You can't tell me, with over a thousand victims, that there's only one accomplice who's serving prison time not for raping or sex trafficking, but for other crimes and misdemeanors. So I, I believe them. Their stories are compelling. They're terrible. The thing that really hit me yesterday is with the third victim spoke, she relayed some of the same emotions I'm currently feeling, and it was too difficult for. For me to, to watch that. It was very painful. And I kept asking myself, in 30 years from now, am I going to be that girl at the table who didn't get justice? And no one wants to feel that way. And I think we should be fighting like hell for women and kids and men, too, who've been wronged in this sort of way. We should be fighting like hell for them. And that's what I'm going to do. I may be the last person to abandon a survivor.
- [24:51]
Michael Popak
What? One clarification. She's wrong about Ghislaine Maxwell. She was convicted of five felony counts, including child sex trafficking. She wasn't convicted of misdemeanors. But you see, they're going to have a hard time, the Trump administration, with somebody like Nancy Mace. What do you, what do you make of Marjorie Taylor Greene Boebert and Nancy Mace and the Trump efforts to try to change their votes, so to speak?
- [25:16]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
I love how, first of all, I love how Lauren Boebert says out loud what Carolyn Levitt won't say, which is what the Situation Room meeting was about. Right. It was pressure to get her to change her vote. So she told us what, what Carolyn Levitt refused to say. I don't know. Part of me, it just bothers me when women have to have experienced sexual assault themselves in order to fight for survivors. Everyone should fight for sexual assault survivors, not just people who have been sexually assaulted themselves, not just women. It should be men. It should be everybody. I mean, you know, what's in these what will be revealed in these documents ultimately are that who was the entirety of the world, that both victimized these women and financed Jeffrey Epstein and gave him sort of the ability to victimize these women, just the conspiracy between him and Maxwell, et cetera. There's gonna be so much information in there that really tells the story that we only have bits and pieces of and ties it all together, number one. Number two, all these Republicans keep doing is calling these women liars like Virginia Giuffre, etc. Lie, lie, lie. Well, guess what? Guess what's going to be in, in these, in these files. It's going to be corroboration. It's going to be. It's going to be contemporaneous emails like we saw in 2011, like we showed of Ghislaine and Jeffrey talking about a police chief. We don't know what they were talking about, but we know it was a criminal investigation because a police chief was involved. And it's going to, it's going to have things that corroborate what people say because a lot of times sex crimes are hard to prove because typically they happen behind closed doors between two people. And it's a quote, unquote, he said, she said. Well, you'll have a lot of corroboration in these files, in addition to more leads, more individuals, and just the full picture of what this was. And if the thing I want to say the most here is if there was nothing in these files linking Donald Trump to criminal activity and sex with children and women involving Jeffrey Epstein, I think he would be the first to release these files. So he is desperately trying to prevent these from being released. That, to me, is the most telling and the biggest thing that is so concerning. And so that's that to me, is why these have to be released. And I'm glad they're standing the ground. To answer your question, I do think that they're doing the right thing here. And I do think in this instance, it's okay to say they're doing the right thing here.
- [27:53]
Michael Popak
Yeah, I agree with you. And we certainly have and will continue to support survivors of sexual abuse. We've had some of them in the Epstein matter on either Midas or legal af. And you're right, you don't have to have been a survivor in order to support another human being who has been sex trafficked or violated or raped, whatever age that may be. You just have to be a human being. And we're watching the immorality of the Republican Party carving out this small group here that has stepped forward for their own reasons. We just have a heartless president, completely heartless. That's one thing we learned during the shutdown, that Donald Trump, forget Grinch, he at least had a little heart. This guy's got no heart. And I, Americans of every stripe have a, have a problem with heartless presidents. And what they usually do is they run them out on a rail. We saw it on the beginning of that with election night and the special elections that preceded it. And I think we're going to see even more of it come the midterms. He did not cover himself in any glory. He did not show that he's, that he is. He, he, he just for me and for many, for many Americans, based on the polling, he disqualified himself from being the president, of all people. And I think, I think at the polls, we're going to see that. So we're going to talk about, coming up, Donald Trump's attempt to weaponize the Department of Justice. A major hearing. We're a federal judge. Judge Curry is going to have the last word and maybe the last laugh about whether Lindsey Halligan gets to be a U.S. attorney for the shortest, for the short time that she's been in the Eastern District of Virginia and to prosecute James Comey and Letitia James, thumbs up or thumbs down. There's a huge hearing Tomorrow, Karen, at 10:00am to the extent that we have an audio of it, we will try to get it up. If not, we'll have reporters like Adam Klassfeld of All Rise News who will give us an exclusive from there. We're going to talk about that. When we come back, will talk about the scandal that's now brewing where it looks like the Trump administration is purposely placing criminal investigations and cases down in the Southern District of Florida. My neck of the woods to a U.S. attorney that's in the palm of their hand with a judge that's in, they think is in the palm of their hand. And Judge Alien Cannon up in Fort Pierce and a new sort of scandal that rocked that office. And we're going to talk about that when we come back as well. And then we've got hungry Americans who are, whose financial security has been completely undermined by the Trump administration, who in a depraved way has used them as political hostages. And to this moment, while we're on the air, there are people in America who should not be going hungry, who should have a full allotment on their debit card or their, their electronic card in order to get what they need. From the supermarket and they cannot. And they're waiting to see when the government opens because the Supreme Court has also abandoned them as well. And we're going to talk about that upon our return. People ask how to support what we do here on Legal af. One of the ways is to watch what we do on YouTube. Leave comments, be active in the chat. Come over to the audio version which is over on Apple and Spotify. Leave comments and 5 star reviews. That's what keeps us in like the top 50 of news podcasts on audio, keeps us in the top 20 or so. And the number one law and politics podcast on the YouTube weekly rankings. That's, that's a way to support what we do. Doesn't cost a thing. Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. 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They make an amazing gift and with a 30 day money back guarantee, there's no risk. That's trymiracle.com legal af code legalaf at checkout thanks to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. Welcome back. You're on Legal AF the Podcast. Karen Freeman icnifolo and Michael Popak thank you for being such fervent supporters of all that we do at the intersection of law and politics. You know, we're, we're defending your First Amendment rights to hear us, and you're defending our First Amendment rights to be heard. And we appreciate that, especially in these trying times. Big hearing for justice tomorrow in the Alexandria, Virginia. Judge Curry, who sits in South Carolina, normally she's handling just one matter, but it's a big matter in the Letitia James and James Comey prosecutions. That is, the judges have assigned to her the, the role of the consolidated motions to strike or to disqualify, if you will, Lindsey halligan as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. And then if she does that, we'll talk about that. Then what does she do with the indictments? And this is the judge that does not refer to Lindsey Halligan by name. She refers to Lindsay Halligan as the indictment signer. Never a good sign. And then was not happy when she wanted to see the grand jury documents and transcripts and audio in order to make her decision. Now the rest of us were like, well, there's a statute, you know, there's 10 USC, 28 USC, 546 which deals with when you have a vacancy and how many times a president or Attorney general can fill that vacancy before it gets turned back to the district judges to fill the vacancy for U.S. attorney. And the, any, any reasonable interpretation of 546 is that the President, whoever it is, gets one, one shot at an interim U.S. attorney and then that's it. And then if they don't get a confirmed U.S. attorney at the Senate level, then the district judges hold the ring by placing somebody of their Choice in as U.S. attorney. And we go from there. Now, look, whether that's a violation of separation of powers because U.S. attorney is an executive branch office and, and the district judges are Article three, that's for another day. I'm just telling you what the statute says, and that's the way the statute reads. Trump doesn't like the statute because he wants to continue to put another person in and re up them every 120 days and avoid having anybody confirmed at the Senate. But that doesn't end run around the Constitution and the, and the statute. But so to interpret that, you just need the facts. There was a US Attorney on Inauguration Day. She quit. They put in another one that they named before he was confirmed. His name was Eric Seibert Siebert. He was a Republican. He refused to nominate, he refused to indict Letitia James and James Comey. He got canned. That's it. He doesn't get another pick. It goes to the district judges. But Donald Trump put in Lindsey Halligan. So why does she need the grand jury material, Judge Curry, for the hearing tomorrow. It must go to remedy. Like, if she finds that she's going to bounce Halligan as being improperly appointed, then what does she do with the indictment? So, Karen, pick up from there. You got, you got Comey's lawyers arguing. You got Letitia James's art. You know, you got Pat Fitzgerald representing James Comey, former U.S. former U.S. attorney for Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. You've got Abby Lo. Abby lol. Right. Thank you. I was going to do Lanny Brewer, Abby Lowell representing Letitia James. They get to argue. You got a whole bunch of briefs that have been filed by former federal judges and former prosecutors all supporting Letitia or James. And you've got the judge who's got the jury, the grand jury transcripts. We don't know what they say, but she does about what? What in hell Lindsey Halligan said to the grand jury to even get these indictments. So walk, walk us through there. You've gotten true bills of indictment. You, you've been a federal, you've been a state prosecutor for a number of years. Talk about this. And what do you. Where do you think Curry's going to go with this motion tomorrow?
- [40:19]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Look, there have been multiple judges across the country who have ruled that this type of appointment in different districts is not proper and have disqualified the appointment of U.S. attorneys in this way. The way you described, the way Trump did Lindsey Halligan, this one feels different. So those other ones in those other jurisdictions where they disqualified those US Attorneys appointed this way, the judges have not dismissed the underlying indictments that were, that were signed or that were indicted under those illegally or just inappropriately appointed United States attorneys. They did not invalidate the indictments. Even if they invalidated the United States attorneys. So what will they do here in those cases? They also didn't ask to see the grand jurymen. They just ruled on the appointment. So I think, because that's already what federal judges are doing and because, as you said, the statute clearly says that, I think that it's going to be very clear that Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully and just can't be the U.S. attorney in the way that they did it. On top of that, I think the reason they want to see the grand jury minutes is the reporting is that Lindsey Halligan, the only United States attorney that was inside the grand jury at the time that James Comey and Letitia James were indicted, there were no line Prosecutors in there. So this was all the. All her doing. In the other instances, yes, they were the U.S. attorney, but the line prosecutors were the ones who indicted the cases, which is what's more common. The United States Attorney for a particular district doesn't usually go into the grand jury and indict the case themselves and be the only person in the grand jury. Maybe they'll go in and supervise while someone else does it. But this is highly unusual that she was the only one who went in. First of all, it was her first and second time ever presenting a case to the grand jury. She has zero experience in. In presenting cases to the grand jury. And the fact that not a single line prosecutor at the Eastern District of Virginia would go into the grand jury with her and help her and tell her what to do, tell her where to stand, what to say, what questions to ask, how to deal with any questions that come up, what do you have to elicit as testimony, et cetera. None of that was done in these cases. So I think in these cases, if those facts that I just said that have been widely reported turn out to be borne out by the actual grand jury minutes, because of course, I haven't seen them. This is because grand jury material is secret by statute. So if it turns out that all those things are true that, that I just said, I think the judge is going to dismiss these indictments. I mean, these just, these indictments are just so unusual in so many ways. In addition to that fact that, that Lindsey Halligan was flown in just to indict these cases after Donald Trump tweeted to Pam Bondi that accidental, he thought it was going to just be a direct message to her. And he knew that, Pam, you have to indict these cases. And Lindsey Halligan, she really likes you, whatever, that kind of shows exactly what was happening. The fact that it happened, especially with Gian Comey right before the statute of limitations was going to run in that case, the day before, the fact that people resigned in protest over these indictments, the fact that there are prosecution memos saying there is no probable cause here, there's no case here in either of these cases. These indictments are so highly irregular and I think pass the test of vindictive prosecution, that I think in addition to disqualifying Lindsey Halligan as the United States Attorney, I predict that Judge Curry is also going to dismiss with prejudice these indictments, which means they cannot be brought again and the cases will be over. So if Judge Curry doesn't rule on it that way, or only Rules on the appointment of Judge Halligan, of Lindsey Halligan's appointment, it might. And not dismiss the indictments. I could also see Curry saying, I will leave that to the magistrate judges handling the cases who will develop the record of vindictive prosecution and let them be the ones to dismiss them as vindictive, just to be able to make that point. But I think that here, because she's the one who presented the cases to the grand jury herself, I think the indictments have to fail.
- [45:04]
Michael Popak
Yeah. So your. Your view is just because I think I agree, I think I agree with both ends of it, that Curry will dismiss or recuse or disqualify Halligan as being improperly appointed. But as to the remedy on the indictment kick, she's not going to find that. That even though she's the only indictment signer, is not enough to also dismiss the criminal case, leaving it to either the magistrate judge or the two judges in the case to decide whether vindictive prosecution or selective prosecution has been proven. Is that, Is that it?
- [45:40]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Sort of My. My position. What I. Yes, it's either going to be what you just said or Judge Curry will dismiss it. Because I don't know how you get around the fact that Lindsey Halligan, not just that she signed the indictments, she's the only person who went into the grand jury, she presented the cases. So if she was inappropriate, it would be like me going into the grand jury. I have no power, I have no authority. I'm nobody. It would be like me going walking into a grand jury and saying, you know, presenting evidence to indict someone. Unless you're properly appointed as a law, as law enforcement, as somebody who has the authority to present a case to the grand jury, I don't know how you get around that. So I think Judge Curry might rule that the indictments get dismissed, but we'll see. But that's. That's another alternative that I think could happen because there was no one else in there, no one else presented the case.
- [46:30]
Michael Popak
I agree with you. I think there's probably enough to. If she kicks Halligan, the indictment signer, and finds that nobody else was in the room with her, the question is, will the attempt to, like, back date her appointment and make her a special attorney in case the U.S. attorney thing fails, which Pam Bondi filed with a back date on it two weeks ago, whether that salvages the indictment, I don't know. It's going to be a hard call. She's a senior status judge. I think she was a Clinton appointee. If you could believe they exist in South Carolina of all things. But she's not to be trifled with. She's super bright. I think she's going to run a very fair hearing tomorrow. We're going to know from the reporting, including hopefully Adam Classfeld with, with Legal af if you know where her mind is at. But you're right. I think it could go either way. I think, I think either way Halligan gets bounced. What is the remedy from that? Is she going to make the tough call to bounce the indictment too and then have that fight at the 4th Circuit about whether that was proper or not or just say, let me leave it to the judges to decide on vindictive prosecution. We'll know. We'll know more tomorrow. Right?
- [47:48]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Exactly.
- [47:49]
Michael Popak
Yeah. So that, and that applies to both Comey and Letitia James. Both sets of lawyers will be arguing. All the briefs are in. I don't believe she's going to rule for the bench, but we will get a how hot the bench is will indicate to us sort of which side she's going. I don't expect her to rule from the bench, do you.
- [48:13]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
In this case? I don't think so. I mean, because she's also thinking about other cases and other US Attorneys offices and other illegal appointments. She's not just thinking of these cases. Right. If she sets a precedent, she's going to be careful. I think she's going to issue a written decision and I don't think it'll be from the bench.
- [48:29]
Michael Popak
I agree with you, but things are going to go fast. As we've told people, we are less than, less than two months away from James Comey's trial. We are less than two and a half months away from Letitia James's trial, not hearing trial. And so all of these things are moving at such a velocity. Like just in the last 24 hours, the magistrate, Judge Fitzpatrick, as we like to be confused for James, for James Comey, he ordered that the grand jury, same materials that Judge Curry has all of that grand jury material get turned over to him for an in camera review to decide whether he's going to turn it over to the defense. Let me, let me do a spoiler alert. He's going to give the grand jury materials to the defense so that they can make an argument as part of vindictive prosecution or some deficiency in the process. I don't see any other way. I mean, he's only doing this extra step because Judge Nachmanoff, who is the Article 3 judge who sits above him, told him to go back to the drawing board and make findings. So he wants to look for himself. But this is all coming out. It's not yet going to be public. One day we that's the good thing. We may not see it now, but one day we will see the grand jury transcripts for ourselves maybe several months from now, maybe after the trial is over. But at some point a judge is going to rule that it's now proper for the public to know about it. And, and of course, we will report on it at or about that time. When we come back, we're going to talk about the Southern District of Florida. Looks like that's going to do the dirty work for Donald Trump and its U.S. attorney there, Jason Redding. Jason Redding Quinones, there he is. We'll talk about him in a minute. Did not have an illustrious career as a prosecutor like you did, Karen. In fact, he was written up for being incompetent, according to the Miami Herald reporting, and was going to sue the Department of Justice for race discrimination. He's Cuban American and white. We'll leave it at that. But no, in Trump's world, incompetence is a badge of honor. And you get promoted to be the head of the office if you are incompetent. And we'll talk about what he's doing, what Aileen Cannon should be doing. That means recusing herself from the appearance of impropriety of presiding over this grand conspiracy investigation that could lead to Barack Obama being indicted. Talk about vindictiveness by this Trump administration. And then we'll wrap it up with what's going on in the world of SNAP anti hunger payments and what the Supreme Court did to not protect hungry Americans. But let's have one more break again, the way to support what we do here, Legal AF, the YouTube channel, I think we're at 900 and almost 40,000 subscribers. We're going to get to a million with your help. And that gives us the street cred. It's not, it's not ego. Like I don't care about numbers that way. It's the street cred that we get the attorneys general to come on. I just interviewed Matt Platkin from New Jersey's attorney general that'll be up tomorrow. And I'm coming, I'm going out to Arizona at the end of next week to interview 11 Democratic attorneys general and two different panels. And to get, you know, Michael Wolf on and get the Mark Wolf, the judge who just resigned in Massachusetts is coming on by way of court accountability action. And that that's what gives us the, the, the power, the, the credibility to bring on newsmakers that you want to hear from. We're working with getting the ACLU to be on regularly with a playlist on legal YouTube channel. So hit the subscribe button there, check to see if you are, you're not and help us there. And then of course we've got Legal substack where you can read all of the orders and the Supreme Court position decisions and the filings all there. But now we've got another word from our sponsors before we hit the home stretch. Delete Me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. As someone with an active online presence, privacy is really important to me. Look, between social media, public records and data broker sites, our personal information is everywhere and that's a real problem. I've seen firsthand how easy it is for people to dig up private details online, which is why I use Delete Me. Delete Me does all the hard work of wiping your and your family's personal information from data broker websites. You just tell them what you want deleted and their experts take it from there. 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Jason Redding Quinones, who had been a state court judge for about a year, placed there by Desantis, then got made. The U.S. attorney had been in the Air Force before and had worked in this particular office. Now it looks like Mike Davis has, who's like the Laura Loomer in this story, finagled away to have and has and has recommended to the Trump administration that this attempt to go after Barack Obama and, and James and, and William Brennan, the former intelligence director, CIA and Clapper in the intelligence community and others, FBI people and others that should be placed in the U.S. attorney's office in Miami. And then you should try to use and you should use Aileen Cannon, who's 80 miles north at the forest reaches of the Southern District in Fort Pierce where she sits alone, to do the grand jury work and to preside over the cases, including potentially the indictment of Barack Obama. It is unholy, it is disgusting, it is unethical. And of course, we're going to cover it here on Legal af. So, Karen, former prosecutor, I want you to weigh in on this. Two career prosecutors quit because they refused to participate in the grand conspiracy which is effectively being directed by our chief legal officer in America, Donald Trump and his Department of Justice main justice, who's cutting out career prosecutors who won't do it and is using instead senior executive level people. It'll be like you as the number two in the Manhattan DA signing subpoenas for a case that you're not prosecuting. I mean, they found this guy, Manuelo Reboso, who's the number three in the office, the executive assistant U.S. attorney in Miami to sign 30 subpoenas to go out. And of course, we've got the link with Mike Davis. Now, Mike Davis is this former Senate aide who's decided he's going to be. I was afraid they were going to pick him to be Attorney General, actually. I'd see some disgusting clips with him and. But they use him to run interference and to pick out who. Who and where. They should. They should start these investigations. Let me just remind everybody who Mike Davis is, and then I'm going to show you a photo of a smiling Mike Davis with Jason Quinones, the U.S. attorney of Miami. Let's play the clip. Biggest threat to democracy and to put a bullseye on Trump. So, as I've promised and as I will deliver, justice is definitely coming. So lawyer up, because justice is definitely coming. He's talking about the political critics of Donald Trump there. That was like before Donald Trump got back into office. I mean, that was during. After he'd been elected. And here is. And then he posts on social media a photo of himself with a smiling Jason Quinones on the right. Right. I'm not sure who's in the middle with. Justice is coming with his make with his MAGA hat on. I mean, first of all, what's your opinion? You've been a prosecutor. Should. Can Jonas be posing in a photo with Mike Davis?
- [59:08]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Like, the whole thing is just disgusting. I hate to say it. It's. Justice is supposed to be blind. It's not supposed to only apply to your political enemies. And every other department of justice prior to this one has gone after Democrats and Republicans alike. If there's corruption, if there's anything that anyone did wrong. And don't ever go after political opponents. This is the very first time I've ever seen anything like this as a prosecutor, and I think a lot of people would agree with that. This whole thing is. First of all, I just have one foundational question. How can they issue subpoenas for crimes that the statute of limitations would have run already? You just count five years, right? Because statute of limitations runs after five years unless it's a continuing crime, obviously, unless there's murder and something that has no statute of limitations. But I assume here this is not anything like that. And so what crime could have continued? I mean, Donald Trump was president, right. He beat Hillary Clinton, and so I don't quite understand. And then he was president for four years, and we had Joe Biden for four years, and now we're like nine years out from Barack Obama. So I think the statute of limitations has run, number one. Number two, the fact that there's more line prosecutors who are resigning in protest is just, again, crazy. I Mean, you have to understand, prosecutors, by their very nature care about crime. And so they can be a little more conservative, right, because they care about crime, they care about victims, et cetera. These are people who are resigning in protest because of all across the country, which is such a, it's great for them in the sense that, you know, I'm proud to say that, that rather than doing something lawless and unjust, you would resign your position. But at the same time, who's left there? Who is left at the Department of Justice? There's this giant brain drain, experience drain and morality drain from the Department of Justice. These are prosecutors who are willing to go after Donald Trump's political enemies even where there is no crime, even when the statute of limitations has passed. And so I just can't, I just can't believe that this is happening again, although I should, because this, they keep, you know, it's like a dog who barks, right? You can't get mad at them. This keeps happening over and over and over and over again. They don't even try to hide it. And the fact that they're forum shopping and going to Judge Alien Cannon is again another playbook of maga. Right? Like they did with the trying to get the abortion pill mifepressone, you know, the nationwide injunction. They went to that one district that, you know, Judge Kaczmarek, who's like one judge sitting in one area and he's very maga. And they're doing it again with Judge Cannon because Judge Cannon is willing to make rulings that no other judge is willing to do that all support Donald Trump, as we saw from the Mar? A Lago documents case. So I don't see how this is going anywhere. This, to me seems just like they're trying to hassle Obama, make some news and make them hire lawyers and make them turn over documents and, etc, But I don't, I don't know how you're going to get a judge to order any of these things to be done if the statute of limitations is passed. So I, I don't, I don't get this. This one, I agree with you.
- [62:34]
Michael Popak
I mean, look, look, we got, as we're on the air, MSNBC is reporting that a source close to former C. CIA Director John Brennan confirms he's received the subpoena. Another source says all the subpoenas relate to the preparation for the 2616. I don't know. Last time people looked, this is 2025, it's nine years ago. There's, there's only one statute, crime, statute that I'm aware of, that doesn't have a expiration date, and that is treason. So unless they're going for treason, everything else has a five year statute of limitations. I mean, could they get a grand jury in, under, under alien canon to come back with treason? Because let's just say, let's just say it out loud. There's been speculation within the, with. There's been speculation within the intelligence community for years that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. There was speculation within the intelligence community for years that Tulsi Gabbard, who's the head of our national intelligence community now, is or was a Russian agent. Okay? The, the former FBI Assistant deputy director Andy McCabe believes in his heart that Donald Trump was a Russian agent. And Donald Trump himself called on the Russians to release the Clinton, the Hillary Clinton emails to help him during the campaign. And, and this, this conflation of, of terms. Barack Obama and the intelligence community did not reach a conclusion that the Russians interfered with votes and flipped votes at machines or software level. But they did reach a conclusion that the Russians, along with other trolls in other countries like North Korea and China, were trying to brainwash and influence Americans through social media to pick one candidate over another. You see it every day. You just don't know. You're watching it every day. And now with AI on top of it, you're watching AI generated, you know, Hillary Clinton saying crazy shit out loud or Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries. I mean, you're talking 2016, when AI was in ITS, in its infancy. Can you imagine what's going on now on Facebook and the Dark Web? Not even on the Dark Web, just on Facebook around election time. All sorts of crazy Russian trolls and others working overtime to try to get whoever Putin wants to get elected. Now you need to Twitter and X. You need to recognize that have a cybersecurity system and infrastructure around our elections to protect it from that. But Donald Trump says, oh, they think that, that I was in collusion with the Russians. No, but you were doing things in parallel. The Russians wanted you elected and you wanted you elected. And so there were things that you were doing in parallel. That doesn't mean that there was evidence to suggest that Donald Trump colluded. Like he was on a red hotline with the Kremlin, like, hey, you know, you can help me today. Go do this. I mean, that's not what the case was about or the investigations were about. John Durham went three and a half years and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and found nothing to it, nor anyone else to indict at the highest level. So did the inspector general for the Department of Justice and the FBI. So this is all.
- [66:00]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Didn't they die? I think eight Russian people? I think I did.
- [66:05]
Michael Popak
People here and there like, you know, Lev Parnas got indicted and, and Igor from got invited to get indicted for other, other reasons. A couple of guys got indicted with the Durham investigation. You know, Mueller never, never indicted anybody. He just made recommendations, you know, for people to follow. So. But it just, it's scary. And an alien canon who took an oath. There is enough appearance of impropriety around her. She was, let's just go through it. She was shortlisted and listed to be the Attorney General for Donald Trump during his transition. It leaked. It was never denied by the Trump administration. And so she knew about it, yet she stayed on his cases, including Mar? A Lago. She stayed on his cases, including the assassination attempt. The guy that was convicted ultimately by a jury, that's 1, 2. She's the first federal judge in 200 years against Supreme Court precedent to find that a special counsel or prosecutor was illegally appointed by the attorney general, killing the Mar? A Lago indictment and prosecution. That. If that's not a solid for your patron Donald Trump, I don't know what is. Even if you think she was just doing her job, the appearance of impropriety in the public's mind, that she can be independent and be neutral doesn't exist. So the fact that there's now reporting in New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and Legal AF that there is a, there is a conspiracy afoot to use, to use the U.S. attorney in Miami as a, as a tool, as a cudgel, combined with her to go after Donald Trump's political enemies. That alone should lead her to say, you know what? I'm going to recuse myself. And then that case, whatever it is, gets reassigned to another judge of the Southern District. And there's dozens of very fine judges in the Southern District of Florida, and even up there, Judge Rosenberg, Judge Middlebrooks up in West Palm Beach. That's what she should do. That's what I call on her to do here on Legal af. Put putting aside Jason Quinones and the oaths that he took by the Florida bar, by the depart by the Constitution to get sworn in by the Department of Justice manual by the Federal, the principles of federal prosecution, which all have gone out the window while he smiles with his thumbs up or whatever with Mike Davis, who's calling the shots here, apparently about all of that. Oh, thank you for putting it back up. But. Oh, disgusting. So, yeah, that, that's it. We need, we need to just drill down and focus on it and put pressure. That's where crowds and courage come in. Put pressure on people like the U.S. attorney and judge, Judge Cannon to, to protect our democracy. And if they won't, then we're going to continue to call them out here on Legal af. Right, Karen?
- [69:15]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Exactly. Absolutely. It has to be done.
- [69:18]
Michael Popak
Yeah. So let's, let's end the show on snap. I'll be frank. And as. As much pride as I take in knowing about people whose shoes I've never walked in in America, and I've always known about assistance programs, whether they be Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid or disability or hundreds and thousands of other programs, most of which Donald Trump has gutted. And I knew about the food stamp slap slash SNAP program, and I've seen people use it in front of me in line at the supermarket. I'm aware, you know, and I'm empathetic because, listen, my mother was a single mother who struggled to make ends meet on what very little, frankly, my father gave her. And she was not. She was. She stayed home. And I saw my mother struggle. And so I'm sensitive to people who don't come from money and what it means to have to worry about paying an electric bill or feeding your family or your loved ones or skipping meals yourself to feed your children or your. Or the seniors in your life or the disabled or the veterans. But I did not know, Karen, maybe you did that 42 million Americans, one out of eight, rely on this type of assistance when it comes to food security. I did not know the numbers were that large. It's actually an indictment of our conscious republic, our way of capitalism, that in the richest country in the world, one in eight worry about their food. And Donald Trump made it worse. He has used them and continues to use them and undermine them psychologically, emotionally, physical injury by denying them the basic dignity and right to not worry about where their next meal comes from. And then the Supreme Court ultimately, once again, ended up backing him in their own perverse way. Why don't you continue with the story?
- [71:27]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
I mean, Popak, you have said it perfectly. If there was ever an indictment of Trump's economy, it's that one in eight Americans have to be on food stamps or snap. Right. Special food assistance. It just. That is not a healthy, successful economy. Right. You can look at the stock market, you can look at whatever measures he wants you to look at. Everybody feels it in their wallets. People know that this economy isn't doing anything for them. Prices aren't coming down. Unless you're a billionaire, of course, then things are great. But this in and of itself, as you said, one in eight people, many of which are children, is just such an indictment on his economic policy. And the fact that of all things, right, it's housing, medical. I mean, they shut down the government over health care. They don't want people to have health care. But of all things, food, that's the one thing, right? Two things people. Every single human absolutely needs food and sleep. And that he would take food away from people is just appalling and atrocious. And at the same time, throwing Great Gatsby parties at Mar a Lago in the biggest sort of fu to the rest of the country. Look how I'm living. Look what I'm doing in excess. Tearing down the east wing of the White House and putting up his gold color, his gold ballroom, while people are hungry and starving and really spending resources to go to the Supreme Court to get them to not allow this to go forward. It's just disgraceful. And pick your battles. The fact that they would pick this battle, I think, just shows not only are they cruel and inhumane, but also this is. I don't know how anyone gets behind this party and this administration at this point. So, you know, they had John Sauer, who was Trump's personal attorney, was the Solicitor General who took the time to write an order to the Supreme Court basically telling them not to do this. He basically said, it's not that the irreparable harm to the government having to transfer this money to fund this program is worse than the irreparable harm of starvation, of going hungry.
- [73:51]
Michael Popak
How do you tap that out on a keyboard?
- [73:54]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Yeah, I agree. I just don't get it. I don't get it at all.
- [73:58]
Michael Popak
And what they're trying to accomplish politically, I don't get even. Even if you want to make this a crass political calculus, I don't get the politics of this. Trolling poor people on election night, an election day, I am not going to comply with orders. I am not going to open up SNAP funding unless the Democrats, blah, blah, blah.
- [74:19]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
I just probably thinks poor people are losers the way he thinks. You know, I mean, that's how he views things. Right. He still view people who, who, you know, soldiers who get injured or captured in battle are losers. Right, right. And I, I think that's how he use it.
- [74:35]
Michael Popak
Well, he just got into hot Water yesterday by giving an interview where he said Americans aren't smart enough to take certain jobs. That's why we have to let, we have to let them into the country. And the people are like, what did he just say?
- [74:48]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
He doesn't, he just doesn't care about people.
- [74:50]
Michael Popak
He just doesn't care about people. He's heartless.
- [74:52]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
You know, he cares about people. All he cares about is people who just blindly follow him. That's what it's all about. That, you know, whether he pardons the fake elector scheme people, the 70 people, whether he pardons George Santos, you know, we, Jan Sixers, there's no sort of looking at, under the, at the substance of what they did. It's, are you loyal to me? And that's it. That's all he cares about.
- [75:14]
Michael Popak
Well, that's what people hopefully will see, and they are starting to see it in the polling. Polling has been atrocious for Donald Trump that, you know, Donald Trump's personal checklist. If he left office having not made one life better, but millions of lives worse, including dying because of his policies, including economic and health, but he was able to generate a couple of billion dollars for Trump incorporated in his family, avoid prosecution and get the Epstein files buried, he would die a happy man. And that's saying something for the occupant of the Oval Office, who we voted in, not me, but others voted in to do honest service as the leader of the free world, as the president of all people. He's admitted he's not the president of all people. He doesn't care about 52%, 53% of America. And I think people are finally starting to wake up. When you have tens of millions of people who hit the streets for the various marches that have taken place, when you have election nights that go totally a wipeout for the Republicans, when you have Donald Trump still fighting to hide the sex trafficking files that he's obviously involved with in one way or another from the American people and decides that that's where he needs to expend his, his political capital. He doesn't have really political capital any longer. And he, and he refuses to acknowledge the results of any polling that tells him to stop, that tells him to reverse course, that tells him to help the American people. He's close to losing at the United States Supreme Court on his signature policy of tariffs. And then he's gonna have to scramble to figure out how to pay back several hundred billion dollars. I guess we'll finally get those checks for two and $5,000. He's been promising us since he got in, dangling in front of us these phony checks he's never paid us. But I guess I'll have to do it then when he loses there. And at the same time, Karen, that he's running to court to get permission to starve the starving. He runs at the same time to the Seventh Circuit to try to get permission to beat veterans and First Amendment protesters and members of the clergy and the media in the streets opposing Judge Ellis's order to just comply with the Constitution, just comply and use reasonable force when you're dealing. Don't fire pepper balls into the face of the media. Don't gang tackle them, don't abuse them. And he, we're, there's a briefing tonight. We're going to get a 7th Circuit decision soon. He actually ran to court. He's now starving veterans who are part of the SNAP program, and now he wants to beat them in the streets. You and I could never bring ourselves to take those positions. You as a lifelong public servant, now in private practice, me as just, just a human being with compassion. I could never, ever get behind the things that the Republican Party and MAGA are doing.
- [78:23]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
And I'd be one of those people resigning in protest, like all the courageous men and women resigning from the Department of Justice because they will not. They will take a stand against this, this disgraceful administration.
- [78:35]
Michael Popak
And you know where the silent protest is also happening, as we expected. You know who's listening to the Katanji Brown Jacksons of the world? Talk about the arc of history. Law students. Law students are running away from the Department of Justice and what used to be plum jobs as assistant U.S. attorneys. They don't want them, they can't recruit them. They're like, I mean, what did Donald Trump expect? He attacked universities, he attacked law schools, he attacked law firms, he attacked First Amendment speech on college campuses. He has a depraved weaponization of the Department of Justice. You can't draft them, you can't conscript them. It has to be voluntary. Think about what the Department of Justice is going to be like in 2028 when the Democrats take over and how much they're going to have to fill the tens of thousands of jobs they're going to have to fill, you know, because there's just going to be this gap in everybody's resume. Who's in our field, you're in my field. Who are just like, nope. Hopefully they're running to the Manhattan DA's office and other places, places like that.
- [79:36]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Or, or going into private practice and then they'd be willing to come back.
- [79:40]
Michael Popak
That's revolving door. Run the other way. Yeah, yeah, that too.
- [79:44]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
That's my hope.
- [79:45]
Michael Popak
Yeah, mine too. Well, I'm glad we were able to talk about these things honestly with our audience. We are so appreciative of our audience. We always have been from day one, from when we had 5,000 people watching or viewing to when we have 300,000 people watching and viewing. It hasn't changed for us, but we've been so honored and respectful of, you know, it takes, it takes a commitment to want to learn in an honest format about law and politics. And our audience has certainly earned, has earned every bit of being Legal AF law school graduates. You know, many have been with us for, for the entirety of our five, five plus years on the air. So I always like to leave you the final word, put everything we've seen so far in context. What do you got for our audience?
- [80:36]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Look, yesterday was Veterans Day and the fact that as you said, there are veterans who are on the SNAP program, it's just so shameful to me, this country, how that we have so many people who rely on these types of benefits and that some of them are veterans. And so on this day after Veterans Day, I want to thank all the men and women who have served this country, thank them for their service. And I hope this thing going on with the Navy SEAL woman who was in line to be the head of the Navy Seals was passed over by Pete Hegseth because she's a woman. I hope she gets, she's a badass too. So I hope she gets, I hope she, she holds their feet to the fire on this one. So, you know, the veterans of this country are unbelievable and the military.
- [81:28]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. Thank you for saying that. And thank you for joining us here on Legal A for the midweek. Join us on Saturday where I'll, I'll be joined by Ben Meiselas. And then we do, I do about 40 videos a week at the intersection of law and politics for Legal AF here on the Midas Dutch network over on legal a after YouTube channel as well, along with our other contributors. Thanks for being such great supporters. Shout out to the Legal A effers and the Midas.
- [81:52]
Karen Freeman McNifolo
Mighty great to see you Popak.
- [81:55]
Michael Popak
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