Legal AF Full Episode - 11/22/2025

Summary

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Legal AF (MeidasTouch) – Full Episode Summary

Episode Air Date: November 23, 2025
Hosts: Ben Meiselas, Michael Popok
Main Theme:
This episode is a hard-hitting dive into the latest legal and political battles at the intersection of law and politics, with a pointed focus on the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Trump administration. The episode unpacks multiple scandals—the James Comey "fake indictment" case, the legal must to release Epstein files, ongoing gerrymandering litigation, and offers sharp critique of abuses in current legal process by Trump allies. Throughout, the hosts analyze not just current legal processes but broader implications for democracy, accountability, and the very functioning of the rule of law.

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Main Discussion Topics & Insights

1. The DOJ's "Big Trouble": Fake Indictments & Legal Misconduct

[02:31–18:17]

• The Comey Case:
  • Trump’s appointee, prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, may have provided a fake grand jury indictment in the case against James Comey.
  • Pam Bondi, then Attorney General, “ratified” Halligan’s alleged misconduct, possibly tying herself to the fallout.
  • Judge Fitzgerald described the case as “uncharted territory” due to mishandling and apparent fraud in the grand jury process.
  • Career prosecutors previously found no basis for these prosecutions; those memos are now being withheld by Bondi and DOJ (see also [62:09–64:05]).
• Constitutional and Ethical Violations:
  • Halligan’s actions violated proper grand jury procedure: failing to present the actual indictment to the jury, misinforming jurors of legal standards, allowing testimony of an FBI agent tainted by attorney-client privilege.
  • Severe procedural errors may lead to dismissal of the indictment “in five different ways” ([47:26–49:29]).

“This is unchartered territory if what happened actually happened.”
—Ben Meiselas on Judge Fitzgerald’s assessment ([35:29])

• Lack of Experienced DOJ Guidance:

  • No senior DOJ prosecutors assisting Halligan indicates even Trump DOJ loyalists didn’t support the case’s legitimacy.
  • “It tells you that nobody else believes that there’s a case here and no one else is willing to risk their bar license the way Halligan was.” —Ben Meiselas ([52:20])

• Pam Bondi’s Deeper Exposure:

  • By retroactively “ratifying” Halligan’s conduct, Bondi could share accountability for any resulting bar or criminal consequences ([68:19]).

2. 25th Amendment & Trump's Increasing Incapacity

[17:49–25:22]

• Discussion over invoking the 25th Amendment due to President Trump’s conduct:
  • Making illegal or treasonous statements such as threatening lawmakers, violating military law by overriding military legal judgment on alleged war crimes ([10:36–13:54], [18:17–24:52]).
  • Trump administration’s pattern of ordering DOJ personnel to lie or mislead federal judges.

“This is no longer, for me, a question of if the 25th amendment should be invoked. I believe it’s when the 25th amendment will be invoked.” —Michael Popok ([23:19])

• Political reality check: Invoking the 25th remains unlikely given Trump’s control over the Cabinet and vice president, despite overwhelming evidence ([24:52–25:22]).

3. The Epstein Files: Legal and Political Maneuvering

[68:19–76:55]

• Legal Requirement to Release: Congress has made release of DOJ’s Epstein files law, but DOJ expected to slow-roll, over-redact, and resist transparency—potentially citing national security, privacy, or ongoing investigations.
• Ghislaine Maxwell’s Refusal to Testify:
  • Now invokes the 5th Amendment on threat to self-incrimination, potentially admitting to lying and violating immunity agreement.
  • Democrats (if in charge) would seek court ruling to compel or strip Fifth Amendment privilege; Republicans are content to let her stonewall.
  • The perverse argument: wealthy male associates revealed in the files are characterized by House GOP as “the real victims.”

“We expect that the DOJ will invoke national security, that they’ll invoke current investigations and they’ll invoke… privacy violation and it creates new victims. That the wealthy men… are now the victims. That’s the exact terminology used by [Speaker] Mike Johnson. And it’s sick and disgusting but that’s what it is.” —Ben Meiselas ([76:55])

4. Ongoing Gerrymandering and Supreme Court Battles

[78:58–88:07]

• Texas Gerrymandering:
  • Three-judge panel—including a Trump appointee—ruled Texas congressional map was a “racist gerrymander,” based on explicit instructions in a DOJ letter demanding racial rebalancing.
  • Supreme Court Justice Alito swiftly intervened via the “shadow docket” to block the ruling.
  • Discussion on the “Purcell principle” and timing of SCOTUS interventions.
  • Upcoming Supreme Court ruling (Calais case) could set a major precedent on racial vs partisan gerrymandering.

“…Even the Supreme Court Maga6 would find [this] violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But we’re still waiting for Calais.”
—Michael Popok ([82:44])

• Democratic Response:
  • Growing recognition that Democrats must “fight back” at the state level with tactics like Prop 50 in California to counter the right’s aggressive legal maneuvers.

5. DOJ Hypocrisy & Transparency

[62:09–66:49]

• Selective Production of Documents:
  • DOJ withholds exculpatory memos from career prosecutors in discovery, relying on privilege, while at the same time invading attorney-client privilege of targets (Comey, Letitia James).
  • Trump’s real aim is the headline; the legal process and ultimate outcome are secondary—perpetuating sham prosecutions for political optics.

“Donald Trump doesn’t give a [bleep] whether there’s actually a conviction. He never did. All he cared about was the headline… He’s already lost interest. They’re putting no manpower behind this case.” —Michael Popok ([65:51])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The DOJ is in big trouble. And I mean big trouble.”
  —Ben Meiselas ([02:31])
• “California Governor Gavin Newsom has also been putting out a lot of these photos of Trump as a pig. And Newsom has been saying ‘quiet piggy’ over and over again.”
  —Ben Meiselas ([15:33])
• “We’re not even talking about the merits of the case because all of these constitutional infirmities, mistakes, errors, maliciousness, are what’s being focused on now.”
  —Ben Meiselas ([49:29])
• “If the indictment is invalid… the statute of limitations has run... and the case should be dismissed with prejudice.”
  —Michael Popok ([47:28])
• “They rule based on fear and terror and threats. And you have to stand up to them.”
  —Ben Meiselas ([25:24])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:31–06:02| Episode theme set: DOJ scandals, Comey case, Bondi, Epstein files, gerrymandering | | 10:36–13:54| Trump’s conduct, military orders, and war crimes – calls for accountability | | 17:49–25:22| 25th Amendment talk: Trump’s capacity, Cabinet dynamics, future risks | | 35:02–57:03| Detailed dive on the Comey grand jury/indictment scandal | | 62:09–66:49| Discussion of withheld DOJ memos in Comey, Letitia James cases; hypocrisy | | 68:19–76:55| Epstein files: legal battles, Ghislaine Maxwell, House GOP stonewalling | | 78:58–88:07| Gerrymander cases, Supreme Court interference, Purcell principle, Democratic pushback| | 88:07–end | Broader context: legacy of preclearance, Project 2025, call to action for democracy |

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Tone & Takeaways

• The tone is direct, at times sardonic and darkly humorous, but persistently urgent—sometimes outraged, but always grounded in legal process and precedent.
• The hosts prioritize legal accuracy, explaining procedures (grand jury, Fifth Amendment, etc), while calling out extreme abuses of law for political gain.
• Final message is a call to resist authoritarian slide, restore accountability, and support transparency in all legal and political processes.

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For Further Listening:

Subscribe to the Legal AF Substack and YouTube channel for real-time breaking coverage; contact Michael Popok’s law firm for legal representation.

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This summary covers the major legal and political topics discussed in this Legal AF episode and provides listeners new to the show with timestamped guidance and quotes capturing the episode’s focus on law, accountability, and democracy at a moment of extreme legal crisis.

Transcript

[Ben Meiselis]

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[Ben Meiselis]

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[Ben Meiselis]

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[Ben Meiselis]

The DOJ is in big trouble. And I mean big trouble. We can talk about what took place in the James Comey criminal case where Lindsey Halligan, Donald Trump's handpicked top federal prosecutor out of the Eastern District of Virginia with no prior federal prosecutorial experience, may have provided a fake grand jury indictment to the court and claimed it was the operative indictment. You may say, huh? I know we've described it before, but me and Michael Popo are gonna break it down in detail that you haven't seen before. Speaking about the DOJ being in big, big trouble, it should be noted that Pam Bondi, the attorney general, ratified the conduct of Lindsey Halligan not once, but twice. Said, I reviewed this grand jury transcript and this is the way I would have handled it, really, by making potentially a fraudulent grand jury indictment, the operative indictment. Okay, Pam Bondi, the time for accountability. Pam Bondi may take a different track than Lindsey Halligan, but I think accountability will be coming for Pam Bondi as well for that and other horrific action. Speaking about again, the DOJ in big trouble, a theme of this episode. Now they're under a legal obligation to release the Epstein files based on the discharge petition this past week becoming law. We obviously know the DOJ is going to do what it can to try to cover up the release of these Epstein files, whether it's asserting objections in the form of there's an ongoing investigation or national security or just redact everything or just, I don't know, maybe put a thousand documents out one week, then wait another few months, then drop another thousand documents, cherry pick ones that may not be relevant to the underlying information that people want. We'll talk about that and then we should talk about what's going on in terms of these gerrymandering efforts. Trump's effort to rig the midterms. Democrats fighting back the federal judge in Texas who was a Trump appointed judge, part of a three judge panel that found the Texas map to be basically a racist map. And they cited a DOJ letter. Get the theme of DOJ in this episode to the governor of Texas saying we want a racist map essentially. And the judge is like you kind of put it in the letter, you want a racist map. If you simply said you want it to be a partisan map, then people wouldn't have liked it. But at least it could have potentially passed muster. But it violates the Voting Rights act because you said it was a racist map and you're racist gerrymandering. Those were the words you used. Well, just Justice Alito, right wing extremist judge in the Supreme Court blocked the Trump appointed judge's order blocking the Texas map. So the racist Texas map now remains in effect as of this recording. There will have to be emergency briefing per Justice Alito schedule there, but we'll break down what the right wing Supreme Court has planned there. So it was a good thing that California Governor Gavin Newsom was asserted his moral and formal authority with Prop 50. And Democrats need to fight back across the country because this right wing Supreme Court is going to try to do everything to turn America further into the fascist dystopian nightmare that they dream about. Let's bring in Michael Popo.

[Michael Popak]

I think we're, I think we're done with the show. That that is. Good night everybody.

[Ben Meiselis]

That's it.

[Michael Popak]

Yeah, we're done. So I, yeah, I, we go so much to unpack from just Saturday to Saturday that you just outlined there. And you know, and it's just crazy, you know, as, as Kathy Okal, the soon to be reelected governor of New York, said out loud on MSNBC and Ms. Now, now, Ms. Now she said out loud about Elise Stefanik, who's running against her after the Oval Office bro fest between Donald Trump and There it is and Mamdani, which led to my favorite New York Post headline of all, not that one. They posted another one that said Trump says he would feel comfortable living in socialist Zoran Mandami's New York City after that. And Elise Stefanik said, well, we will have to agree to disagree. And he's still a jihadist. And he's, he's Kathy Hochul's jihadist. The governor of New York. She's now running against Kathy. OKL just said out loud, yeah, she's full of shit. I mean, literally, this is where we're at now with the administration. But to watch Donald Trump praise this new mayor, the mayor elect and intervene a number of times when Fox and other reporters tried to drag them into an argument. I mean, look, obviously Donald Trump felt that this is the quickest way to embrace affordability, was to use Mumdami as a totem pole and cling to him and say, hey, we have a lot in common. We're all about affordability. Look at my affordability buddy over here. You know, he's a very nice person. I wouldn't call him a jihadist and all that. It was just, it was just so transparent for people in maga. They were like, what the f just happened in the Oval Office. It was obvious that Donald Trump needs a quick fix to his economy crushing everybody. And he went for the white hot superstar that is now Zoran Mandami and said, you're my buddy too. Cuz he needs that kind of endorsement, if you will. Just like he's trying to get the endorsement of a Child sex, convicted child sex trafficker in Ghislaine Maxwell. That's how low he has sunk. While he attacks people that just quit the party or quit Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean the world is turned upside down. Cuz Donald Trump can't figure out why with his depraved and inhumane policies why he's down at not only 38% approval rating among all voters, he's down to a 26% approval rating among independents. And the last I looked the Republican Party can't win the midterms or beyond without independent support which is completely ran screaming away from Donald Trump. So he looks at these poll numbers and, and all the things that say he's terrible on the economy, that's what he keeps pushing. He's terrible on immigration, that's what he keeps pushing. He's pushing those buttons and wondering why the American people have completely rejected him. You did a great piece about. It's not just the polling, the official polling. It's not just election night two weeks ago that was a resounding defeat for Donald Trump himself. But it's even like the proxies for his popularity, like people that rush to buy truth social stock, well it's now crushed. It's now down 70% since it's high because people are no longer using that as a proxy. Cuz it's no longer cool to be associated with Donald Trump. He is now officially, if he wasn't the night of the election two weeks ago. He is the lame duck president that he always feared that he would be. That's why he talks about running for a third term and being on the ballot. And now he sees the American people MAGA rejecting him and the Epstein. We'll talk about the Epstein cover up of the COVID up and the next step in this performative art piece of the House passing a bill in order to release the files when none of that ever was necessary. The files have always been sitting with the executive branch. They never needed the legislative branch to force them, call on them to do anything. It's always just been a filter in order to avoid providing America with transparency. But now we see through it and that's what I think. The polling and then the, and then it just devolves down into the court cases and the lack of credibility and respect of the Department of Justice which is forced to take crazy positions in court which are losers. And so that's where you and I cover at the intersection of law and politics.

[Ben Meiselis]

The lamest of the lame ducks in the history of the United States presidency. I mean, it's almost like seeing a pretender there, this grotesque thing in the Oval Office who wakes up one day and threatens to hang Democratic lawmakers saying George Washington would want to do it because this group of Democratic senators and Congress members, veterans, veterans, special forces people as well, they simply said, you, you can't follow unlawful orders. That's just a statement of the law, not a controversial statement. It is a restatement of what the law is. You can't follow unlawful orders. And this comes at a time where we've also learned that the main military lawyer from JAG responsible, whose jurisdiction is the determination about the legality of the strikes on those Venezuelan fishing boats and also the strikes in the Pacific, as a corollary, put out an opinion stating that these were extrajudicial killings and would be war crimes. But the military lawyer was overruled by. It's the theme of the episode. Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice who then said these war crimes are actually lawful. It's why Bondi and Hegseth one day, for Bondi, it may not just be the legal license, it may be seeing herself one day on a war crimes tribunal.

[Michael Popak]

Could you imagine, just to show you how things have turned and the ground has shifted under Donald Trump. And as, as we've been talking about, could you imagine Ro Khanna saying what he just said about threatening, not threatening, warning, advising the Department of Justice and others that if they don't comply with federal law and release the Epstein files, that they'll be on the receiving end in a future administration of their own criminal prosecution? We heard Elizabeth Warren say the same thing. See, now the Democrats are not only talking about the midterms, they're talking about life after Trump and what it means and reminding those that are below Donald Trump who may enjoy some sort of special immunity power, but the rest of them do not, and that they, once the Department of Justice and the House and hopefully the Senate are all in the hands of the Democrats, they're in for a rude awakening with a statue of limitations that's not going to apply to many of these things. And I've got a new catchphrase. I think it should show up on Midas Touch merchandise. I think it's the new watchword for America to Donald Trump. And I think it's Quiet Piggy quiet. And just get a picture of Donald Trump and all his corpulence on a thing with quiet piggy underneath it, because in addition to that, he still thinks he's living in the golden era. Where he gets to abuse women, be misogynistic, be racist, pick on women reporters and get away with it. But his superpowers are gone. You know, somebody needs to wake him up. And that's why when you and I get around to Talking about the 25th Amendment, I used to think, no, there's no way. But you're starting to see the immolation of the Republican and MAGA party before our very eyes.

[Ben Meiselis]

And it was summed up this week, I think, in what we saw in the court, with not just the misconduct, but I think the criminality with fake grand jury indictments against Trump's political enemies. And Donald Trump calling a female reporter from Bloomberg piggy and saying, quiet piggy. Then when his press secretary, propagandist Caroline Levitt, is asked about it, she goes, that's why people voted for him. They want him to do that. And you should all just be thankful that you have access to ask him questions, even if he calls you piggy. There was another moment also that I covered more than I think anybody else, perhaps even more than I should have. But I thought it was illustrative that Caroline Levitt gave an interview with this Miranda Devine on the New York Post, and she was asked about Donald Trump spraying cologne and perfume on the leader of Syria, who used to be the leader of Al Qaeda, who just came in the Oval Office. And Caroline says, that's just what he does. He loves spraying his perfume and cologne on all of us. And I'm just thinking to myself, what? You go into the Oval Office and he starts sniffing you and spraying cologne on your body? Regarding your point about doing the quiet piggy shirt, the issue is, and I created a rule back when I started my dispense, that I can't have any merch that has Donald Trump's face on it because there could be no contact with his face, even in a form of a T shirt and the body of a Midas mighty.

[Michael Popak]

Have you seen Rosie o' Donnell's version of that, though, with a giant Trump face? You should see on Instagram, if it.

[Ben Meiselis]

Still resembles his face. It still meets my criteria for not allowed to be on Midas merch. But California Governor Gavin Newsom has also been putting out a lot of these photos of Trump as a pig. And Newsom has been saying quiet piggy over and over again. One other point, and then we'll get to some legal news, which is just think about it like this. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney both have been pushed out of the Republican Party for the exact opposite Reasons Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said the January 6th insurrection was not an insurrection. And she was basically involved in it.

[Michael Popak]

Right.

[Ben Meiselis]

She was pushed out by Trump because she called for the release of the Epstein files and said things are not more affordable. But you had her basically being Trump's ally on January 6th. Not basically, she was Trump's ally. And then Liz Cheney pushed out because she wanted Trump to be held accountable for the insurrection and that it was indeed an insurrection. So where you're a party and you pushed out the Cheneys and you pushed out the Marjorie Taylor Greene. And Marjorie Taylor Greene said in her resignation statement that she feels like a battered wife to Donald Trump. That was her exact term. And Trump calls her Marjorie Trader Brown. Right now, what is that? It's called a. It's a culture. It's not a political party. And then you have people like MAGA Mike Johnson, a literal yes man, right out of central casting, you know, for that role. And what's MAGA Mike doing right now? Well, MAGA Mike wants to change the rules regarding discharge petitions because he's now worried that there's going to be a lot of other discharge petitions coming because people were like, hey, this worked.

[Michael Popak]

Right? Let's do it.

[Ben Meiselis]

So let's ban stock trading. Right. There's an Anna Paulina led discharge petition on that, which I think that, you know, on lots of issues, she's maybe some of this one of the strangest individuals out there.

[Michael Popak]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Meiselis]

That's even really her name. But on this. Yeah, I'd like to see banning stock trading, you know, the way it's currently happening on Capitol Hill. But, Popak, why don't we do this from an organizational structure of this episode?

[Michael Popak]

Let's put structure on this.

[Ben Meiselis]

Let's put structure on this. I think what we just said right now goes into 25th amendment. So let me pass it to you. And then let's focus the next segment on Lindsey Halligan and what's going on in Eastern District of Virginia. And then we can talk about Epstein, and then we can talk about what's happening with Trump's efforts to rig the midterms. But why don't we finish this segment and put an organization on it? I think this lends itself to the 25th Amendment as a real thing that should be discussed.

[Michael Popak]

Absolutely. And the fact that you and I and our audience has to constantly, constantly invoke the 25th Amendment to remove a president who's become incapacitated or has committed crimes or treason or in any other way is infirmed and should not Be the leader of the free world with his finger hovering over the nuclear button. We're at that moment again, and it's not just the quiet piggy. It is the him feeling that it was completely appropriate for him to call for the assassination of elected officials of the Democratic Party because he disagreed with a video that they made all veterans. And reminding the military, you know, because you gotta talk to the military, one of the ways to get through is through social media and a video to remind them the way that Mark Milley did in the first term, the way that other members of the military did in the first term, that if Trump orders you to do something unconstitutional or illegal, you actually have a duty not to follow that order. And that's a long standing principles of law. Ones that of course, the Carolyn Levitz of the world want to ignore. They're calling for treason and to ignore Donald Trump. No, she leaves out, you know, she always leaves out the part and she leaves out the part about what they called for, which is to remind the military that if the order is unconstitutional or illegal, you are as a sworn officer that has sworn to uphold the Constitution yourself. You have to break the chain of command at that point, and that is legitimate. What does Donald Trump say? Hang them high. George Washington would have hanged them for treason. Retweeting and truthing other people's sentiments like that, which led to a firestorm of support. We are only months out of the Charlie Kirk murder, okay, Where Donald Trump went off, got, you know, off his rocker and decided to turn the White House into a podcast studio for Charlie Kirk and his and his widow and for JD Vance and everybody in the administration. Go out to Arizona. As I've said before, I am fine. We are fine with giving the other side and those that follow Charlie Kirk safe space in order to mourn what they saw as a fallen hero. But we're not here to lionize and canonize somebody like Charlie Kirk. Flip side is we know what happened. We know the attacks on Democrats after that led by Donald Trump and for him so soon after that, so soon after Melissa Hortman in many in Minnesota and her husband being killed in their bed. Minneapolis lawmakers, Democratic side and all the other things to, to have him come out and do that. We already have it. We already have. One of the people that participated in the video said there's been a bomb threat, phoned into her house, that the sergeant at arms of, of the House and the Senate have to increase security for these people because of the calls of Donald Trump. Donald Trump knows that there is a cracked violent group within his political world that will follow him, and yet he does so. So you have conduct like that. You have conduct like how he has violated basic international law when it comes to blowing 20 boats out of the water without due process on, on some sort of reporting that he intel that he got from, you know, a cracked half baked intelligence community now led by Tulsi Gabbard, of all things, and Cash Patel, in violation of international law and military law, as you pointed out by a memo that was all overridden by Pam Bondi, who has no background in this whatsoever, to allow them to stand up with Pete Hegseth and the rest and act tough. Human beings died in bombings. I don't know if they're drug dealers. I don't know if they're narco terrorists because they were blown out of the water before we can determine it. Just if you could bomb them, you can capture them. Capture them, extradite them and put them through due process. That's the American way. So you have all of these data points about Donald Trump, including the orders given to the Department of Justice personnel to effectively lie, lie to federal judges. Right. We have a case we're going to just touch on briefly that's going to be up next week. I'm going to have the head of the ACLU with me on Monday for an interview where Judge Boasberg has said okay, and the appellate courts have supported him. I'm ready to restart the contempt proceedings against the Trump administration. And I want to hear from Erez Ruveni, who was fired by the Department of Justice early on in this administration for effectively telling the truth to a federal judge that Emil Beauvais, who's now on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, told him and others in a room that they should lie to federal judges when asked about Donald Trump's removal program and to give as much cover as possible to the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and ICE to get these people away from federal jurisdiction and oversight as quickly as possible. This is no longer, for me a question of if the 25th amendment should be invoked. I believe it's when the 25th amendment will be invoked. The problem is you need such a super majority of the cabinet and the participation of the vice president, J.D. vance, in order to make it happen before it goes over to Congress and then, and then all of that. I just, I want to hear from you, Ben, on it. I just don't see those that are surrounding Donald Trump, who he goes out of his way to make sure that they are financially benefited by his administration and that see a future taking over the mantle from Donald Trump like J.D. vance and Marco Rubio and Howard Lutnick. Front page of the New York Times. Front page of the New York Times about Howard Lutnick's family office making billions of dollars in AI and cryptocurrency and the appearance of impropriety in that. I just don't see the two thirds or whatever the total number is for the 25th amendment of his cabinet and the vice president to take him out of office. What do you think?

[Ben Meiselis]

Look, we're not there yet. Unfortunately, to get there, things are going to be getting worse in this country. And unfortunately, that's what next year looks like based on the chickens coming home to roost. If people could even afford a chicken or a rooster next year. And I say that with sardonic and a little bit of gallows humor right there because I think that what will.

[Michael Popak]

Happen.

[Ben Meiselis]

What could happen, let's just say, is that the peaceful protest that we saw with no kings becomes three times or four times the size. And what we see in America is what we've seen in peaceful protest in Eastern European areas and European areas, other places that have a history of authoritarians. And I think at some point the power from the people is going to be so overwhelming that it's going to force something to happen. And I think what we've seen through this year is that where people exert their moral, formal, ethical, whatever authority they have and they don't back down to these bloviating bullies in the Trump regime. They're weak individuals who do back down, but they rule based on fear and terror and threats. And you have to stand up to them. When we come back, I want to talk more about what the DOJ is doing or not doing in these cases. We'll talk about the COVID up of the Epstein files. We'll talk about Trump rigging the midterms. And I want to make one point on the what Howard Lutnick's company is doing also that I think our viewers need to know about that I think is beyond outrageous and it relates to the tariffs. But we'll take our first quick break of the show. A reminder. Michael Popak has started a law firm where he's representing individuals who have been injured in accidents. And we represent through Michael Popak's law firm, Popak represents a lot of legal efforts, a lot of listeners, a lot of viewers of this. So if you or anyone you know have been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident. If you know somebody who else who's been injured, maybe someone who even died in an accident, give a call to Popox Law Firm, it's 877-popakaf or go to the popoc firm.com also subscribe to Michael Popo's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel and subscribe to Popak Substack, the Legal AF Substack. Let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back with a lot more on Legal af.

[Michael Popak]

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[Ben Meiselis]

Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to our sponsors. The discount codes are in the description below. Support our sponsors. They support our show and they're really good sponsors. Really good stuff that we support as well and that we use. And thanks to Jordy for negotiating those great discounts for the Legal AF listeners and viewers. So just the one thing I wanted to mention about Howard Lutnick. He's the Commerce Secretary billionaire, runs a company called Caner Fitzgerald. There are a lot of subsidiaries there. Canor is now run by his 20 year old kids who are basically running the company. One of the business lines that they're doing right now to make money though is they're going to companies that are cash strapped that may be entitled to refunds in the form of the tariffs that they've paid on the imports. Because American companies pay the taxes. That's because tariffs are taxes. If the Supreme Court overrules Trump's trade war against the world, these companies in America that have paid the tariffs to the government, pay the taxes, are entitled to a refund, 100% of the refund. But they've been screwed by the tariffs. So they're losing a lot of money and many are close to bankruptcy. So they need cash right now. So that's where Lutnick's company comes in and goes to them and says, hey, I hear you're a bit cash strapped by our policies. We think the Supreme Court may overturn our policies. So I know you need the money now because it could be a little tricky filling out these applications, you know, to the Commerce Department that our Lutnick runs And he goes, hey, you know what if we bought those refund rights that you may have in the future right now, we'll pay you right now. So even if the Supreme Court doesn't rule against, you know, doesn't rule against the administration, no matter what, you'll get the money right now. That's the risk that Lutonix Company is going to take. But we're going to buy it for 40 cents on the dollar or 50 cents on the dollar. So if you were entitled to a $10 million rebate or refund, we'll pay you $4 million right now and then we'll be responsible for the, for collecting it in the future. And who knows what the Supreme Court's going to do.

[Michael Popak]

So two quick observations. To be perfectly candid with our audience. People know I worked at Cantor Fitzgerald five years ago. I was the global head of litigation. I worked under Howard at one point before he went off and became a Trump MAGA person. They, they've did the, the brother sons who run the company have denied it to Elizabeth Warren that they're still doing that. But I agree with you that I have not seen evidence that they have killed that part of their business. And top of the, top of the fold, above the fold, front page New York Times yesterday about the kleptocracy being continued between Donald Trump and people like Howard Lutnick who, who go out at Glad Hand. Remember when they used to attack Joe Biden because he talked about the weather on a phone call with Burisma in Ukraine for his son? Forget all of that. Canter Fitzgerald's up 25% over last year. They're making money hand over fist. And it's all because while they're making investments in AI and data centers, their father, the commerce Secretary is meeting with the very same people sometimes the very same day to promote the business interests of the United States, but also of his, his former family office. And if anybody doesn't think when he's all done here in a year or two, he's not going back to head up Cantor Fitzgerald and he's permanently have turned over the reins to his 28 and 30 year old son, then you got another thing coming.

[Ben Meiselis]

Yeah. So just the way it would work in theory. Assuming the program remains in place, once the tariff are over, once the tariffs against the world are overturned by the Supreme Court, then Cantor would basically make the claim to the Commerce Department or the treasury department. We get 100% back now. And they would make the money on the Delta by the claim. They buy the claim. So they'd get. They'd make off the transaction that I said they would make $6 million off of that. So that's the way that business line would work. Right. Let's talk, though, about doj. Let's talk about Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan. Let's talk about Pam Bondi.

[Michael Popak]

Stop laughing when we say Lindsay Halligan.

[Ben Meiselis]

You know, last week when you and I did legal af, I think we set out what the worst case scenario could have been for Lindsey Halligan and the doj, which is that if she never presented an operative indictment, the operative indictment that was presented as the indictment never was put in front of the entire grand jury. And that seems to be exactly what took place. There's also a number of other problems of what went down in the grand jury room. Just to be clear, we're talking about the James Comey case. Let me just frame it that way. James Comey, motion to dismiss. There was a hearing on it for vindictive prosecution and some other defenses. But what came out this week as part of that hearing is what went down in the grand jury room when Halligan got the grand jury allegedly to sign off on this indictment. And what we learned is that it was something that really has never happened. As Judge Fitzgerald, who is the magistrate judge, said, this is unchartered territory if what happened actually happened. And just to situate you, the federal judge in this case is a guy named Judge Nakmanoff. The magistrate judge is not appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but they're appointed basically by the federal judges. It's called a magistrate judge, and they have a lot of roles, whether it's with grand juries issuing subpoenas and handling discovery. So the magistrate judge is Judge Fitzpatrick. So Fitzpatrick put out an order earlier in the week talking about all of the things that seem to have gone wrong in the grand jury, including this unchartered territory issue of did the grand jury even see the operative indictment? But Fitzpatrick also laid out issues that the only person who testified in the grand jury, this FBI agent, was exposed to attorney client privilege documents and should never have testified in the first place because the whole proceeding was tainted. If he saw the attorney client privilege information, they should have had another FBI agent testify. Lindsey Halligan misinformed, lied to the jury about the Fifth Amendment and what Comey's Fifth Amendment rights were, and also lied about the burden of evidence in a criminal case, shifting the burden to Comey as opposed to the prosecutors, to basically be the ones to prove at trial. Beyond a reasonable doubt. And then probable cause at this grand jury proceeding. And these were questions that the grand jury was asking Halligan. Then there's of course the issue of her disqualification or not. But then there was this issue of she first gave the grand jury indictment number one. Indictment number one had three counts on it. Based on what's written, the grand jury rejected all three counts. It says fully rejected. Right. And then she apparently said, but actually the grand jury was cool with two of the counts, not the full three counts. So she's like, I'm just going to go and copy and paste the two counts. Then we'll just get the four person to sign off on that. But let's be clear, the very first indictment was fully rejected. It didn't say we support the two counts. It said, no, fully rejected. And in any event, under Rule 6, and I'll toss it to you, Popak, if you're. Doesn't matter. Even if the grand jury approved the two counts and not the three counts, under Rule 6 of the Federal rules of criminal procedure, you can't just like put an X next to it or like copy and paste it. You then have to go and get them to accept your full indictment. So what you would do is you would say to them, hey, everybody come back. We're going to print out another copy.

[Michael Popak]

They already left.

[Ben Meiselis]

They already left. And why. And, and this was the last day of the statute of limitations. That's why she didn't say, hey, just come back the next day or let's do this the right way. So all we have is one indictment that was rejected and then the operative indictment was just signed off by the foreperson but never presented to the grand jury. So Comey's gone back. And Comey said, yeah, you have to dismiss it. They never saw, they never saw it.

[Michael Popak]

Under Rule 6, there's four separate motions to dismiss. One got filed late yesterday in the Comey case. All of them would lead to the dismissal of the indictment with prejudice and the closing of the criminal case against Comey for failure to properly indict within the five year statute of limitations. That's the impact, if you're right, and you are, that the indictment is invalid, is not a true bill of indictment. On two of the counts, then the clock never stopped on the statute of limitations. It's not a clerical error. It's not an, it's not a boo boo. You don't get a mulligan, you don't get to go back. It doesn't stop the clock. And the statute of limitations has run because we're now having this conversation right before Thanksgiving in November. Statute of limitations ran on September 5th of 2025. That's why the lawyers for Comey are fighting so hard. And he's led by some amazing lawyers. One of the lawyers that argued in the courtroom, I almost had like, how excited is like a superhero within the legal world is Michael Dreeben. Michael Dreben has argued over a hundred successful United States Supreme Court arguments. He argued in a number of them involving Donald Trump. And when he heard the. The problem that Lindsay Halligan has and continues to compound it is that they refuse to, to, to have a senior prosecutor who knows what they're doing or a senior appellate prosecutor who knows what they're doing sit next to her in the courtroom and she's getting. She's either so nervous that she can't get the testimony out, or she's accidentally confessing and becoming a witness for the defense every time she speaks. So it's her and another novice prosecutor named Tyler Lemons who nobody ever heard of. He played football at Widener a couple of years. Now he's been appointed a special prosecutor to sit next to Lindsey Halligan. Talk about the blind leading the blind. There's no Michael Dreeben's Patrick Fitzgerald sitting next to them telling them how they should handle this case. So in the. In the live hearing in front of Judge Nakmanoff, Levin said the grand jury never saw the actual indictment with the all with only two of the counts. That is the operative indictment in this case. It was an amazing bombshell, jaw dropping confession. And Lindsay Halligan sat right there and didn't say anything. She was. Lemons wasn't in the room with the grand jury. Halligan was. So she never got up there. He knocked Nachman off, then called Halligan up. He said your council of record addressed the court, which he was not prepared. And she had to admit that the indictment was effectively fabricated and manufactured, cut and pasted, as you said, by a grand jury coordinator on the fly. And the judge says, well, then I don't understand your. She. She has another problem because in a related case involving Judge Curry, who is. Who is sitting over the issue and will rule before Thanksgiving about whether Lindsay Halligan was illegally appointed or not. She's the first one that pointed out you got a gap in the grand jury proceeding transcript. And Lindsay hall. What do you mean? Where is your interaction related to the second indictment? Where is the court reporter in the room for that? Where is the hearing? Where? Where? Well, no, that's the deliberation part, Judge. See, Judge, you've been on the bench for 30 years, but you forgot that while there's a grand jury deliberating, there can't be a court reporter. Are we good now? No, because they then they whipped out to try to save themselves a seven minute transcript to hand into Judge Nachman off after the hearing because she couldn't get her facts straight during the hearing. And she said, see, Judge, there is a transcript. Well, I thought you said there wasn't a transcript for what transpired between you and grand jurors. She told Judge Curry that all my interactions with the grand jury are recorded and there's nothing missing. No, not true. She had a hearing. Apparently, as you and I reported back in the day, back in September with Judge Vala, who's the magistrate judge presiding over that proceeding in which she was caught. Apparently there was a recording of it and they got a transcript of it in which Judge Vala said, I don't understand, why do I have two indictments, both with your Lindsey Halligan signature on them, both signed by the fourth person. She said, I only signed one. She says, no, I have two. She said, well, I only prepared one. Well, who prepared the one that has two counts instead of three? Well, and they submitted that to Judge Nachmanoff after the hearing to say, are we all good now? No. A, you lied to Judge Curry about your interactions with people in the grand jury, like the four person after the deliberations were over. Even Judge Fitzpatrick, who's the magistrate judge, he called out earlier in the week. He said, I thought you went back in to get the second indictment approved by the grand jury. But apparently based on your, your affidavit, your sworn statement, you never went back in. Now we see the seven minutes and it's obvious you didn't go back in. Everybody went home. You need 12 grand jurors to approve of the indictment. 11 went home at 6:57 at night. One was left a grand. The four person she grabbed. The four person put a document which she alleged to the four person was an accurate true bill of two counts because the third count, the first count, had been eliminated and had her sign it. You could see where a prosecutor should not be allowed after the grand jury has broken for the day to grab one of the grand jurors, tell them this is the indictment and sign on the dotted line that that would be an invitation for prosecutorial abuse. They could write anything in there and have the grand juror sign it. That's why the seven minute Transcript actually undermines their entire case. Immediately upon that filing yesterday, right on top of it, you get a brand new fourth motion to dismiss by James Comey's lawyer that says see we've they. First of all, how can they argue that we don't get the grand jury transcript when they're, they've provided you with another 7 minutes spoon fed version of the grand jury transcript. Of course the defense needs it to prove what happened in that room. Judge Fitzgerald has seen the grand jury transcript and has pointed out two constitutional violations alone by Lindsey Halligan. Judge Curry has seen the grand jury transcript and she's about to probably bounce Lindsey Halligan as the, as the appointed U.S. attorney. We need it as the defense. But even besides that, judge, the indictment and the process just Based on the 7 minute transcript is enough for you to find that such overreach and such prosecutorial abuse is, is in fact infected within this transcript that you should dismiss the indictment on that grounds alone, giving the judge another yet a fourth reason to dismiss the indictment. And then we haven't even gotten into, although you touched on it, what happened and transpired within the grand jury itself, which is the subject of another motion to dismiss. And there's two major points. One is the, the violation of the, of the fifth and sixth amendments privileges of Comey. But also they focus on this new filing, the Comey lawyers on the violation of the fourth Amendment and his attorney client privilege relationship. Because they never see, I didn't learn this until we really started digging in. They never issued a new search warrant or subpoena to professor, to the professor at Columbia who served as the lawyer for Comey. And they had an attorney client relationship. They never got a new one. They just went back to the box from five years ago of Gerald Richmond's.

[Ben Meiselis]

Yeah, Daniel Richmond.

[Michael Popak]

Sorry, Daniel Richmond. Daniel Richmond's documents. And the judge says you didn't properly preserve the attorney client privilege. You would let the FBI look at attorney client privilege documents and then have him testify in front of the grand jury. That's called tainted. That's called fruit of a poisonous tree which infects the entire indictment process. And if all of that is right, which is the reason, again, I want to leave it on this. The reason that the government, sorry, the Comey side is pushing so hard for the infirmities of the indictment is because if that indictment is void abnishio on the day it was rendered because there is no true bill of indictment, then the statute of limitations has also run and the case should be dismissed with prejudice. Now and why are we all sort of breathless about this, including Judge Nakmanoff? The trial starts in January 5th. That's less than two months away. So we're waiting on a ruling from Judge Curry, which we'll report on on Legal AF in here, which is supposed to happen before Thanksgiving, meaning in about four days about whether Lindsey Halligan is properly appointed or not under 546. If she finds that she's not, then she's got to decide what to do with the indictment, which was only secured by Lindsey Halligan. If she doesn't kill off the indictment, Judge Nachmanoff will then go through the indictment and decide whether there's vindictive prosecution, which. Which would kill the indictment as a punishment to the government for abuse of power, or if the whole of the indictment grand jury process is so infected with irregularity and constitutional violations that again, the indictment should be dismissed. So about five different ways for the indictment to be dismissed between now and Thanksgiving or just after Thanksgiving. So we. So if I'm a betting man, there's not going to be a trial in January because I don't think this indictment survives.

[Ben Meiselis]

And notice that Popak and I have yet to even mention the merits of the case because all of these constitutional infirmities, mistakes, errors, maliciousness, that's what's being focused on now, because Trump appointed unlawfully someone who's never been a federal prosecutor before in Lindsey Halligan, someone who was a beauty pageant contestant turned insurance lawyer. No offense to beauty pageant contestants or insurance lawyers. You could be. Or insurance lawyers, but you could have a federal prosecutorial background and then climb the ranks through the doj. And then you get to do that. You get to go in a grand jury room. Okay, that's not what happened here. If someone told me, let me center it around me so I don't offend beauty pageants and insurance lawyers. If you told me, hey, Ben, we're going to appoint you as the United States Attorney and you're going to go into the grand jury tomorrow, I would say, nope, that's the equivalent of asking me to fly an airplane. I don't know how to do it. Okay, so I'm not going to go and do that. You would say no to that. Especially in a case like this and especially where you know you're pursuing a baseless case. But let me just pull back a second as well, because what. This case shouldn't have been brought in the first place. So let's say that. But what would a competent federal prosecutor have done to not do the mistakes that Lindsey Halligan did. Well, you'd show up in a grand jury room and you would provide the appropriate instructions to the grand jury. If they asked you if James Comey had a fifth amendment right not to testify at trial, you would say that he absolutely has a fifth amendment right not to testify at trial. And you would not say that the burden shifts to him at certain points. You would just provide the correct legal instructions and you would correct those legal infirmities right there by doing the correct instructions. And if you didn't know what the correct instructions were, you'd bring somebody else in the room with you who could answer that question.

[Michael Popak]

Can I ask you a question? I have one question for you. Why didn't they, even to this moment, why have they not pulled from the ranks of MAGA DOJ prosecutors, got to be somebody there that fits the bill. Why have they not sent in to sit next to her and guide her some, some gray haired DOJ from Washington, even Todd Blanche, who knows what he's doing, or, or Stan Woodward. Why is no one being sent down from the department? What does it say to you that no one in the indictment process, the hearings, no appellate lawyers sitting there with them. What is that? Why? What does that say to you?

[Ben Meiselis]

Clearly rhetorical of a question. And you know, and it speaks for itself. It tells you that nobody else believes that there's a case here and no one else is willing to risk their bar license the way Halligan was. But then how would you deal with the FBI agent who was exposed to the attorney client privilege information? Easy. Get another FBI agent who's not exposed, not exposed to it. And you have that person be your witness. And the FBI is pretty big and someone can review the file and testify to what they see in the file. But obviously this one FBI agent hates Comey or has something, I don't know for a fact. But obviously this is the one guy, if you're willing to testify after seeing attorney client information, it probably tells me a lot of information about who this person is. So the way you would deal with that is have the right FBI agent. Then you could say, well, Ben, what would you do? Is it this? What if the grand jury rejects one count but approved two counts? How would you deal with this?

[Michael Popak]

Happens all the time, by the way. All the time.

[Ben Meiselis]

I wouldn't be bringing the case the day the statute of limitations is ending because things can happen where you may need to bring them back the next day. So what you would normally do is not bring it the day the statute of Limitations. But if they reject it, let's say it was a 25 count indictment and they rejected counts 2, 7, 9, 11, 13, 18. Whatever you would say, we respect that decision. We'll see you next week. We're going to come back, we're going to trim the causes of actions and complaints. We're going to present it to you. We value your time. We'll see you in January. Why even rush it, right? We'll see you January. Enjoy your Thanksgiving and holiday season. We'll, we'll see you back then. Everybody comes back. You say, ladies and gentlemen of the grand jury, we appreciate your time. We'll be briefer because we presented it last time, as you remember. We'll have the FBI agent just verify the testimony. Call the FBI agent. FBI agent. Is all your testimony last time still true and correct? Correct. And we've gone through all of the things. Correct. Correct. Great. Ladies, gentlemen of the grand jury, we've now present you with a 15 count versus the 25 counter even do it that night.

[Michael Popak]

If you, if you knew what you were doing and you knew you were up against the statute of limitations, you'd have a printer in the courtroom, you'd fix your indictment. You wouldn't let them leave. Of course, 20 walked out the door to go home.

[Ben Meiselis]

Of course. You know, I'm just saying. Absolutely, you would. But the thing is, you're creating a lot of unforced errors by bringing it in the afternoon as the statute of limitations about to expire. But, yeah, you would have to tell in the situation that she was in, and she was probably nervous, she's running out of time. Where do I go and print the paper? What do I do? And she wasn't thinking, you know, and we don't even know, frankly, to be fair, if the grand jury even was okay with those other two counts, because all we know is that they rejected the three counts. So we don't know what they would do if she represented it. They'd be entitled to ask her new questions and maybe those questions.

[Michael Popak]

That's a very good point you just made. I think she might have been worried, having no experience to fall back on and no phone calls made. I think she might have been worried that if she went back with the full grand jury, that she might have lost. Because. Because they were shocked, apparently, that they lost on count one. They didn't, which was their heart of their case. And it fell back to the 1001 charge for perjury and obstruction. She might have felt like, oh, shit, if I go back and Represent. I may not even get any.

[Ben Meiselis]

True.

[Michael Popak]

Bill.

[Ben Meiselis]

Yeah, she's a very, she's nervous.

[Michael Popak]

Yeah.

[Ben Meiselis]

And the way people who are in the court and Legal F has lots of people in the court, they describe her as looking scared, you know, and she bounces and she sweats and she looks at her voice cracks. And when the judge was asking her, did you.

[Michael Popak]

Even use your title who's here for the government?

[Ben Meiselis]

And then the judge literally said, sit down, sit down. Like enough of you because you're not even articulating sentences. And so it goes to this fundamental point and we'll talk about it more as this episode progresses, though. And this is the thing about Legal AF that I why I love this show and our programming so much in this community. I'm not trying to talk about, oh, Democrats, Republicans. I just want to let you know, the right way, if you wanted to do this was this. And the wrong way to do this was this. And the worst way to do it was this.

[Michael Popak]

I'm not even a huge Comey fan.

[Ben Meiselis]

Me neither. You know, but the end of the day, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the issue is are you going about the procedure, are you handling it the right way? Are you following the law? Exactly. So anyway, we'll come right back. When we come back, we're going to talk about what else the DOJ is doing in terms of the COVID up of this Epstein files. I think Popak and I both agree this Comey case is getting dismissed in one of 15 different ways that could potentially get dismissed before even addressing the issue of whether he lied to Congress. Which the question from Ted Cruz was an ambiguously phrased, confusing question. And we know that the witnesses, both Daniel Richmond and McCabe are the only two people it could be. They're friends with Comey like, it's like what are they going to say at the show? You think McCabe and, and, and, and Richmond are going to be leaked it?

[Michael Popak]

He said he leaked it to on his own.

[Ben Meiselis]

Did it themselves without the authorization. They, they admitted McCabe's like, I did it. I'm allowed to do it. There's nothing wrong with me doing it.

[Michael Popak]

Right.

[Ben Meiselis]

And there was Nothing to charge McCabe with anyway. We'll be right back. We'll take our last quick break of the show. Let's talk about Epstein. Let's talk about these gerrymandered maps. Take the ball reminder. Make sure you subscribe. Make sure you subscribe to Michael popox substack legal af. Substack. Subscribe to Michael Popo YouTube, YouTube, legal af, YouTube. And then also if you or anyone you know have been injured in an auto accident, a trucking accident, if you know somebody who's been the victim, like in a wrongful death case, anybody you know who has a case, Michael Popox representing a lot of our viewers and listeners who have been in these accidents and he's helping them out. The consultation is free, so call 877- POPAK AF877, POPAC AF or go to www.thepopocfirm.com Thepopocfirm.com Consultation is free. We'll be right back after our last quick break of the show.

[Michael Popak]

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[Ben Meiselis]

Back to Legal AF. I'm Ben Meiselis joined by Michael Popak. Thank you to our sponsors for making making this show possible. The discount codes are in the description below. Support our sponsors. They support our show. One other thing I want to mention in both the Comey case and the Letitia James case that I should just say before we move on to the next topic, because Halligan's also prosecuting New York Attorney General Letitia James. In both of the files and in the discovery, there will be documents from the former head of the Eastern District of Virginia, the career prosecutors who created memos stating that there is no case against Comey and that there is no case against New York Attorney General.

[Michael Popak]

Before they got fired.

[Ben Meiselis]

Before they got fired, before the career prosecutors got fired, they wrote a memo to the file. And in both of those cases, we've learned that as of now, the Department of Justice Main Justice Pam Bondi has ordered that those be covered up and not produced and to assert attorney client privilege objections. Isn't it funny that they intruded on the attorney client privilege of Comey but they're not producing their own internal documents and discovery asserting attorney client and work product and work product privileges. And also in the New York Attorney General Letitia James Clays, you have the Fair Housing Administration which made the referral because Bill Pulte Trump Stooge was the guy who made it their own investigative team in addition to the prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia who got fired doing a memo saying there's no case where the where the complaint against James originated the Fair Housing Administration, their internal staff wrote a memo saying there's no case against James. Then all of those people got fired and got pushed out as well.

[Michael Popak]

So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. One last thing, because we just did the report on it. If this right wing conspiracy theorist, Christine Bish is to be believed, who gave testimony to a grand jury last week in Maryland.

[Ben Meiselis]

Yeah.

[Michael Popak]

The tide tables have turned and the Department of Justice is now, according to her, because the way the questions were asked of her, who knows that they've now are looking at Bill Pulte, the head of Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac and Ed Martin, who led the charge against Letitia James for crimes that they may have committed.

[Ben Meiselis]

I don't fully buy that person's story yet, even though I did see it being reported. But the point I want to make is that the burden on the federal prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Comey's guilty and that Letitia James is guilty. So I just want you to imagine if these cases ever went to trial and whoever was testifying on behalf of the government, who was supposed to be reading the file? Imagine you're Comey's lawyer. Or imagine your New York Attorney General, Letitia James. I'd like to show you this document. Can you read it out loud? We hereby find that she did not commit any crimes. We hereby find that he did not commit any crimes. And this is what your office, the federal prosecutor right there sitting there, their office said that there was no crimes committed. That's what I said. So not only did they say they couldn't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, they said that any claim is frivolous and bogus. Yes.

[Michael Popak]

Okay.

[Ben Meiselis]

So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the instruction is you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that they're guilty. You want to find the reasonable doubt? Their own office said there's no case. So I just want people to understand.

[Michael Popak]

That'S classic Brady material that has to be turned over as exculpatory. But the reality is just to take a step back, because we like to. To do that here. Donald Trump doesn't give a whether there's actually a conviction. He never did. All he cared about was the headline, Senator Schiff and Letitia James caught in Federal Probe related to Mortgage Fraud. James Comey Caught in Perjury Probe. What happens after that? He's already lost interest. They've lost interest. They're putting no manpower behind this case. Obviously, they're sending out a rookie who, who, who was what? I joke. As the Insta prosecutor With no backup and no support because he already got what he wanted. He got his pound of, he put, he, he casted shade on these people. So for political purposes, he can say shifty shift and Letitia James and the. But what really happens in a courtroom, you and I care about that. It's sad that the defendants have to be dragged through the mud related to it, but Donald Trump doesn't give a shit anymore.

[Ben Meiselis]

But, you know, I think this is different than when he files those frivolous $18 billion, $15 billion lawsuits as a plaintiff, or even when he gets sanctioned, he pays the million dollar sanctions, but he's fundraised the $20 million off of it. So for him, that's part of his strategy. Now we're dealing with criminal cases, doj, Pam Bondi, ag, Lindsey Halligan, federal judges who are used to a certain way that the DOJ behaves. And what we are going to see is, I think, graver consequences than what he was expecting for all of these individuals that will make what Trump's January 6th lawyers who were involved in those cases. What we're going to see here, I think, is something far more severe and swift. Now, to me, Lindsey Halligan is someone whose accountability will happen sooner, swifter. I think you'll start to see state bar referrals happen once these cases get dismissed in the next 12 months or so is just my prediction, my opinion.

[Michael Popak]

Well, the only thing. Let me just comment on that. She's a Florida bar member, as am I. They've taken the position, as they did with Bondi, that until she's no longer in federal office, they are not going to investigate her underlying license. Now, if she gets bounced, then she's fair game for the bar. And after she leaves office.

[Ben Meiselis]

Yeah, now, and Pam Bondi as the Attorney General, there's a different set of circumstances there. But when Pam Bondi tried to defend Lindsey Halligan in the disqualification motion aspect of this case, the way Pam Bondi did it is by saying, I've reviewed the grand jury. You should treat it as though I was there with her because I bless all of this. I ratify everything that happens. And so Bondi was trying to do retroactive DOJ endorsement in the event Halligan gets bounced and disqualified. Bondi's like, I'm basically the person who did it. And now because of the separate proceedings, it's like, oh, you're the one who did it. Great. So you are now endorsing the constitutional violations, you're endorsing the fake grand jury indictment, you're endorsing the tainted attorney client privilege. So you and Halligan are the same. You've ratified her conduct. That's why we say this is now imputed to Bondi, whereas before she could have kept the distance. All right, but let's stay on Bondi and let's stay on the fact that Trump signed into law the discharge petition turned bill, turned release the Epstein files. So we're already seeing what this cover up looks like. Right, Popak, Ghislaine Maxwell is saying that she's done testifying in proceedings. She spoke to Trump's, you know, former criminal defense lawyer turned number two at the doj, Todd Blanche, she gave that interview where we know she lied through her teeth basically the entire time because we saw the emails. Who would have thought a convicted child sex trafficker looking for a pardon would lie? But we saw the emails from the Epstein estate where she knows a lot more than what she said she knows, obviously. And Blanche never cross examined her on any thing that we knew about her. But she's saying that if the House of Representatives, the Oversight Committee wants her deposition now, she won't testify, she'll invoke the Fifth. She previously said that she wasn't going to sit for a deposition with the House because of the Supreme Court appeal that she had, but the Supreme Court rejected her appeal. So now she's saying, well, I still may argue in what's called the habeas corpus petition, which you and I called Popoc, that she was going to do that and use that as an excuse not to testify. I still have my constitutional rights to invoke my Fifth Amendment against self incrimination because there's new evidence. The new evidence she's going to argue is Trump said it was a hoax. So if it's a hoax, shouldn't that have come in at trial? That's how she's kind of got Donald Trump, you know, kind of cornered, because Trump said it was a hoax. So she'll argue to the federal judges, look, if the President of the United States says it was a hoax, that should have come in at trial. It, which I'll argue, at least I believe. But she says she's not testifying. Now, James Comer, maga, Republican in the House Oversight Committee, he says that why would we even go to Texas if she's just going to invoke the Fifth, why even show up in the first place? Let's just, just, let's take her at her word that she's going to invoke the Fifth. We don't need to get her on camera invoking the fifth. While questions are asked, hey, what's your relationship with Trump? Did you see Trump ever with underage girls?

[Michael Popak]

But, but it's an improper invocation of the Fifth Amendment. Let's just talk about the Fifth Amendment for a minute. You can only invoke the Fifth Amendment if you believe, if you're in a courtroom, if you, if you have a reasonable belief that what you're saying will incriminate you in a future or current criminal investigation or prosecution. Let's, let's unpack that for a minute. She has queen for the day immunity. So she's either admitting that she lied and, and blew her immunity that was given to her by Donald Trump when Todd Blanche did that, that disgusting softball seven hour interview where she lied through her teeth and Todd Blanche wanted her to lie through her teeth so he didn't challenge anything that she said, including the lies about Donald Trump. But she got immunity. She's either worried that she blew her immunity, although the Department of Justice has not said that they're going to, that they, they believe that she, there's no comment at all by, even after the emails came out that she blew her immunity. But if she, and she's already serving time for the underlying child sex trafficking five count conviction, she's in year two of a 20 year sentence. So what is the crime that she's, that she is, that she's worried about where she has to invoke the Fifth Amendment. If MAGA wasn't running the House, the.

[Ben Meiselis]

New crimes that she committed with the Trump regime in, she's going to use her lying with Blanche as the grounds for new crimes being charged because she just committed new crimes in Tallahassee 1000%.

[Michael Popak]

And blew her immunity. Now if I were the, if the House was controlled like it will be in midterms by Democrats like Jamie Raskin, I would file a case to a, to a judge to declare her invocation of the Fifth Amendment is improper. You just don't, I mean we all listen, we all know it from television and movies. Oh, the Fifth Amendment. We all, we all think we know it. But there has to be a legitimate fear of prosecution and I would have that sorted out in a federal courtroom about her improper. It happens all the time in federal court. The way when you and I handle it, a federal judge will say let's have a hearing about the exercise of the Fifth Amendment. What is your legitimate fear? If a statute of limitations is already run on something, the judge is not going to let you. It's just going to strip you of your Fifth Amendment right. If the judge doesn't find that you could be legitimately prosecuted for something. Or she will. The judge will often turn to the prosecution and say, give her immunity. If you give her immunity again, then they will be able, she'll be able to testify. So if you either give her immunity or, and she testifies or you don't give her immunity, and I'm probably going to let her keep her Fifth Amendment privilege. But all that would get hashed out in a courtroom. Problem is the MAGA is not going to go through this exercise. And so they're just going to say, like you said, oh, she took into Fifth, why bother going to the Beverly Hills Hotel version of the prison in Texas? And we'll just let her take the Fifth. But this is again, we're trying to point out whether you're Republican or Democrat here, Democratic here on Legal af, that we're talking about due process, constitutional rights and things that are right and wrong. We would not be having the same discussion if, if the House was controlled by adults that had had D next to their name.

[Ben Meiselis]

So let's also, by the way, I would want to have the video of Delaine sitting there and saying, isn't it true that you spoke with Donald Trump's DOJ a few months back and you lied to him the entire time? I invoked my Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination.

[Michael Popak]

Okay.

[Ben Meiselis]

Isn't it true that what you are afraid to share, isn't it true what you are afraid to share is that you observe Donald Trump with underage girls? I invoke my Fifth Amendment right against self agreement. You're not going to answer that question right now. You were willing to speak with Blanche as I'm asking you if you observe Donald Trump do inappropriate things with underage girls, you're not going to answer. Based on the advice of my attorney, I'm going to invoke my Fifth Amendment according to second. So you see how that would go. And then let's let the public see that that's what MAGA Republicans are terrified.

[Michael Popak]

To in a courtroom. Just to round this out for our teachable moment in a courtroom in a civil case, not criminal, you're allowed to take the Fifth Amendment privilege in a civil case, but it is held against you. The judge will give an instruction at the request of the other party to the jury that says we are in a civil matter here. This is not a criminal matter testifying before the House. We're in a civil matter in a courtroom. Them Taking the fifth Amendment, you can make the adverse inference that their answer would be unhelpful. In other words, did you see Donald Trump have sex with girls? Fifth Amendment privilege. You can assume that the answer to that would have been not favorable for Donald Trump. That is an actual instruction that goes to a jury when it's invoked in a non criminal proceeding. That's the little side side gig about the fifth Amendment outside of a criminal context when the person. Yes. Can't be compelled to testify against themselves if there's a legitimate fear of prosecution. But in all other matters it's an adverse inference against them.

[Ben Meiselis]

Exactly. Just other things to mention. We expect that the DOJ will invoke national security, that they'll invoke in current investigations and they'll invoke any other. Oh it's going to re victimize the victims which we know the victims have said release the files. And then their other argument is that it's a privacy violation and it creates new victims. That the wealthy men who are in these communications with Epstein or at the house or there or at his place, that they would now become the victims. That the men involved with Epstein are the new victims victims. And that's an exact terminology used by Mag and Mike Johnson. And it's sick and disgusting but that's what it is.

[Michael Popak]

That's like disgusting. Did you hear what Megyn Kelly said that unless it's an 8 year old if it's a barely legal. These are girls who had, who were raped. Let's let you know, let's not stop beating around the bush. Some of them as young as 14 and, and, and she actually ran on a show the theory that maybe it wasn't pedophilia because of their age 14 because they're not 8 year olds. And even though one testified definitively that she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump, there's no one that ties Donald Trump to rape. I'm like this is, this is where MAGA is right now.

[Ben Meiselis]

Yeah. So we expect that to happen also that the DOJ, I think maybe they'll wait until 30 days, they'll drop 10,000 documents that aren't relevant relevant. Then people be like what's this? Don't worry, we've got more coming. And then they'll drop more and more and more. And I suspect what they'll try to do is within their, the batches of documents they drop, they'll find people so that they can give people some red meat. Like they'll focus on Larry Summers and they'll folk and like look, we, we found it and by the way, great, I could care less you go to.

[Michael Popak]

Jail if he did something like that.

[Ben Meiselis]

I could care less. But, but we want all of it out there. And so I expect that that's what they're going to do. We'll keep you posted though, every step of the way on that and we'll make sure that our coverage, you know, holds them, holds them accountable. As always. I finally pop up. Before we go though, just talk about Trump rigging the midterms. There was of course the ruling earlier, although, you know, every week I feel like I'm aging dog years or I'm time traveling back and forth in this Trump regime. So sometimes I conflate what's even happening in a given week. But recently a three judge panel in Texas led by a Trump appointed judge said that the maps in Texas that were gerrymandered were racist gerrymandered maps. And this Trump appointed judge in this very long opinion cited as the evidence what would be a smoking gun of smoking guns. The DOJ wrote a letter to Texas saying we do not want you to do partisan gerrymandering, which by the way, we all hate partisan gerrymandering but would be allowed under the current doctrine, you know, doctrine, unless there was a constitutional amendment against partisan gerrymandering in a state. But in Texas, their legislatures did not want to do partisan gerrymandering so they needed some other hook. So the DOJ letter said, you know, you've got too many Hispanics here, you've got too many black people here, you gotta change the dynamics of blacks and Hispanics, you gotta do race, you gotta do we need to see some racial gerrymandering. Because, you know, and part of it also they say like you're being racist to this group or that group, whatever. And so the judge just said your letter saying to do racial gerrymandering, you can't do the gerrymandering that is racist in nature, that has a dilutive impact on black districts and then shifts Hispanic districts certain way. Like that's not, you can't do that. So it's a racist district. In any event, the judge cites that and then it's a big deal. Texas lost. Trump appointed judge. They're trying to the liberal Trump appointed judge. And then what does Trump do? Emergency appeal, United States Supreme Court Justice Alito. You know, it's like, it's like a text message service, right? Popac Donald Trump has with his Supreme Court, you know, I need your help, need your help. Right wing Supreme Court Help me. What do you need me to do? Can you just keep the maps in Texas the way they were when they were racist? We had a scheme for the midterms and this Trump appointed judge screwed it up. Alito coming right up. He types out the order in five minutes, you know, and shadow docket. And shadow docket restores the racist map. Now we talked about the Purcell principle also Popak, the Purcell principle was always though you, you know, don't you not make these kind of, don't you keep the original maps in place like to me right before an election? Like in this case, wouldn't it be the 20, you know, the 2021 maps and not these, you know, not the racist maps in place or the federal court ruled already reject this map. Why would the Supreme Court interfere with a federal judge this early? Shouldn't the Supreme Court just say look the federal judge ruled that's going to be the ruling, come back to the Supreme Court later because the Purcell principles, we the Supreme Court are not getting involved in these disputes right now. You know. So what do you make of it?

[Michael Popak]

Well, well and we covered it on unprecedented a show I do with Dina Tahl that's up right now. There's a December 8 deadline for, for candidates in Texas to kind of sort themselves out as to who's running where. And so there is sort of a, an internal deadline that's running very, very quickly. I mean December 8th is going to be right upon us soon. And so the argument there is the judges order the three judge panel two to one with a very noisy dissent by the one where he attacked, he attacked the Trump appointed judge and another judge there was like this whole brawl broke, judicial brawl broke out among among MAGA and coming out of the fifth and, and coming out of the fifth Circuit and coming out of a Trump judge was quite extraordinary. But just as I expected they were going to run right away to Alito who as you said is the Supreme Court justice that sits over the 5th Circuit. The ruling is by the lower panel that they should go back to the 2021 map pre the elimination of the five seats which as we all know was also the, the event that led Gavin Newsom to Prop 50. That and other states. Not, not just that. The, it's not as tied to Texas as people thought it was like well what happens now if the Texas maps go away? Do Prop 50 go away? No, I've worked on enough ballot initiatives and challenges to ballot initiatives. So no, that's not baked into the ballot initiatives or the proposition that was proposed to the voters about it and they voted to have the maps redone. Now. So the 2021 maps, of course, had five more Democratic seats than the others. And for me, I agree with you, that should have been the status quo, not the new maps that just popped up. But because, you know, talking about that Purcell doctrine getting close to the election, December 8th is a date for them to declare and to start the campaigning. And so I knew there's there's another shadow hanging over this is that we are waiting and I'm not, I'm not optimistic for a ruling to come out from the Supreme Court in a case called Calais, which arises out of a Louisiana map and MAGA Mike Johnson, and based on the oral argument a month or so ago, I don't think it looks good. I think we're going to have a Supreme Court MAGA majority that's going to rule that it's okay as long as what you're doing. Now, I know you have the racial letter there. That is big evidence. But they're going to say as long as it's blue and red and not black and brown, you know, you want to have more Republicans and you're in charge, you can effectively eliminate all of the black and brown people under the guise of political gerrymandering. This sticky little fact that you just outlined that was latched onto by the majority of what about this letter that says you should do it racially? I think even the Supreme Court Maga6 would find that violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But we're still waiting for Calais. They're not going to. So none of the states have guidance. So I knew that Alito was going to stop, hit pause, setting up a briefing schedule as they continue to work on the ruling in Calais, which we thought would come in the first quarter of 2026, which would still be plenty of time for maps to be redone in advance of the midterms. It's not they're not going to issue Calais this ruling of the Voting Rights act to allow for new maps. Effectively, they're not going to do it like at the end of the term in June for the November election. They're going to do it in the first quarter and probably early first quarter, beginning of second quarter of 2026 to give MAGA plenty of time to try to grab 10 or 12 more seats by remapping the red states. Although, and you and I reported on this, there seems to be a lot of resistance in the MAGA state houses about doing the REMAPPING so soon they all remapped off the last census in 2020. The only reason they're doing it now is for transparent partisan purposes to back maga. But Trump's, as we said at the top of this podcast, sometimes I forgot where we are. The Donald Trump's grip on power is slipping. So in such extraordinary fashion, the lame duckness of Donald Trump on full display that he, that he's losing his ability to get state houses to follow his lead, just as we saw with the Epstein vote. I mean he, he eventually had to blow the dog whistle to get all of MAGA to support the Epstein bill because he had lost in the court of public opinion and had lost even Mike Johnson. And so having he. So he had to get on the bandwagon and say, sure, let them all out, Pam, don't let them all out with the active investigation you started a week before the bill was signed. So his grip on power also has an impact in a domino effect in the state houses. So I'm not sure even if Kalei goes south for voting rights, which it will, that that automatically means that he's got control of grabbing 10 or 12 or 15 more seats by having them redistrict. I'm not sure about that.

[Ben Meiselis]

We'll keep everybody posted there every step of the way. And what's notable is that, you know, the Supreme Court gutted a concept called pre clearance, which used to require approval in the first instance of a three judge panel in the DOJ of the maps in order to determine if these maps were racist or not racist. Now with the elimination of pre clearance, and we've been covering that for many years, how they were gutting the, how they were gutting the Voting Rights act by removing some of the teeth that it had, it's allowed these states to on their own come up with the racist maps, then you have to challenge it versus the states having to justify it in order for it allowed to take place in the first place. And so this was also a project of right wing extremist Heritage Foundation Project 2025, dating back before it was called Project 2025. And it was just kind of the Federalist Society concocting these ideas. You know, they, they thought that, they thought that this was a way to control the country from a perspective of basically non majority views of things, knowing that, you know, these Republican right wing ideas are actually not popular with a majority of people, but they wanted to impose their will on people, you know, and it's why Prop 50 to me was so important as well, because, you know, for such a long time, Democrats would just allow the Republicans to do these things and Democrats would be like, well, we can't do that. That's not appropriate. And we did it. It's like they're doing it and they're destroying the country and they're controlling all of these levers because they're not playing by the rules and we gotta fight back and then restore law and order. And that's what I think is happening now. You know, at least a recognition rather that that needs to happen now, which is important. We saw Newsom do it in California. We need, I, I want to see Virginia do what it needs to do and I'd like to see Illinois do what it needs to do in Maryland. It's not time, it's not time to, you know, to, to, to, to not do anything other than save this freaking democracy while we still have some semblance of it right now. So we'll do our small part every week here on Legal af. We're grateful for you, the Legal afores. We're grateful for everybody who watches this. The best way you can help is to share this show with as many people as you can, especially before Thanksgiving or during Thanksgiving. Let people know about Legal af. Tell them at the Thanksgiving table. This is where you get your legal news from. Because the more people who are turned on to this show, the more ways that we can just get accurate information and that's so critical right now. Also a reminder, Michael Popo's law firm is called the Popoc Firm. And if you or anyone you know has been injured in a car accident, auto accident, if you know someone who's the victim in a wrongful death case, you want a free consultation, just give a call to popox law firms, thepopocfirm.com877 popoc af877 popac af or go to the Popoc firm. Also check out his substack. Substack is on Legal AF and the YouTube channel is. Legal AF covered a lot on today's show. We always love covering a lot on these shows and it's always great spending time with you all. Behalf of myself and Michael Popak, thank you Legal A efforts. We'll see you next time on Legal af. Shout out. Legal A Effers Shout out. Midas Mighty. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price, so that means half day. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

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