Michael Popak (5:13)

Yeah, I think, I think you're absolutely right. Look at what we've watched in the last two weeks, some of which we're going to touch on and update today. You Got the Trump administration back in the crosshairs of a criminal contempt proceeding by Judge Chief Judge Boasberg in D.C. one that they probably thought was long buried because of some appellate rulings that went originally in the Trump administration's direction. But he's back and he's like a bad penny for the Trump administration, but he's great for our democracy. You know, I saw a couple of hundred former federal judges or so got together and, and are now speaking out. And I like former federal judges that speak out against the attacks and the rule of law. But what I really like and appreciate are judges who are still on the bench wearing the black robe at Judge Boasberg's level, appellate court level or senior status level, that are just winning, winning against the Trump administration and his and their attack on rule of law. So just in the last two weeks, criminal contempt proceeding blows up in Donald Trump's face. Judge Curry dismisses both Halligan tosses Halligan, Lindsey Halligan. And the indictments of two of Donald Trump's arch enemies in his own mind of the Attorney General of New York and the former FBI Director James Comey. The Epstein cover up, cover up blows up in Donald Trump's face again in a way that you and I could not. And as much as we followed this and as closely as you have, particularly, we could not have envisioned that it would lead to Marjorie Taylor Greene being tossed out of maga. But MAGA also imploding at the same time, as people realize finally on the right side of the aisle that the emperor has no clothes, that he's insane, that he's barbaric, that he is deranged, and they are no longer following him. They find that they can survive politically without Donald Trump, as his grip on power has tremendously slipped, as his administration does what other dictatorships swirling the drain of history do. They start committing war crimes and murder and they act with impunity and they act with a certain smugness that comes with this drunken drunk being drunk on power. And then it all devolves down Ben, and into the polling numbers. I mean, another round of polling numbers just came out in the last couple of days. He's down by double digits. Trump in not Only the original seven battleground states by 14 and 15 points. Unfavorable in all the battleground states that he brags about having a one run the table against Kamala Harris, but in a couple of states that aren't even really or three states that aren't even really considered battlegrounds but are now Texas, he's Down six points, along with Ohio and along with Florida. So we just saw what happened three weeks ago, election night in America. We can anticipate what's going to happen now as people jump off the Trump train. And then what is he left with? He's left with what happened after the murder of Charlie Kirk, the unfortunate incident of the shooting and the murder of national guards people in D.C. he's left with overplaying his hand and making statements to try to go back against the Biden administration that end up backfiring in his face. At the same time, the American people are suffering under the crushing weight of inhumane and economically, economically disastrous Trump policies.

Ben Mycel (9:03)

Anytime he mentions Biden, it's an instant backfire at this point because, look, you're in charge now for 10 months and whether what you're saying about Biden is true or not, it's almost besides the point. Although it should be true statements, not lies. Let me be very clear about that. It's just you're in charge now like you're 10 months in, we're basically a year in and you're whining about Biden. Right. And so the moment you start doing that, I think no matter what, really, what political side of the aisle you're on, unless you're just total MAGA mush brained, which there still is, you know, 25, 30% of the country, that's that. But everyone else, I mean, independent voters, Democratic voters, you know, lots of Republicans even now, like, what are you doing, man? Just, just, you promised these things, you're not delivering these things. You're a liar, you breached our trust, and worse yet, you're inflicting pain upon the American people. Okay, let's get into these various topics right now because we've got a lot to cover on this episode. The first one we'll start off is something that we've been focused on a lot here, the Ballroom and the Golden Ballroom and the unlawful nature of it. We've been talking about everything from how the mere construction of it is unlawful in my view, and also how when corporations are attaching themselves to it, it's an obvious kind of quid pro quo, which to me violates the very clearly multiple bribery statutes. And as we look beyond what our country can look like in a post Trump era, those who are involved in bribery schemes, those who aided and abetted the criminality taking place. Right. Those who are involved in, we'll talk about later, war crimes. You know, there will be, I think, a national reckoning, international reckoning, when it comes to the war crimes, and these things will not be forgotten. These things will be exposed and people will be held, I believe, accountable. I think that any Democrat running for the presidency will have to, I think, describe as a platform ensuring that the US Is part of any international response to the war crimes that America is committing. I think the way we dealt with Nixon, post Nixon, in terms of changing laws and dealing with accountability, it's going to be that times a multiple that is so far out there that I don't even know what the number would be because this is Nixon every single day, 20 times a day, way worse every single time a day. Watergate would be a blip on a Friday afternoon based on what the Trump regime does every single day. Let me toss it to you, Popak. On this issue of the ballroom, two things are happening. One, you have the architect in Donald Trump fighting John McCreary II and Trump are fighting over the size of the ballroom. The architect says it's big enough based on the current plans. Trump wants it bigger. And we see how Donald Trump gets into these lawsuits all the time with people he works with. And now this McCreary guy, the architect, I mean, he not only do I think he looks like a horrible figure historically based on him taking part in this, but now he's in a fight with Donald Trump over the size. He wants it smaller. Trump wants it bigger. And then you have JP Morgan Chase head. JP Morgan Chase had Jamie Dimon saying the following. We have an issue, okay, which is anything we do, since we do a lot of contracts with governments here and around the world, we have to be very careful about how anything is perceived and also how the next DOJ is going to deal with it. So we're quite conscious of risks we bear by doing anything that looks like buying favors or anything like that. He continued. Popak turned over to you. I think he means a few things there. He means the way it looks, meaning bribery. Number two, as US Is getting weaker and other countries are asserting themselves, JP Morgan Chase does business in Europe, in Asia, with Canada, in Australia, in South America and Central America and Africa. And as the United States is being very harmful to those other areas, we, I think JP Morgan Chase recognizes as an international company, it can't also be aiding and abetting assaults on the sovereignty of other countries and being perceived as a stooge. So I think he's, I think he's astute in making that observation. What do you think?

Michael Popak (13:36)

Yeah, I mean, look, the, what we're starting to see is the, is what Donald Trump fears and what are his, what his nightmares are made of, which is the lame duck status of Donald Trump. All the talk about, I'm going to run for a third term. No, you're not. You're closer to being impeached and convicted than you are getting a third term or being declared a war criminal. That's what keeps Donald Trump up at night. His loss of power, his loss of influence, which is why he's reaching out like, hey, there's an election in Honduras on Sunday. I got an idea. Let me let out the narco terrorist President serving a 45 year term in New York that my criminal defense lawyer, Emil Bovey worked on when he was a U.S. attorney to try to curry favor with the Trump of Honduras, make Honduras great again. He has to do that because his, his waning influence in America is so debilitating to him. The grip on power has been lost. Tito as far as everybody, write it down. If you had Tito as far on your bingo card for us supporting in Honduras. And every time he tries to get involved with foreign politics and tries to lead to regime change, it backfires for him. Just as you outlined him going after Joe Biden backfires for him here. You know, he goes after Brazil and the Trump of Brazil and how he's being treated in the criminal process. And Brazil stands up to him even at great financial sacrifice of a 50% tariff because they're gonna put, and they have put Bolsonaro in jail for 22 years. So what we're watching is the incredible shrinking presidency and Donald Trump knowing it. And the MAGA is falling apart because they no longer need him to get elected. Quite the contrary. As far away as they can get from the imploding presidency, the better it is for their own political fortunes. And they now realize it. You and I are not gonna be talking about MAGA Mike Johnson in about a year, I don't think at all. I don't think he's gonna survive his own caucus. And so Trump sees this landscape. At least people around him see this landscape. And now things that were sort of, oh, that's Trump being Trump, those golden ballrooms and mar bathrooms, that, as you said, the narrative has shifted. The ground under Donald Trump has changed considerably. The shutdown showed him to be the heartless, petty tyrant that he is, attacking poor Americans, literally, which, which makes a lot of people upset, including those that aren't poor, but that support the disadvantaged in America. So all of that has happened. So what? Once, when you and I and others recovered from, he tore down the east wing and the legacy of first ladies operating out of the east wing. He bulldozed the whole thing during the shutdown. You and I were scrambling along with media, like trying to cover the shutdown and the funding and the this and the that. We'd be like, oh, yeah, the ballroom. But now that we're all back and Congress is all back, things like the ballroom and letters written by Senate Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Benny Thompson who says to all of the corporate donors, give me all your contracts, give me all the ways that you, what you were promised for building this ballroom is now the chickens are coming home to roost. And what you're starting to see what I loved about maybe we could have salty put it back up. What I loved about Jamie Dimon's comment is all of a sudden I'm starting to see references to the next Department of Justice. I saw it in elected members of the House talking about the murderous rampage of Donald Trump in the Caribbean, taking out and making disappear 80 human beings, including new reporting that he double tapped with Pete Hegseth giving oral command as two human beings clung to the side of a boat to fire on them again, shooting them in the back. What a coward. And to this day, you and I can't report on who any of the 80 people are, what they did, what their link, if any, to narco terrorism is or to the Trend Aragua cartel or what was on board, because it's all been blown to smithereens. So. And you have people now claim now saying, we are going to hold you accountable. Not only Donald Trump, who has his own shield given to him by the Supreme Court in the immunity decision, but those around him do not. And we're looking at you, Pam Bondi and Tulsi Gabbard and Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth, and the list goes on. And so what I like about where we are coming into 2026 is that the people have spoken in elections, in polling, in, in the way the economy is being handled and the like. The Democrats are starting to get their groove back in leadership and it's hard to lead from the minority position. But the Democrats are doing a very, very good job at setting the table for the conversation they need to have at the midterms. And we're winning the fight, thank God, in the map areas so far. So for me, the takeaway of the ballroom thing is not just the ballroom. It's that business leaders who had supported Donald Trump are realizing that he's running out of time here. The time horizon for Donald Trump is much shorter than they anticipated. And now we're worrying about what the next Department of Justice, the next FBI, the next Democratic led government looks like.

Ben Mycel (19:28)

You mentioned Honduras, Tito Asfura, who's running for president. He's running against a candidate who is endorsed by the current president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro. And Trump hates Xiomara Castro because she asserted the sovereignty and autonomy of the country as against Donald Trump. But Trump's trying to install his kind of MAGA stooge in Honduras and as part of doing that and to kind of rile up division and kind of civil war and just bring up pain and, and strife within the country and to harm the United States of America. In this post where Donald Trump interferes at the election in Honduras, which is just unheard of for the United States president to ever post anything like this, he goes like, if Tito Asphira wins, we will help Honduras. If he loses, we will throw you under the bus and we will not care about Honduras anymore and we will, like, harm Honduras. So that's one of the threats that Trump makes. And then he says that I will give a full and complete pardon to the former president, Juan Orlando Hernandez. And this is what Trump says, who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly. This cannot be allowed to happen. Congratulations to Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Michael Popak (20:48)

That's Roger Stone. Roger Stone is the only one promoting the pardon of a 45 year convicted did narco terrorist, former president of Honduras.

Ben Mycel (20:58)

So anytime Donald Trump is out there and saying that, oh, we're doing this to stop the narco terrorist, that one of the biggest narco terrorists is Juan Orlando Hernandez and Juan Orlando Hernandez's brother. They provided quarter help, support. They used the office to provide logistics to the Sinaloa cartel with Chapo. And they've moved like quite literally 400 tons or more of cocaine into the United States. Tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars of cocaine and other drugs into the United States. They're the worst of the worst of narco drug trafficking of narco drug terrorists. And Trump says, this guy has been treated unfairly. I know that Juan Hernandez is not as like, high profile, perhaps in our country as the name El Chapo, but there is no El Chapo without Juan Orlando Hernandez. And so we're basically like pardoning Chapo. And by the way, you go back earlier in this regime and what they were doing. Remember, people saw Chapo's family getting a VIP tour into the United States from Tijuana as part of a deal that Trump was making, which wasn't announced with anybody, with the cartels. And right now, in this country, right now, Chapo's family, they basically have full FBI protection. We don't know where they're living. But he basically gave the Chapo family VIP right now. And, and that's who Donald Trump is. But notice that's the people he supports, the billionaire corrupt criminals. And who does he, who does he hit? Who does he take down? The lower level people. And in this country, who does he take down? Most of the people who he hates and who he helps is the right.

Michael Popak (22:46)

Well, this is why MAGA is imploding. Because even the Laura Loomers are like, we just pardoned the narco terrorist bribed accepting president of Honduras after the DEA Donald Trump. It started under Donald Trump. Donald Trump's U.S. attorney's office, including email, Bovey and others took the guy down. A jury convicted him and sentenced him to 45 years in prison. And we're letting him walk out the door because Donald Trump wants to influence the election on Sunday in Honduras.

Ben Mycel (23:15)

Why I say, Popak, that anything on a random Friday that Trump does would make Watergate look small. Is quite literally an example like this, right? A random Friday. This is what he posts, that he wants to help pardon and support one of the number one narco terrorists that's out there. And you'll hear not a peep from state regime media known as Fox and right wing media. Not like this. If Biden or Obama ever made a post like this, I can assure you on a bipartisan basis they would be impeached the next Monday. There would be proceedings the next Monday if it was on Thanksgiving. They may even start it on that Saturday. Popak, we've got a lot to discuss. I want to get into the war crimes that Hegseth is committing. I want to get into the rigging of the maps and more. Let's take our first quick break of the show. Just a reminder for everybody about Michael Popo law firm. Check it out. If you or anybody you know has been injured in an accident, a car accident, a trucking accident, give a call to the pop firm.com877 popac af. Go to the popac firm.com or call 877 popak af. The consultation is free. Popo's representing a huge amount of people who listen and watch Legal af. So take that free consultation. If you or somebody you know has a potential case, let Popox team take a look at it. And they have lawyers all across the country. Also subscribe to the Legal AF substack and subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. That YouTube channel is so close to hitting 1 million subscribers in 2025. And wow, would that be great if we can hit 1 million subscribers in the first year of that legal AF channel. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We will be right back with much more Michael Bo Ever wake up sweaty.

Michael Popak (25:12)

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Ben Mycel (29:35)

Let's welcome everybody back to Legal af. Thank you to our sponsors. This show does not exist without our pro democracy sponsors, so make sure you follow them. Try to check out their products. The discount codes are in the description below. All right, Popak, why don't we talk about want to talk about Bozberg? And then we can get into war crimes. I'll toss it over to you to speak about Judge Boasberg moving forward with contempt proceedings after a circuitous route in the Court of Appeals. It's interesting because there's this, there's this Trumper judge who always supports the Trumper stuff, Judge Katz over there on the, on the circuit court on the D.C. circuit. And it's the Trump regime keeps on citing Judge Katza said Judge Katz and Judge Boasberg's like, you keep citing one circuit court judge. You want to talk about what everybody else is basically saying right now, because I've been given this case back to now look into contempt proceedings. And this is all arising out of it. Shows you how these cases take a lot of time. POPOC and legal efforts. The original kind of lawful order that was made by the Trump regime to round up these migrants, send them to the concentration camp in El Salvador. Judge Boasberg made that order saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, maybe we do that in the future. But let's understand what this plan is. Let's understand if due process has been violated, what's going on here? And the Trump regime said, we don't care, Boasberg, we're sending them to the concentration camp. And then everything kind of flowed from that. When, you know, and it's kind of as we talk about Hegseth's order, which is, you know, kill him after the initial strike as well. You know, you just have these rogue criminal people in the Trump regime starting at the top with Trump, who just keeps on making these criminal orders over and over and again. So what's going on with Boberg? And how did Kristi Noem get exposed as the person who directly Gnome herself said, basically, screw the judge. You send him. And now she's wrapped up into these proceedings. What's going on here, Popa?

Michael Popak (31:53)

Yeah, it's you. And I covered it at length. When it happened in March, Judge Boasberg was one of the first judges in a case called jgg. I've had the ACLU who's leading the charge there. So have you. I've had Lee Galertner from acl, Galert from the ACLU on as recently as a week ago, talking about the case. And that's when Donald Trump. That's when Boasberg for the Trump administration, said, you're not sending 200 Venezuelans to El Salvador and the El. And the prison there, seacot Prison, without due process until I get my arms around it. So I'm going to enter a temporary restraining order. Knowing that the temporary restraining order was coming that day, they continued to fuel the jets and fly them away from federal court jurisdiction and oversight on purpose. And when they got into the courtroom, they had Drew Ensign, who's the lead lawyer there, effectively not tell the truth to Boseberg. I don't think they told the truth on their recent filing either about the timing of the planes versus the judge's order. The judge had Grounded the planes. And he said, any plane that has left needs to turn around and come back because I have jurisdiction over human beings. Right, like, like federal officials and pilots to tell them to come back. And they didn't do that. They grounded some other planes. But 200 people went to Venice, went to El Salvador. In fact, most of those people are no longer in El Salvador. They were later traded in a prisoner exchange back to Venezuela. So they were so mean and ornery and narco terrorist military combatants that we sent them back to Venezuela to rejoin the narco regime that we're at war with. Does that make any sense to anybody? No, because all of it's untrue. So the judge says, what do you mean the plains went? They said, well, you gave an oral order. By the time you reduced it to writing, there was this gap. And he said, oral order, oral orders from a federal judge are orders of a federal judge. And you violated those orders. And I'm going to get to the bottom of it now, A little twist here. The actual order itself later, much later, got vacated, thrown out by the United States Supreme Court. But at the time they needed to be complied with, they were orders. And the way this works is you don't get to say, you know, I think one day, Judge, your order is going to be found to be, it's going to be reversed on appeal or you're going to lose at the Supreme Court. So, you know, contempt, I don't care. You can't do that. You have to abide by the order unless and until you're relieved of the order down the, down the, down the way. So that's what you hear, a lot of MAGA jumping up and down. But he lost. Boseberg's order was reversed at the Supreme Court. He said, now I need to get to the bottom of who violated my order and why. And you and I reported in April about the start of a criminal contempt proceeding. Probably he found probable cause to start a criminal contempt proceeding against the Trump administration. They appealed all that to the D.C. appellate court, three judge panel. You know the old joke, how many Trumpers does it take to screw up a decision? 2. There were two Trumpers, Judge Rao, Judge Katz, and they, but they none of that, along with, I think it was Pollard as the third judge, a Democratic appointed judge, and they couldn't come to an agreement on a consensus of what they're even their ruling meant. So. But it did stop the contempt proceeding. Then it went off on another layer of appeal related to whether this was going to be heard by the entirety of the D.C. circuit. And then when they said no, but they also gave permission for Judge Boasberg to pick up where he left off to get to the bottom of contempt, which the appellate panel said was very, very serious. And Trump wasn't relieved of the, the Trump administration wasn't relieved by the contempt contumacious behavior because the Supreme Court later bailed him out on the order. So that's how we got here. The judge reopens the hearing last week and he says to the parties, give me a briefing schedule and witnesses that you think would be important for me to, to hear from one in particular. The judge says, I want to hear from is Right, right, right. What you and I talked about, I said at the time when Erez Reuveni, who just joined Democracy Forward as a new lawyer. Democracy Forward is over with us on an amazing playlist on Legal a on legal af channel. They have 100 cases against the Trump administration. Now, Erez Reveni is one of their lawyers. But Erez Reveni used to be for 15 years, the head or one of the senior lawyers in the immigration litigation division of the Department of Justice. Served five administrations. Apolitical. You and I should never have to say the words Erez Reuveni, but he's one of the unsung heroes because he told the truth to Judge Zenis and Judge Boasberg that things were happening that illegally Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador when he shouldn't have been. That's not part of the record. And he told Judge Boasberg when he was in the Boasberg courtroom, he told him the truth, that planes went after the oral order was issued and he got fired for doing so. And when Emil Bovey, the number two in the Department of Justice, number three in the Department of Justice, who was nominated to be and has now been confirmed to be a 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals judge sitting in Philadelphia, former criminal judge, criminal lawyer for Donald Trump. When Amel Bovey was in his confirmation process, out came like a 30 page single spaced whistleblower complaint from Amil, from Erez Raveni, who said right in the same time block, same days as Judge Boasberg's order was violated, that Emil Bovey from the Department of Justice got the litigation, immigration litigation lawyers together in the doj, including Erez Revenue, and told them that if a federal judge asks you where planes are as we fly people away under the Alien Enemies act, you're to tell them to F off. Literally F off, fuck off became part of the Senate record as Adam Schiff asked Emil Bovey, did you ever tell the lawyers under you to go tell federal judges to go f off? And now we have the explanation. When we saw that letter, we said, oh, Judge Zinnis in Maryland in the Abrego Garcia case is going to want to hear from errors revenue, and so is Judge Boasberg. And Boasberg, whether he's a fan of the show or not, said in court last week, I want to hear from ers revenue and errors. Raveni is ready to go. He's ready to give testimony in that. In that courtroom about the reason that the Trump administration violated his order. Looks like it's because a now 3rd Circuit judge gave the. Gave the command to violate the order. When it came down to who made the decision within the administration that wasn't a lawyer, they threw Kristi Noem under the bus. She's always good to throw under the bus. Puppy, color, gnome. I, based on the advice that was given to me by Todd Blanche and Emil Bovey and other people in my department, made the decision that an oral order wasn't binding or whatever this crazy crackpot theory was to let her give the go signal for these 200 people. So to the answer to the, you know, to answer the question, who gave the. The code red? It was Christy. No. She's now going to have to testify in on paper. We call it a declaration. If it's live, we call it live testimony under oath. Amel Bovee might have to. That's going to be weird. 3rd Circuit Appellate Judge coming over to testify to Chief Judge Boberg at his trial court about a hearing. You know, because they all thought. Trump thought he was gonna bury this problem. He was gonna take the 200, take him out of El Salvador, send them back to Venezuela. He was gonna take Elmo Bovey, go hide him in a court position, a judge position. Nothing to see here, right, folks? Not according to Judge Boasberg. And so what we're left with is the Trump administration and Pam Bondi continuing to hammer away at the reputation of, which is unassailable of Jeb Boasberg. Oh, Jeb Boasberg. He's the one as the chief judge that allowed those subpoenas about the phone records for the senators. By the way, note to Maga and Lindsey Graham. Nobody gives a shit about the fact that your phone bill was looked at in order to determine whether you were trying to overthrow democracy. No voter cares about that in the swing states. And yet this is what the Trump administration is left with. Oh, Boasberg was involved with that. Oh, Boasberg is a radical terrorist enabling Judge Bondi said recently. I'm like, they obviously know that their time on planet Earth in the Department of Justice is short and they're making, they're just, I mean, would you ever think that an Attorney General would attack a sitting chief judge of the D.C. court in the vocabulary that's being used by the Trump administration? Would you ever see that, Ben?

Ben Mycel (41:27)

You would never see that. You would never fathom that. What you would see is where I went to law school, Georgetown law, someone like Bozberg and the AG sitting on a panel together, you know, having a collegial conversation about the rule of law. That's what I was used to seeing when I went to law school.

Michael Popak (41:47)

I agree. And I mean, I went to Duke and we were within the three hour drive from D.C. and Supreme Court justices used to come down to judge our moot court competition. When I was on moot court board, I got to sit next to Justice Kennedy, who just got put on a brand new justice. Even though I was still the same Democratic person I am now, you know, I was still an honor and a privilege to meet Justice Kennedy and host him at my table and all that Scalia came down for. But like, that's. This administration does not take, especially the Department of Justice. There is no independence. They're just political hacks who are an arm of the Trump campaign instead of being what you and I expect and demand and the people demand from their Department of Justice. Look, there's a lot of repair work that's going to have to get done starting at the midterms. But then when a Democratic president takes office, he has to rebuild from almost from scratch. The Department of Justice put in an Attorney General that is respected, who then spends time to take 5,000 people that left and either get them back, hopefully making it attractive to bring back career prosecutors back to the fold because of the brain drain. And then new people because there's another major problem you and I only touched on. Law students don't want to work in the government. Law students don't want to work in the Department of Justice from the top 10 or top 20 law law schools. And they're abandoning clerkships, you know, and, and so there's this whole gap. It's like Covid gap for kids in school. Like, oh, I didn't, I wasn't on campus for three years. There's a whole gap in the training and the talent that would be in the Department of Justice. All has to be rebuilt from Scratch by a, by a new president. One last thing, the only thing that's been good so far, it's. I'm. It's hard to believe there's been so few. I want to get your opinion on this. So few federal judge openings for Trump to fill. There's been a few, but very few in the first 10 months. I'm not saying it's going to hold for the whole three next three years, but what do you make of the fact that there's so few people retiring or openings for Trump to fill right now?

Ben Mycel (44:08)

Look, I would say that about 90 to 95% of this current federal judiciary at the trial court level, federal judges, by and large, do not like this regime, uphold law and order. I may disagree with their rulings, but by and large have a view that Trump is a threat to this Constitution at that level. Okay, you of course, have your outliers like your judge cannons and others, but I would say 90% of the federal judges have actually done their jobs, by and large. Then you get up to the circuit court level, and I feel like that probably drops to about 65%, 70%. But by and large, the circuit court judges taking their responsibilities seriously, usually affirming the rulings of the trial court judges. And we're talking about Trump judges, we're talking about Obama judges, George W. Bush, George H.W. bush, Reagan judges, Biden judges, you know, Clinton judges. At the Supreme Court. That's been the biggest betrayal and the most significant because they've used their shadow docket by invoking procedural nuances that they've never invoked before to often stay or pause the federal court or circuit court rulings pending trial and trials can take years, as we're seeing take place. So if it takes years and the status quo, the Supreme Court says, is what Trump says, not the federal judge order or not what existed before Trump, which I would interpret the status quo as what was the lawfully existing thing before Trump broke it? The Supreme Court saying, well, Trump broke it. That's the status quo quo. And the federal judge stopping Trump is not the status quo by bringing back what existed before Trump, but is breaking the status quo because Trump's a status quo. That's what the Supreme Court is saying. So they're allowing Trump's policies to stay in effect based on shadow docket and staying these, these rulings. So I think that the federal judges have made a pact with each other, and I think that they've been able to make it not like, by being in like a back room smoking cigar, saying, here's what we're going to do. But I think if you've listened to their messaging at the various conferences, they've been signaling to each other, we need to hold the line right now. And not to suggest that someone who's on the older side, there's going to be resignations, of course, just by the nature of the age of some of these judges. But Popak, I believe it's in. I believe it's intentional. But I want to talk about this, too, before the break. And I think we can take this one in a little bit of a shorter nugget here, which is we're also seeing now state level legislators assert themselves against the Trump regime in a place like Ruby Red, Indiana, of all places, where we've just seen a group of about eight of them. But it could be even more at the Indiana state Senate level saying to Trump, we're not okay with you rigging these Indiana maps. And many were saying, well, we were open to it and receptive to it. We don't like the tactics that you've used to try to kind of bully us. And, you know, Trump goes through his whole abusive cachet from charm to threats to, you know, basically inspiring death threats. Want to come to the White House? You could be a club Rose Garden. You want to take a picture with me? You want to golf with me? I got you. Oh, you don't want to do it. I'm going to primary you. I hate you. I'm going after you. You're the worst primary this person. So we heard just in the past 48 hours from two Indiana state senators. You had Michael Bowacheck, Indiana Republican state senator, whose second daughter, whose second daughter has down syndrome. And he says, you know what, Trump, you've been referring to people as the R word. You've called Governor Walls the R word on Friday over the past few days or on Thursday. And he's like, you know what? Good luck. Convince the American people over the next 10 months that your policies and your behavior deserve a congressional majority. Try to tell the American people that this is the behavior that they want in the president. A Republican Indiana state senator said that. And then another Indiana state senator, Greg Walker, says, I don't even want to go to the White House. He goes, I refuse the invitation to go to the White House, but the underling who reached out to me is trying to influence the election on my dime. That individual works for me. He works for you. He's on my payroll. He's on your payroll. And he's campaigning on Company time. That's a violation of the Hatch Act. He's a federal employee. He works in the White House. But does anyone care about the rules anymore? Not that I can tell. I want to talk to you about this a little bit. Popoc. We come back from our next quick break. And then let's talk about the, the war crimes that Hegseth is committing. And we'll talk about more. And we'll talk about the fact that Trump granted that D.C. shooter asylum back in 2025, but is now trying to blame Biden. But here again, we see another example of Republicans, you know, in a ruby red area saying, no, we're not doing this, we're not doing this. Sorry, see you later. We don't like your behavior and your conduct. We're not attaching ourselves to this. I think a major reason is they saw what's going to happen or what happened in the blue tsunami earlier in November. But if you thought that blue tsunami in November was something at these midterms, if you see a result like that at a grander scale, the Trump presidency is over. And not only is it over, but I think you can now encourage Republicans to actually support impeachment efforts and to support basically standing up to Trump because they now have to think about what's their future in a post Trump world.

Michael Popak (50:22)

They have to triangulate and they have to, they'd have to triangulate to show they're not Trump in order to save their own politics. As you and I have said as we round out this segment here, the time horizon for Donald Trump and those of the Republicans are different. Donald Trump has a short time horizon both chronologically and electorally. Okay? He's not right and people know it. And so others that want to have a career beyond Donald Trump are going to have to figure out, and I believe you're right about the pent up demand to vote against Donald Trump that's coming for the midterm election. He will be the lamest of lame ducks, as you said. His presidency will effectively be over. And then people are going to be trying to figure out how they survive beyond because the MAGA movement is not going to be picked up by like Marco Rubio and, and, and J.D. j.D. Vance. I mean, you know, you know, Donald Trump is, is one of one when it comes to the ability at the height of his powers to commandeer that party. And now it's just going to be a mad scramble to which the Democratic Party, which usually gets bad, bad publicity for not being disciplined and not being organized we look tremendous. The party looks tremendously disciplined and tremendously organized as a counterweight to Donald Trump.

Ben Mycel (51:44)

Let's take our last quick break of the show. A reminder. Michael Popo's law firm is, I think, doing a great job representing so many people in this country who have their own individual cases. And he's representing a lot of people who listen and watch the show. So if you or anybody you know has been injured or whether it's a car accident, a trucking accident, whether you know someone who's the victim of, who died in a horrific accident, catastrophic accident, whether it's medical malpractice, victim of sexual assault, give the Popoc firm a call. The consultation is free. It's 877-POPAK-AF or call the or go to the popoc firm.com that's 877 popoc. Or visit the popoc firm.com consultation is free. And then if Popo's firm takes the they do it on a contingency, meaning they don't get paid unless you get paid. Also, check out Michael Popo substack, the Legal AF substack and subscribe to Legal AF on YouTube. So close to 1 million subscribers. So close. All right, we'll be right back after our last quick break of the show.

Michael Popak (52:50)

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Ben Mycel (57:01)

Welcome back to Legal af. We've got a lot to discuss in this last segment. Pop, why don't we just go straight to talking about this blockbuster Washington Post report, which is by the way, consistent with what we were, I think it was more than just simply we would be speculating about what took place. I mean, you had a four star admiral from Southcom, which is that region, kind of abruptly quit and resign, which you never see take place, someone halfway through their term like that. That was four star Admiral Hosley. He resigned. Obviously. We had heard stories from the president of Colombia and others in the region in Trinidad and Tobago that a lot of these, in these fishing boats that have been shot down by the Trump regime, that these people were fishermen, that they were not drug traffickers. In any event, even if you assume that they were low level drug trafficking mules, at worst they were the lowest level in the drug hierarchy. People who have the task of basically being their life being threatened or are in the most destitute and they're being sent by the cartels out. Now we also know based on the size of these boats, 24ft, these are not big boats that are being used. They likely don't have the fuel to even get into the United States. So they would have to be refueled several times. They were likely probably going other places in the region if they were going anywhere with drugs. We also know for a fact that there was not fentanyl in those boats. I mean, if anything there was cocaine. The fentanyl comes from basically the precursor and the ingredients that fentanyl come from Mexico. They're not coming from, from the region of Venezuela or Colombia for sure. They aren't there. So those are kind of the undisputed facts. And look, we have Coast Guard, you know, Donald Trump was talking about on that deranged press conference he gave on Friday about the Coast Guard cutters, those Coast Guard ships. For very long time we have these Coast Guard cutters interdicted the ships that are close to the United States. They go on the ships, they see if the ship, if the boats have drugs on them. I think the statistic is somewhere around one fourth of the ships that they believe have the drugs on them actually don't. But that's why they interdict. They see there's a process. They don't kill them. And if there are drugs on it, they arrest the people and then they try to figure out the source and then they build a methodology because ultimately they want to get to the high level traffickers, Popak, like Juan Hernandez, like the president of Honduras, the guy in the Honduras. You take your sources, you find who the real person is, you run a case against that person and that person gets sentenced to 45 years.

Michael Popak (60:02)

It's hard to interrogate them when you blow them up.

Ben Mycel (60:05)

One of the reasons, one of the things that we've seen in Colombia and Honduras is actually, I'm not going to say that they're drug free. Let's not get carried away. But you've actually seen in with President Petro of Colombia, with Siomera Castro in Honduras for the first time with help of the United States, real efforts to reduce the drug narco states in those countries. Now as the narco states in those countries have diminished, you've seen an increase in fentanyl from China and Mexico and elsewhere. So, you know, it's a little bit of a whack, a mole game taking place. But we've, we've seen what actual the right efforts can do in Honduras and in, and in Colombia. But let's talk about what this new reporting though, that Hegseth ordered SEAL Team 6, which had always been viewed as the elite within the elite, shoot to kill. If there were survivors of these boat strikes, and we know that there were survivors of the boat strikes and then they followed an order to then kill the survivors. And this is a clear cut war crime. We know it going back to the 1800s, this was defined as war crimes based on international agreements, obviously Geneva Conventions, obviously the Rome Treaty and American law. These are war crimes. This is murder. And after World War II there was a lot of examples of German U boat captains, Japanese ships, examples like this where people would shoot people in the water after they were surviving and they held trials and they were like death penalties that sent, you know, people sentenced who were involved in these war crimes after World War II. Popak, break it all down.

Michael Popak (61:54)

Yeah, I mean, listen, I live in an area, I live in Miami where drug trafficking was part of the scene throughout the 70s and 80s. I mean there's. You can leave in comments if you know what a square grouper is. A square grouper is bales of marijuana or coke that have been dumped overboard in wraps and shrink wrap by boats who have been interdicted. And the fishermen that later find them jokingly referred to them as square grouper. But interdiction, where you, as you said, you get to interrogate the people on the boat, extradite them and move yourself up the chain and find out what was on the ship and go through a due process is quite different than the 20 boats and 80 human beings that have made, have been made to disappear by the Trump administration with a push of a button or a series of buttons off of Trinidad and Tobago. And other drone locations. And what we don't have when the Coast Guard interdicts, we hear about the tons of cocaine and the, and whatever other drugs and the people that were on board and who they are. We don't know who these people are because the Trump administration doesn't know who they are. They go on and they lie to Congress. And Pete Hegseth says they were definitely Trend Aragua. All right, give us the big board. Who in Trend Aragua? Who, who are they? How are they connected to the cartel? How are these low level guys on a fishing boat connected to Trend? Or tell us no, because they don't know, because they don't know the identity of these people. And then let's go to phase two. What was on board? As you said, they don't even know what's on board. That's why we haven't heard about, oh, we stopped a ton of cocaine from going. It's not fentanyl coming out of these countries. It's coke and marijuana. It's mainly coke. So you've got that, you got the lying going on to Congress and Congress getting upset about it, including ones that have been in the military. That's why you see, at the very same moment you and I are talking about this story, members of former members of the military that are in Congress, senators and congresspeople or members of the intelligence community came up with the don't give up the ship video in which they said, remember rank and file and army and Navy and other armed force brass. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional for you to follow an unconstitutional order. The Nuremberg principles, which came out of World War II where German soldiers of different ranks tried to defend themselves for the Holocaust and the horrors that they perpetrated by saying, we were just following orders that got thrown out as a defense. You have a moral and legal obligation not to follow illegal orders. That's been embedded in the code of military justice for the United States, the Nuremberg principles, and you and I were talking before we came on the air that I would not be shocked if in 2028, 2029, there aren't televised Nuremberg like trials of people in the Trump administration who have committed acts in violation of the Constitution and of penal law, murder, international law and the rest. That's why we talked about, at the top of this podcast about there's now people, it's coming out of people's mouths, this concept of the next Department of Justice and what they will do. First of all, there's going to be civilian lawsuits filed by the families of the 80 that disappeared, we may not know who they are, but they know who didn't come home from a fishing expedition. And they're going to be suing in American courts with American federal judges, including the ones you identified, who are not really thrilled with the Trump administration on civil cases. You're going to see versus Pete Hegseth. Because we just got new reporting coming out of the Washington Post, of all places, in which, in the first strike, at least in September, which they only showed us the edited version of, because if, if the American people that have seen that video have said, if the American people saw the complete version, which is two, it was shocking to those in military who were watching this, you know, on some screen that two people survived three strikes on the boat, but they survived and they were hanging onto the side of the boat. Of the boat. And Pig Hegseth, according to the new reporting, gave an oral command, not the President of the United States, Pete Hegseth, to double tap that boat and fire another missile from a drone and take them out. Leave no survivors. Let's just leave that. Let's let that reverberate for a second. That is in it. That is a confession of a war crime and murder committed by the head of the Department of Defense, or war or whatever. It is that for which he does not have immunity the way that the President of the United States was given immunity by the United States Supreme Court three years ago in the Trump decision. He instead has a very flimsy Office of Legal Counsel conjured up fabricated legal memo that says that he's allowed because they've declared war or taken up arms against Venezuela, that anything that he does is right and has cover. But every other military justice analyst, including those within the military and outside the military, have all said that was the commission of a war crime and the impunity by which this administration operates, the smugness by which they think they are imperious and they think they are immune to future prosecution and investigation. But it's just staggering. But it's going to start, Ben, with the civil cases that are going to be brought by those families in federal courts that are going to bring out all this evidence as the Trump administration scrambles to defend themselves. And they're not going to be able to say, but we got El Chapo, we got the head of the narco. You didn't get anything, because if you got it, you would have told us what it was. Instead, you just blew people out of the water without due process in a tough guy move, in some sort of deranged foreign policy related to narco terrorism.

Ben Mycel (68:33)

You know, I think that someone should file, if they haven't already, a Freedom of Information act request for the full video of that shooting of the, of the killing of those two individuals. Because what's the Trump regime going to claim? That it's classified. They've already released all of the image other than that part of it. Right. They've, they showed it off, they posted it on social media. And I think that as sick and disturbing as that image is, I think that it's important to actually see the war crimes that are being committed. It's also notable that during the oral argument a few years back on the issue of absolute immunity, one of the hypotheticals that was used by the liberal justices who voted against absolute immunity was a question to Trump's lawyer. Do you believe Trump could order Seal Team six to kill his political opponents? And then the lawyer who's now the Solicitor general at the DoJ, tried to avoid the question and then ultimately said, yes, I think that that is something that you could do if it was viewed as an official act under Article 2, if there was a war being declared, or if there was something in taking care of executive to function. Yeah, I think you could. And then there was a debate, you'll recall our coverage on legal AF between the right wing justices, six of them, who ultimately gave Trump absolute immunity, and the liberal justices who voted against it. And the right wing justices were telling the liberal justices, stop it, those hypotheticals are never going to happen. What we're worried about is the split second decisions that a president needs to make. And if they're worried that they could be criminally prosecuted, they won't be able to make those decisions to which the liberal justices says, you know what, we've been a country for a pretty long time and no former president was ever worried about such a thing because they followed the law. And if you're worrying about those things, then maybe you're a criminal and maybe you're involved in criminality, because there's never been this concept of absolute immunity since the very founding of our Constitution was based on no kings. You want to talk about originalist thinking, right? That's one of the frameworks that the Supreme Court's. We're originalists. We interpret the original framing. The whole freaking Constitution was created as a reaction against the kings, against the monarchy in Britain. So the whole thing was created against absolute immunity. But I think it's interesting because actually Trump used that ruling as he always does. You give him an inch and he takes your life is what I've always said. And in this case, he's used that ruling and said I can go and kill people, I can send ice on the streets and I won't be held accountable. I, I, I, I, I. But as Popak makes clear, the people who are in that chain of command, who are following the unlawful orders, there will be a time, as Jamie Dimon said, well, there'll be a new doj. And again, I think that any Democratic candidate in the primaries is going to be asked, what is your position about the United States joining with the international war court? What's your view of the United States following international law when it comes to war crimes? What would you give immunity to Hegseth and these types of people? Would you pardon them and would you protect them from war prosecutions? And I don't see how any Democrat makes it out of the primary without saying we will agree to any international ramifications for these people who committed war crimes. We will not offer protection and we will not offer any immunity or pardons. I don't see how you make it through the primaries unless you make those commitments. And also we're going to tear down the Golden Ballroom crap and we're going to remove all of the stuff. I think that will be a litmus test. Finally, we talked about a lot, but I think it's important to talk about here before we go, which is of course we know the identity of the shooter in Washington D.C. tragically, we know the National Guards woman passed away from this horrific shooting. The shooter is a guy by the name of ramonala lock and wall, 29 year old Afghan national. He entered the US in 2021. He worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, Special Forces. He was in the Afghan military since he was a teenager and was working with the CIA there in Kandahar and in other areas. There was no red flags at all about his background when he entered the U.S. you all remember that Trump cut the deal with the Taliban, released 5,000 Taliban prisoners. The Taliban prisoners then took over Afghanistan. Trump promised the withdrawal, but he didn't do a withdrawal in May when he promised that he was going to withdraw. And then he provided no intelligence or communications with the Biden transition team. Ultimately, Biden removed the troops from Afghanistan to which the Trump regime, to which Trump and all the Magnus would constantly attack Biden for the exit and the withdrawal which Trump was supposed to do but Trump refused to do because Trump is Trump and this person was heavily vetted. Heavily vetted. And because this person worked with the CIA for 10, was basically a member of the CIA for 10 years in Kandahar and fought alongside American troops. This person was allowed to show up. There was no signs that this person, as far as we know as of now, was engaged. He's living in Washington. There was no red flags until this shooting took place. But then again, the Trump regime granted this guy asylum in April of 2025. And we know the Trump regime has dismantled counterterrorism within the FBI and instead placed the FBI on going after abuela and abuela duty, like going after people who have been here for a long time and who have been contributing to our country. They've attacked migrants in the factories and in the restaurants and on the farms and in the Home Depot parking lots and going through Latino neighborhoods and terrorizing them. And landscapers, instead of focusing on the bad guys or developing intelligence on the bad guys. And the Trump regime picked an intern from the Heritage foundation whose only other job experience was as a summer landscaper and MAGA social media guy who is a big super Trump fan named Thomas Fugate. 22 years old, no experience in the FBI, no experience in intelligence, no experience in anything. Okay. Other than he was. The guy was an intern. They made him the head of counterintelligence at the FBI because Trump hates the FBI and wanted to destroy it. What better way to give the middle finger to the FBI than bring in a 22 year old guy who has no clue about the FBI. Right. And make him the head of the most important division, counterintelligence. So I'm not going to do what MAGA does and say, well, because of Fugate, that's why this happened. But I will say objectively, our counterterrorism has been extremely degraded and our ability to develop real time intelligence. So who knows? Could the FBI have been keeping track of people in chat rooms and see if somebody was getting radicalized? Well, that's what they would do. That capability has been severely harmed, if not outright removed. And lots of former FBI agents have been warning us about that in litigation against the Trump regime. And these are FBI agents who served under Bush and Obama and even the Trump first administration who are now saying this second administration, this regime is engaged in this type of conduct. So I covered a lot of it there, Pop. But I'll give you the final word on the subject.

Michael Popak (76:25)

No, I think, I think, I think you hit it all. But I'll just do it for what I did at the top of the podcast. Every time Donald Trump tries to make political politically exploit a Tragedy, it backfires for him. But how quickly those in his administration are so in this hermetically sealed world that, you know, right on cue, John Ratcliffe, the head of the CIA, blames the Biden administration and this one blames the Biden administration and all. And, you know, and then, oh, let's turn it towards now, nobody from Afghanistan is ever going to be able to come here again. And, and another Muslim country ban is going to happen. That's not what happened here. What happened here is a guy who, starting in 2011, worked for some combination of the US military and CIA and was trained and trusted in Afghanistan and got resettled in the state of Washington. Somewhere along the way, something happened, you know, a circuit breaker blue, a fuse blue, and he got radicalized or is just a crazy mass shooter. I mean, there's plenty of white, non Muslim, non Afghan mass shooters also, including ones that fire at ice regardless of who's in charge. But Donald Trump's attempt to exploit it is what you and I keep a close eye on. Just as we saw in the Charlie Kirk murder, him trying to turn that into a cause celeb in order to crack down on, you know, DEI and First Amendment speech and, you know, Democratic groups and fundraising and all that. And that seems to have backfired because the American and Jimmy Kimmel, that backfired on him because it people stood up for First Amendment speech and against tyranny created by a president who had lost sight and lost any. What's the word, any barrier between his presidency and his political world. When they saw the entirety of his cabinet go to Arizona for the Charlie Kirk vigil, when they saw J.D. vance hold a Charlie Kirk podcast from the White House that actually turned against the Trump administration. His efforts now to blame Biden for the tragedy that happened with the National Guard similarly is turning against him in the public polling because frankly, the American people don't see a president who is focused on what matters to them on a daily basis. And I'll end it with the polling that I started the podcast with, while the ruby, ruby red areas like Wyoming, he's never going to lose Wyoming. In the seven battleground states, plus Texas, Wisconsin and Florida, he is underwater double digits at the moment, meaning if we were to run the election again, he would likely lose all of those battleground states. You and I wouldn't be talking about a Trump presidency. People want their vote back, especially the independents, which have rejected Donald Trump. 76% of independents want their vote back. Those are staggering numbers. We're 10 year, 10 months into an administration that is looking for any, any way to distract from a floundering administration, even exploiting the death of a poor woman who served this country honorably in the National Guard. But, and that's why you and I got to talk about it, like instantly getting on the air and talking about it. And the people now are starting, you can see it in the polling and the voting. People are starting to see through this administration and their just exploitation for political gain of any tragedy that that should have no political red or blue analysis applied to it. Right. This should just be about the tragedy and then maybe set up a blue ribbon panel to make sure it doesn't happen again. But Donald Trump can't help himself because he's looking for any life preserver that he can find for his depraved administration.

Ben Mycel (81:04)

Want to thank everybody for watching this episode of Legal AFA Reminder. Check out Michael Popox Law Firm. If you or someone you know or love, you believe has a case, call 877-popak AF or visit the popoc firm.com if you've been involved in a car accident, trucking accident. If you know somebody who has or someone's the victim of wrongful death that you know, just have them call the Popoc firm. The consultation is free. Popak is representing a lot of listeners and viewers of the Legal AF podcast. So please 877-popak or go to the Popoc firm. Again, consultation is free and if they take the case, they don't recover unless you recover. Go to Michael Popox substack the Legal AF substack. Check it out substack.com then search Legal AF and then make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Almost 1 million subscribers. I think we could hit that 1 million subscriber mark this year. Thank you so much Legal A efforts. We appreciate you. We hope you had a happy thanks giving. I know times are difficult, but you make these times manageable and you make you make this enjoyable for us even during very difficult times. We'll be here with you shoulder to shoulder every step of this fight. As always, we're grateful for you. Happy Thanksgiving. Please send our love to your family, to everybody you know. Let others know about this show as well. Let's keep on growing. Thanks everybody so much. We'll see you next time on Legal af. I'm Ben Mycel is joined by our co host Michael Popak signing off. Shout out Legal afers. Shout out. Midas Mine. High interest debt is one of the.

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