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- [00:02]
Michael Popak
We were wondering on Legal af, what would be the last straw for career prosecutors to resign en masse to protest the Trump administration's lawlessness, its attack on victims. I think we finally have seen the last straw and that is the murder of Renee Good at the hands of an ICE agent. And not just the murder, but the now, the COVID up of the stench that that now lingers over the White House once again with yet another scandal as the Department of Justice in Washington led by Donald Trump. And for a little while longer anyway, Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche go after the victim, the victim's family, the grieving widow of Renee Goode. And now we've got no less than over a dozen prosecutors in both the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota, led by the U.S. attorney and in the once proud but now fouled Civil Rights Division, Criminal section of the Department of Justice. And forget about Minnesota. Nice. We're now at Minnesota ICE as protesters have hit the streets to protest in the memory of Renee Goode. Is this the thing that's going to crack the Trump administration wide open? Already, already fissured by the Epstein scandal. Cover up. And we'll talk about a new lawsuit filed by the Minnesota attorney general, the judge who's handling two major cases, the only two major cases in Minnesota, about ICE's lawlessness, its abuse of First Amendment protester Judge Kate Menendez and the fate of Pam Bondi in all of this. Also on Legal AF at the midweek the or the oral argument for the this poor defenseless, now 15 year old West Virginia high school student who just wants to be on her track and field team. She's the only openly transgender athlete in the entire state of West Virginia. And yet MAGA treated it like it was their super bowl to try to crush the hopes and dreams of, of Becky Pepper Jackson. This brave started out as an 11 year old in this case and it went up to the United States Supreme Court. And I'm not gonna steal, I'm not going to ruin the headline, but it didn't go well for people that want to protect fragile and disadvantaged people who are powerless in our society, like the transgender community. We'll talk about that here. It has gone well for our economy and its stability and keeping a hold of Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell. He's gone into dark Powell mode, remember dark Biden mode with laser beams coming out of his eyeballs, fighting back against the Trump administration in a way that I'm sure they miscalculated and didn't think would happen. And now even the Trump Administration is starting to walk it back. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, saying out loud we didn't want a subpoena. We didn't want to have a grand jury doing criminal investigations of our, of our, this is my impersonation of the Federal Reserve chairman. But they left us no choice. They were responding to our emails and that's why you were willing to wreck the US and global economy. This is a win for Jay Powell. We'll talk more about it and what happens next as Senate Republicans, especially those on the Senate Banking Committee, abandon Donald Trump and threaten to block his nominee for the Fed chair unless they get off of Jay Powell's back when in doubt. And as the Department of Justice is in flames, the dumpster fire that is now the once proud Department of Justice. Yet they still seem to have enough energy to take another page out of their playbook. Let's attack another federal judge this time. But Trump appointed one for having the temerity to question why Lindsey Halligan continues to impersonate, badge and all, I'm sure a U.S. attorney when she was fired from that position and a vacancy created by Judge Curry back in November 24th. And they decided that they were going to respond to Judge Novak's order to show cause about why Lindsay Halligan shouldn't have her bar license removed and be and be sent for sanctions related to unethical conduct. But they ended up attacking Judge Novak. What else? And we've got, finally, we've got developments in the Epstein files. Are we one step closer to a federal judge taking control of the process, no longer believing the Department of Justice who are now a month late in producing documents. The incredible, the incredible vanishing several million pages or documents in the case. Is Judge Engelmeier one step closer based on his new order in appointing a special master or an independent monitor? He wants to hear from the victims and the survivors. Will they step forward and give their opinion about this? And then we've got brand new reporting just hit the Wall Street Journal and the House Judiciary Committee led by Jamie Raskin, the Democrats anyway, that they're opening up an investigation at two major universities, one Ivy League in New York, Columbia and nyu because apparently that looks like they were may have been used, complicit or otherwise with Jeffrey Epstein as a honey pot to convince young girls that in return for tuition to be paid to those universities, these young girls would, would be raped and be child sex trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. Did the universities much the way banks did, did they know about it? Did they know about the overpayments of tuition that ended up being reimbursed and paid to these victims. Yes. Money laundering through major universities. And we'll talk about that as well with my colleague, I was gonna say illustrious. That's the right term. My illustrious colleague, Karen Freeman McNifolo here on legal A for the midweek. Hi Karen.
- [06:26]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Hi Popa. Great to see you. How are you doing?
- [06:29]
Michael Popak
I'm doing great. Just sort of, you know, up to our. We're up to our. Up to our necks and alligators. Every day there's a new we can only do so much on the show. We could literally make this and an entire day streaming live podcast. I cut out about four or five other major stories including Supreme Court decisions that, you know, just didn't make the cut. And you know, we're trying to be judicious with our time and respectful of the time of our audience. But, but I'm so glad you're here. Many of the stories today touch on prosecutors and their integrity and their ethics and their devotion to the rule of law and, and to the constitution and oath and rules of professional responsibility. So certainly right up your alley as an almost 30 year or 30 year prosecutor. So why don't we dive in? I mean the Midas Touch network has done a great job running live feeds with its collaborator partners of what's happening every night in Minnesota, the protest at the Ice Hotel, so to speak. And we now have new reporting. I'll kick it off this way. We now have new reporting, a leak. I don't know if it came from just sleuthing by media or the FBI and DOJ thought this was helpful to them. But you know, Renee Goode murdered was on her school board of a very small charter school on the south side of Minneapolis, a school based on its own credo on its website devoted to social justice, who had put newsletters together and other sort of mini manuals together about how to peacefully resist and peaceably resist the ICE brutality on the streets of Minnesota in a way to get into good trouble lawfully and express themselves from a First Amendment rights standpoint. Renee Good on the board of that particular school. Morning she dropped off her six year old and then never came home that night after being murdered by ice. This got leaked. It certainly proves that she's not a left wing agitator, domestic terrorist of any kind of. You haven't really been on since Renee went. The Renee Goode murder went down. So talk to our audience about what you're observing in Minnesota and then let's segue into the prosecutors resigning in mass in protest about how her memory and her widow are being treated.
- [08:56]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah, I mean, what's going on in Minnesota is really unlike anything I've ever seen before, because it has been since the beginning of time. Peaceful protests occur. Right. There's a right to peacefully protest. That's what our First Amendment guarantees. And that can take many forms. And you're allowed to peaceably assemble. That's in the First Amendment. Right. And so, as a prosecutor at the Manhattan DA's office for three decades, as you said, we were dealt with. We dealt with mass protests all the time. We had people who had shut down the Brooklyn Bridge. We had people who would chain themselves to trees in the park during Occupy Wall Street. We had people who protesting all sorts of issues. I remember grandmothers who were protesting something in the war, and they were blocking the street, and there were people who were handcuffing themselves together and handcuffing themselves to railings and all kinds of things that block traffic, that do things that you're not allowed to do because you're not allowed to obstruct. Governmental administration is what they call it in New York. And people would get arrested for, but we never had a situation where anyone got shot and killed for it or anyone got forcibly in any way hurt or removed for it. Even Occupy Wall street, which was a huge, huge mass protest that occurred in a park called Zuccotti park here in Manhattan, where people were setting up camp and et cetera, for months. And when the NYPD eventually and they refused to disperse and they were taking over property, and that went beyond the First Amendment implication, It went beyond it. They were bl and refusing lawful law enforcement commands to disperse. Which one could make an argument in Minnesota that Renee Goode was doing right because of her car. They could make an argument that she was blocking the street. And although it's unclear whether ICE or Department of Homeland Security is allowed to enforce local law enforcement rules like blocking traffic, et cetera, that has to be determined. But again, what they would do is do it in a way that is safe, that doesn't harm anyone, that doesn't hurt anyone, and certainly doesn't get to the point where it has gotten with Renee Goode. So it really kind of just shows how having federal agents occupying cities, they're just not trained to de escalate. They're not trained on how to peacefully remove someone without loss of life the way local law enforcement is trained to do. And again, I'm not even considering that Renee Goode was doing that, other than it looked to me like she was trying to move the car out of the way as what she was directed to do, right. To leave the scene. And it looks like the wheels of her tires were moving in that direction. And it also looks like the ICE officer put his body in front of the car. And if there was any contact with his body, it was because of where he put his body. She was trying to get away the way they told her to, to move. So. But one thing that's clear to me is we don't know. We don't know what happened because what they're not doing is a fatality investigation, which is what is supposed to happen. Something I've also been involved in many, many times. Whenever there's a law enforcement involved fatality, you investigate it. And sometimes you investigate it jointly with the feds. It depends on what the issue is. But you investigate it. You do an independent investigation that involves talking to other officers who are there, talking to the officer who their weapon, doing things like looking at the autopsy, which bullet killed her, for example, because you have to look at each shot individually because maybe one was justified, but two and three weren't at that point. And you look at each use of force individually. But it's a painstaking, lengthy investigation that looks at everything from policies of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to whether they were allowed to enforce these local laws to begin with, of use of force, of what exactly happened, what caused death. I'm sure there's other videos that haven't been released to the public, but that's another thing that a joint investigation would do. And ICE has literally iced out the Minnesota local government and they are not conducting a joint investigation. And what's really unbelievable to me is that the federal, federal prosecutors, not even the local prosecutors, the federal prosecutors in Minnesota who are resigning en masse because of how this investigation or this non investigation into this fatality is occurring. And it really seems like they aren't interested in getting to the bottom of it. Right. You had Trump and Vance and others nome, you had them coming out in the beginning on day one saying she tried to hit him with the car, he was justified. How can they possibly know that before a fulsome investigation is conducted? Makes no sense to me that they could make such a statement before that. And certainly it contradicts what we all see with our own two eyes. Looking at these video videos certainly doesn't look justified or certainly doesn't look justified enough that you would say that you Know, if you had a clear video of someone, you know, putting on the gas and ramming, trying to ram a police officer, and the police officers, you know, can't move out of the way and shoot someone, you know, maybe in that clear scenario you might say it looks like from preliminarily it looks justified. But from the video we've seen so far, there is a major question about whether this was justified. Justified under the law. Right. And so for them to come out and say that on day one really just indicates that they're not interested in an impartial investigation. They're not interested in getting to the truth of what actually happened. And what they are interested in doing is defending ICE and their operations at all costs. And no matter who asks, that's what they say. They all have the talking points. And the other thing that's really disturbing and that really is upsetting is they're going now after the widow of the deceased, right? They're going after the widow who's trying to take care of this poor six year old child that they shared, who just lost his mother, going after her and trying to build some kind of case against her, saying that they were domestic terrorists. And frankly, really anyone who is a Democrat, anyone who believes is anti maga, anti ice, somehow is a radical, cult, lunatic, whatever, fascist, domestic terrorist. And that's the kind of language they're using. And so they're going after her instead of investigating what really happened. And that looks like that is what caused the mass resignation both at the Civil Rights Division and the prosecutors in Minnesota. And frankly, I say good for them for doing that, for resigning in protest, for not refusing to engage in this type of activity, and for standing up for what's right. Makes me worried, because who's left to prosecute cases? Who's left with a level head? That's going to be a check on these political persecutions and things that are going on in the current Department of Justice. But that's what I see when I look at that case. I see a rush to judgment and one that's not really caring about what actually happened.
- [16:28]
Michael Popak
I am no longer. Yeah, I think that's a great overview. I'm no longer worried about who's going to be the break on an out of control, lawless Department of Justice. Because now there are matters that are of a smaller nature that I'm sure somebody on the inside who's not a MAGA can influence. I mean, you know, micro decisions that are made every day. But on the most important cases that matter to the American people, Trump and his as his, as his own attorney general and, and for the remaining days of Pam Bondi and then behind her, Todd Blanche, they're going to fire and forced to resign anyone that stands in their way. If they want an indictment rendered, they're going to fire until they find the person that will do it. If they want a grand jury open, they will fire until they get somebody to do it. If they want an started so they can have the headline of an investigation being started and have that black mark against the person who's now has to, you know, who now has to live under that shadow until their name is cleared, they will fire until they get it. And so I used to think, you know, let's leave a few of them inside because it'll probably help. I don't see that anymore. Maybe I just lost my confidence in that. I'd rather them stop enabling Donald Trump. And when it's time to publicly and noisily quit. Joe Thompson, the U.S. attorney for Minneapolis, a career prosecutor, one who's a straight shooter. His investigation into the fraud in the welfare programs of Minnesota is the reason that Trump sent in the surge of ICE to try to embarrass Tim Walls, who's now decided he's not going to run for a third term, to try to embarrass Attorney General Keith Ellison and send in the surge to put troops on the streets in order to bully Minnesotans and show who's in charge and do retribution. He said it do retribution against them as if they were the Iranian government instead of the patriotic Americans. Let's remember this is like the Civil War. We've got US Citizen ICE troops against US Citizens on the streets of Minnesota who were trying to do the watching and the whistling over ICE operations in order to stop people from being killed or murdered in back alleys. And that cost Renee Goode's life in the middle of broad daylight. So good on Joe Thompson and half a dozen of his lieutenants in that office for leaving and good on the six or eight prosecutors under Harmeet Dhillon. We've been talking about Harmeet Dhillon and her deprived operation of the Civil Rights division. It is like literally, it's like allowing a criminal element to run the jails. Harmeet Dhillon is a political hack. She wanted the attorney general position and she didn't get it. She wanted the Republican National Committee chairmanship and she didn't get it. So her consolation prize was to get was to chloroform and take out in the back and shoot the civil Rights Division and a once proud division. If you want to know what it used to do, just go on its website. It's still up there. Founded in 1957 during the Civil rights movement we proudly investigated and prosecuted the killers of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. And the Jewish election workers who went down to register people to vote. Missing Mississippi and all the. And this is what we're, I mean they actually have the balls to keep that up. As Harmeet Dillon has lost more than before even yesterday lost half of her prosecutors who said no, I'm out. I'm not going to allow the, the civil rights division to be weaponized to go after people and actually violate their civil rights. Remember the days when the civil rights division would go after and prosecute somebody like Derek Chauvin, the bad apple cop who crushed the life out of George Floyd also in Minnesota? Yeah. Well, almost immediately, as Karen, you mentioned almost immediately without looking, not having a fulsome investigation, you got Todd Blanche and Harmeet Dillon saying we're not going to be doing a civil rights investigation here. How do you know? How do you know that you that you should or you should not unless you open the investigation and you determine whether civil rights have been taken away along with the life of Renee. Good. How do you know? Okay, so nobody believes in trust in the Department of Justice that makes its declarations up front about what it's going to do. Right. You know it has outcome determinative announcements before they've even conducted the the investigation who trusts Cash Patel led FBI to do anything transparently or with accountability or with due process. And so now we've got the states having to do it. They're being, I had Keith Ellison on. They're being barred from collaborating in the investigation. They'll have to do it on their own. And they're not afraid to bring charges against the federal officer and duke it out in state or federal court over that. So you got two lawsuits now that are pending before Judge Menendez that had back to back hearings, one on Tuesday and one today. The one on Tuesday is about six protesters who are trying to certify a class of first amendment protesters who are being abused by ICE on the streets. We watch it every day on the Midas Touch Network. Right. We watch it every day with video that goes on for hours about what is. You want to know what's happening? Go on, stay on this network and watch. Go under the live tab where we are and go watch the reporting that our collaborators are doing on the streets of Minnesota and Other places. Okay, so that's what's going on there. And so those protesters represented by this group that are before Judgmentendez had a hearing on Tuesday and she got pissed off. She said to the Department of Justice, where is your evidence? I hear from the protesters about what's going on in the streets. You know how the adversarial process works, right? I need evidence from you and hearsay evidence from field officers and field supervisors like Bovino and the rest of that's not going to do it. Where are the people, the agents on the street to testify? And she says she's going to rule this week. And I would be dumbstruck if she doesn't enter a temporary restraining order and certify that class of First Amendment protesters. Following up on what Illinois did with Judge Ellis and Judge May, although there's only one judge here, Judge Menendez, a Biden appointee. That was Tuesday. And we're waiting on the temporary restraining order and the class action there. Today. She held an emergency status conference on the way to setting up the briefing schedule. And now the ultimate temporary restraining order on behalf of the state of Minnesota, who filed their suit under Keith Ellison's office to stop the abuse and the surge on the streets of Minnesota to stop the Gestapo like tactics to stop the border control tactics, as if they're on a border with checkpoints and all sorts of things that are just putting innocent Americans in harm's way, force them to stop brandishing their weapons, pulling out guns and pointing it in the face of Americans, make them wear name tags, take off their masks, etc. Etc. And wear body cams. You know, things that we expect in a civil society in a democracy like America. Now, this was very similar to requests that were made to Judge Ellis in Illinois. There, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals sort of pared back a lot of her attempts to police the police, if you will. But we're in a different, we're in a different place now. We're in Illinois. We'll have to see what Judge Menendez is going to is going to do. Everything is all this liberty and justice is in her particular hands. And now you've got the new reporting that Joe Thompson and the entirety of the Minnesota U.S. attorney's Office leadership walked out the door because they were ordered by apparently Todd Blanch and others to go after the grieving widow Becca Good and to investigate her. I got news for them. This is a salt of the earth couple who believe in social justice, put their kid in a program devoted to social justice, put their Money where their mouth is, did peaceful protest, blue whistles, you know, and pissed off ice. You can hear it in the video. Pissed off ICE agents on the street, not because they were blocked, not because they were rammed. Those are all lies because just, they were just pissed off. You know, we know they're pissed off because there's new reporting that's out there now that Adam, Adam Klassfeld and Michigan Public Radio put out about protesters being told while they were being pepper sprayed and paint and, and pepper balled, being told under their breath by ICE agents, will you stop following us? That's what got that lesbian bitch killed. You know, this is the kind of evidence that comes into a courtroom and comes in either on a civil side with plaintiffs lawyers, you know, and for punitive damages and the rest, because this is, this is the lawlessness of ICE under Kristi Noem and under, and under Donald Trump. So that is all going on. Have you seen the reporting before we go to our commercial break about Pam Bondi being on the way out? Karen?
- [26:26]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
It definitely seems like she's being marginalized at the very least. Right. They're creating a new fraud czar and that reports directly to the White House, not through her. And it looks like, it looks like Trump is telling people, be more aggressive. And it looks like he's. Exactly, he's complaining about Bondi to people that she's not aggressive enough. And I have to wonder if, like Jeanine Pirro, for example, if she went rogue and didn't even go through Pam Bondi to go after Jay Powell of the Fed, because I think the message is loud and clear from the top, be more aggressive, bring more cases and go after the people that, you know, I would want to go after. And don't run it up through Pam Bondi, which is what they're supposed to do. So it certainly seems, at the very least, people feel emboldened US Attorneys who would never do this in any other administration. You have to go through main justice and the attorney general emboldened to make decisions to please Trump and not necessarily go through Bondi. And it also looks like Trump is growing weary of her, even though, frankly, I think she's extremely aggressive and doing things that are way outside the bounds of what we consider to be normal and lawful activities of an attorney general. And standing by Lindsey Halligan, who's not a prosecutor, who court, who Judge Curry ruled is not the U.S. attorney, but standing by her or going after Letitia James and James Comey, et cetera, you know, she's been extremely aggressive but apparently not aggressive enough for Trump. So it'll be very interesting to see how this plays out.
- [28:17]
Michael Popak
I think she's, I think she's, I think she's toast. I think she's gone. She, I thought she was gone based on the performance, if that's what you want to call it, in the, in the House and Senate oversight committees. I thought that Trump would not believe that that was a strong performance. He held, he held a, she got set up recently at a press conference at the White House where it was supposed to be to give some sort of phony award to prosecutors that are left like Jeanine Pirro. Trump came out, totally embarrassed her, yelled and screamed at the prosecutors during the, basically saying you shouldn't be getting an award. You should be more aggressive critiquing her in front of her under, in public. And every major story that's happened in the last month, she has not been at any press conference related to it. Epstein, that's Todd Blanche. What's happening in Minneapolis. That's J.D. vance. What's happening in any other major criminal news story. You don't see Pam Bondi any longer. And so I would be shocked if she survives. This looks like the handwriting is on the wall and the handwriting is of Todd Blanche. I'd be shocked if he's not elevated to the U.S. attorney. It's Donald Trump's favorite criminal defense lawyer since she was never his favorite. You know, she did terribly during the impeachment proceedings for him. She could barely read off of a three ring binder that she was reading from. And Todd Blanche, you know, like him, love him or hate him, was very, very successful as Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyer. And I think he certainly has his confidence. I don't think he brings in another.
- [30:00]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
He represented him in the Manhattan DA case and lost that case.
- [30:04]
Michael Popak
He lost the case. Except did Donald Trump go to jail? No. And on appeal is the issue of whether whatever that little, you know it better than me, whatever that little New York nuance is to all put you down for a felony that could be in jeopardy. So, you know, the immunity decision, Todd Blanche, along with, along with John Sauer, the, the Colorado insurrection decision, Todd Blanche, Mar A LAGO Todd Blanche, D.C. election interference case. Todd Blanche, if you're, if you're looking for a strong winner, it ain't, it ain't Pam Bondi. So I, but I'm not sure that the replacement is going to, if anybody thinks her out is going to change the lawlessness of this Trump administration's doj. It's not. Donald Trump is his own attorney general, as we've seen. And Todd Blanche is complicit just, just the same way Pam Bondi, in fact, he's at least more competent that she is. But I don't think that helps us.
- [31:02]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah. I mean, you have to wonder also, the whole Epstein debacle has stayed in the news every single day for months and it's all about Trump and how they're handling this. And that's under Bondi as well.
- [31:15]
Michael Popak
Yeah, but Todd Blanche is the one that's constantly making comments about it's Todd Blanche's filings, it's Todd Blanche's social media post. Pam Bondi being nowhere. You know, you're making the point there's no Pam Bondi. So I would not be shocked if during a slow news night on a Sunday night, nobody's looking. Pam Bondi is kicked upstairs to like the Trump Organization or the Republican National Committee along with Alina Haba and the other quote, unquote losers that, you know, we know that Donald Trump hates. So we will pick up with when we return from our break, we'll pick up with the transgender oral argument on behalf of Becky Pepper Jackson and transgender high school students everywhere. And what happened during that oral argument. We'll talk about the Federal Reserve criminal prosecution that's apparently with a grand jury been opened even though now they're saying, well, we had no choice. They didn't listen to our emails. Attacks on federal judges which continue with Pam Bondi as they continue to defend Lindsay Halligan to the death. And some new developments in the Epstein files. Many ways to support what we do on Legal AF. One of them is we have a Legal AF YouTube channel and we've just for 2026, we've done some major expansion. Two new Legal AF branded podcasts are out now for your audio pleasure. They need your help and support. Unprecedented a show that I do with Dina Dahl about the United States Supreme Court once a week and a show that comes on multiple times a week called Court of History with Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wallentz. They're up on audio podcast platforms of your choice. They could use some love. They could use some five star reviews and listening and comments and all that good stuff. So we got that. New contributors to legal AI for 2026. The American Civil Liberties Union has joined. 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Receive 30% off your first subscription order. Go to armrud.com legal af or enter legal af to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's a rmra.com legal af welcome back to legal af at the midweek with Michael Popak and Karen Friedman Ignifolo Karen we had an oral argument, disheartening for many at the United States Supreme Court about. Well, on paper it was about a 15 year old named Becky Pepper Jackson and another NCAA former NCAA athlete whose last name is Hecox about whether they're gonna have the right to participate based on the sex that they not only identify with, but in the case of Becky Pepper Jackson that she's taken gender affirming health care to support. She never went through male puberty. She's always been a girl since she was 11 years old when the case was started. Now 15, I think she wants to throw the shot putt. She, you know, that's it. She just wants to participate in collegiate sports and the entire state of West Virginia passed a law to ban her and maga then jumped on board with the Riley Gaines of the world. According to my ACLU contacts who were in the room during the oral argument because the ACLU handled her case. They were lining up. MAGA was lining up for like three days to get tickets to go. It's like they're Super Bowl. So disgusting. You know, just a group that has no political representation. I mean, one member of Congress is openly transgender and she's been bashed. And no political power to speak of. Very small in number. And the NCAA is. Out of 500,000 people in that erring collegiate sport, 10 are openly transgender. You know, they always love to use it as the boogeyman and the wedge issue. Show pictures of some Iranian boxer to say, do you want this in the, in the, in the girls room with your, with your five year old? Which is not what this is about at all. And so we were, we. There was some hope about yesterday's hearing oral argument, which was up on Legal AF substack and I'm sorry, Legal F YouTube channel. And I did a pregame show in advance of it that based on two competing decisions, maybe they would figure out a way not to crush the hopes and dreams and, and take away the dignity of people who are American citizens in the transgender community. There was a case in 2020 called the Bostock case, in which in a 6 to 3 decision led by Gorsuch, they decided that transgender people can't be discriminated against in the workplace under Title vii. We were like, yay. But then a year ago in the Scrametti case, which was argued by an ACLU lead lawyer who is the first openly transgender person to argue at the United States Supreme Court, the six to three went the other way. And they found that Tennessee's ban on gender affirming care for children. You know, when I say children under 18 was okay and wasn't unconstitutional, and we're like, okay, it's. And I knew it was going to come down to Roberts and it was going to come down to Gorsuch and of course Kavanaugh. So the. Here, the oral argument went up. And what was your takeaway from what you heard for the. Or what you heard about the oral argument, Karen?
- [40:30]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah, I mean, you know, it was a three and a half hour oral argument, so I couldn't listen to the whole thing, but I did dip in and out of it and listen. And the ultimate takeaway is of is that the. It's going to be 6, 3 and it's going to be not in favor of the trans community. That's what I think, just based on what I heard. But a bigger picture is the way they were talking and some of the questions they were asking. It's like when you. If you were to somehow zoom into the 1800s and listen to a Supreme Court argument back then, and the way they talk about. The way they would talk about people who are mentally ill, or the way they would talk about black people or even women, you'd cringe and be so offended based on just the way they're spoken about and dehumanized and the way. Just the language that's used and the analysis that's done in such an offensive, dehumanizing way. And I got that same sense from this argument. That's what history, when it looks back at this and how they were parsing and talking about inherent differences and pseudoscience and things that just. It just felt so backward to me and really such a shame that we are in this place in society. But, you know, look, they're going to look at. They're looking at equal protection versus fairness, or what is the scope of Title IX and scientific evidence and whether scientific debate about athletic advantages by birth, sex should influence the constitutionality of state laws and all of that kind of stuff. And I think that in the end, they're not going. If I had to guess, my crystal ball is they're not going to make any big, sweeping rulings about trans rights. I think what they're going to do is they're going to say, leave it up to the states. And the 25 states that ban this, that's fine. And if you don't want to ban it and you want to let people play on sports, then that's up to you. So that's what I think they're going to do. But I don't have a crystal ball. But just from what I saw in the skepticism of the conservatives in their argument, that that's where I, If I had to guess where I thought they'd land. What about you?
- [42:58]
Michael Popak
Yeah, it's going to be six to three against Becky Pepper Jackson and anybody like her. And I think you're right, they're going to leave it to the States. I mean, I wanted to strangle Kavanaugh, who started to tell the same story he told during his confirmation hearing, how.
- [43:13]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
He'S a coach of his daughter's team.
- [43:15]
Michael Popak
About being the basketball coach was first done. Oh, my God. And, and, and, and forget Becky Pepper Jackson and all of the great salutary things that come from being a young person involved with sport that will now be denied her, but focus instead on what about that poor cisgender person who won't make the team because. And Again, creating the boogeyman because they're beat out by the transgender person and, oh, they'll never recover. I'm like, what about the. What about the other person?
- [43:47]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah, exactly. Like, what about the cisgender person who's. Whose parents or whose parents happen to be sick? Both 6 foot 2. And so this cisgender woman happens to be 6 foot 2 and someone else's parents are 5ft tall, and they didn't make the cut. You know, they could say, oh, it's not fair, they have some biological advantage. I mean, that's what it sounded like to me. Just the way they were talking about. About trans people, as if they're not, you know, if you're a trans woman, you're a woman. And they didn't talk about it like that, right? No, they were. Yeah.
- [44:20]
Michael Popak
And Becky would have been a perfect person to talk about it because she went through puberty blockers. She never. She never went through male puberty. And you've seen pictures of her when she was 11. She looked like a normal 11 year old girl, you know, cisgender girl and 15, the same. I don't know how tall she is, but, you know, my. My daughter's on track to being, you know, five nine or five, 10 maybe, you know, God willing, it'll speed up my retirement if we can get her into sport. But. But I have no problem with somebody who works as hard as my daughter will work to earn a spot on the team just because she was born or he was born of a different identifier at birth. And, you know, to create this entire. Let's be frank, there are not enough transgender athletes to put them in their own league. So what you're saying is it's okay to deny them the ability to participate in sport at the high school and lower level in 25 states. Just deny that experience. And for those of us that have done sport in their life, I don't know what your background is in high school and all, but those of us that have had the. The. Whether you were a medalist or a trophy winner or champion or you just got to participate in a sport and learn what hard work and teamwork and self confidence is all about, this is now being denied to this marginal, now marginalized, disadvantaged group in our society, and there's no recognition. I just wish the ACLU would just speak like normal people sometimes out loud and say the transgender community, for political purposes, is under attack by MAGA and Donald Trump, that it started with gays in the military and gay marriage and a woman's right to choose. And when they ran out of things to use as wedge issues to put each other at each, to put Americans at each other's throats, they turned to the most helpless community that we should be stretching our arms around to protect and the Supreme Court should, too, in the transgender community and see it for what it is instead of getting into the well, I coached my, my daughter's the middle school basketball team and wasn't done. You know, I don't know why I slip into Ben's impersonations and things sometimes. I think that's because I've been around. You know, they say like you, the dog becomes looks like its owner. I start talking like Ben sometimes.
- [46:48]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Which one are you? The dog.
- [46:50]
Michael Popak
I leave it at that. See, I leave it at that. People can put in comments, but again, again, no laughing matter. We people know on this, hopefully know in five or six years of this show that we are tremendous supporters of the transgender community. We're supporters of any community that needs the protection of the rule of law in the Supreme Court. Remember the old days, Karen, when the Supreme Court used to actually step in and spread its wings to protect under the Constitution, disadvantaged groups and make sure they had constitutional rights instead of taking them away with stupid anecdotal stories from their own life. Remember those days?
- [47:29]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
You know, it's hard to remember, but yes, I do.
- [47:32]
Michael Popak
So this is not going to go well. I agree with you. I think in June, one of these controversial decisions that they'll drop on their way out to one of their boondoggles paid for by the Federalist Society, over another billionaire, another billionaire on a yacht somewhere. They'll be basking in the glow of their decisions and we'll get things like the tariffs decision and this decision and, and whatever else that they decide that's controversial that they need to drop heads up for people. A week from about a week from today, the Supreme Court's going to be hearing the case of Donald Trump's powers to fire and take over the Federal Reserve. Because we're going to talk about the Federal Reserve next. And, and Lisa Cook clinging, clinging on to her board, her, her Board of governors seat and whether they're going to side on a business issue with Donald Trump here in his takeover of the independence of the Federal Reserve, or they're going to follow what they said just as recently as the summer when they said, no, not the Federal Reserve. You can swing your ax, Trump, wherever you want on congressionally created agencies, departments and things. But not, not, not our bank of the United States, not the Federal Reserve Central Bank. Yeah, let's see if they, let's see if they uphold that in how they handle Lisa Cook and due process concerns. But let's switch gears now and talk about Jay Powell. So we wake up a couple of nights ago. It's funny, on Sunday nights I do my recordings for the first video of the day on legal layoff YouTube channel to have it up and ready for people at 8am and you know, sometimes it's a, you know, it's a little bit of a slow news weekend. I mean, not recently. Yeah.
- [49:13]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
When was that?
- [49:14]
Michael Popak
Those days are over. And so I was like, I was working on a story and then the bombshell hit, you know, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. There's an open grand jury led by Jeanine Pirro's office, the U.S. attorney's office, and they've issued criminal subpoenas to the Federal Reserve and Jay Powell about the cost overruns. Cost overruns, mind you, for the guy that's doubled the cost of a, of a half a billion dollar Golden Ballroom on the wreckage of the, of the East Wing in Trump and what Jay Powell told, and under oath told the senators, like Tim Scott about the renovation project. This all stems, let's be frank, this all stems from Donald Trump getting embarrassed by Jay Powell. Not on purpose. Jay Powell is not a guy that goes out of his way like, like Barack Obama did at the White House dinner 15 years ago to piss off Donald Trump and make him run for office. But this was just Jay Powell pushing back as he was being paddled by Donald Trump in public about cost overruns. And he said, let me see that sheet of paper. Oh, that you're adding in an entire other building that we did five years ago in your cost overrun calculation. Well, that embarrassed Donald Trump. He didn't like it. So now he's doubled down on it. But in response, and I won't play it again because it's been overplayed, but in response, within minutes, hours, Jay Powell, he of modest, modest demeanor. And I'm sure this led to a miscalculation by the Trump administration that Jay Powell would never come out and say what he said. He didn't just come out and say, I'm innocent. He didn't just come out and say, I'm a man of high integrity. And the Federal Reserve, you know, did not have cost overruns that were criminal in nature. And I did not mislead Congress. No, no, no. He said, we all know what this is about. This is about the attempts by Donald Trump and the Trump administration to take over the Federal Reserve, destroy its independence and take over interest rates. And what that had the effect of doing, leave it to Jay Powell to rescue our economy once again, was to calm the waters of the financial markets. Who didn't wake up to, holy shit, Donald Trump's going after Jay Powell criminally now. It woke up to Jay Powell saying, everybody, pump the brakes and relax. I'm not going anywhere. In fact, I'm really not going anywhere, including until 2028, if you thought I was. And just get back to your work on the financial markets. And there was like a. Almost no impact on the financial markets, but it did lead to a battle cry. And it led 20 central bankers from around the world, led by Canada and the central bank. They're bailing us out once again. Midas mighty. Midas Maple mighty, thank you very much. Central bank in Canada bailing us out and 20 other central bankers. But more importantly, Senate Republicans coming to the rescue, including Thom Tillis, who's got nothing to lose. He's like, I'm only here on 2026 anyway, and saying, yeah, I'm not going to vote on the Senate Banking Committee for any Trump nominee, especially for chairman, while you still have an open investigation against Jay Powell. Just not going to do it. And that alone would create an impasse. Just Tillis alone doesn't need anybody else, although there are other people that have now come forward. And Karen, did you hear what Jeanine Pirro just said out loud to try to justify the investigation, but give her an out to dismiss it?
- [52:39]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah, she said, she said, well, they should have just answered our emails that we sent right before and right after Christmas, by the way, you know, that it was like December 19th or something and like the 29th, and they didn't answer our emails. That's all they had to do. And then we wouldn't have done this. I mean, she's already backtracking because I think she sees that this was too aggressive. This has gotten a response from all around the world and Republicans and Democrats here in the United States. And I think she was flexing and trying to show off for Donald Trump and go after an enemy and go around Pam Bondi. And that's why she, she did this. And this is her way of kind of currying favor with Donald Trump because Powell isn't lowering interest rates the way Trump wants him to. Because the whole point of the Federal Reserve is supposed to be independent. It's not supposed to be influenced by politics. That's the entire. That's how it was created. That's why it's very bipartisan. The leadership and the positions are staggered so that it goes between administrations and you can't remove people without cause. I think this act actually will help the Supreme Court case and Lisa Cook next week. The fact that it's so political and to see what Donald Trump is trying to do to Powell and how Pirro is trying to threaten him with a grand jury investigation and criminal prosecution, I think the Supreme Court's gonna see that and say that is too far. And that does take away the independence.
- [54:10]
Michael Popak
Yeah. In fact, that's a very good point. There were multiple audiences for, for, for Chairman Powell's late night video. One of them was to calm the financial markets, which was a success. But the other one I think was a signal, as you noted, back to the Supreme Court saying to them, you see, if you empower Donald Trump and you don't clip his wings in the area of Federal Reserve independence, you see what he's doing to me. And the even though we don't like the Supreme Court when it comes to civil liberties, civil rights, women's rights, immigration rights and transgender rights, when it comes to business issues, they don't always side with Donald Trump. I don't think they're going to side with Donald Trump in the tariff decision when it finally is dropped in the next couple of months. And I don't think they side with him on how he handled the Lisa Cook firing. I don't think firing by social media post is going to satisfy their requirement of, of either due process. And I don't think they're going to take off the requirement that when it comes to the Federal Reserve, you got to have just cause. And that Bill Pulte's social media tweets is not going to do it. And he's involved in the Powell one as well. So no surprise that Jeanine Pirro is already kind of figuring out a way to like walk this back underwater is, I'm sure of Donald Trump. All you know, it's just again, an example of where Donald Trump, Trump just can't get out of his own way. All he had to do is shut up, pick his new replacement, announce it next week, whoever that's going to be for the Federal Reserve chairman. Just stop get all don't troll America and the economy and the global economy and don't troll poor Mr. Powell who's doing an amazing job, go down in history as one of the greatest Federal Reserve chairman ever and how he's navigated the US economy against the crosswinds of an insane Donald Trump and his economic policies. It's all he had to do. And maybe, maybe if he acted nice and caught more flies with honey than with vinegar, maybe Jay Powell not only would have stepped down May 20, May of this year as chairman, maybe he would have stepped down from the entirety of the board of governors before 2028. I don't think so, because I don't think he wanted to give Donald Trump an open seat. I think he's going to hang in there, but now he's certainly going to hang in there. And now you've created a situation where your new chairman pick may not get picked and confirmed by the Senate because the Senate Republicans are saying that's a bridge too far. What are you doing now against Jay Powell and undermining our economy and undermining our debt and our dollar and the treasury notes and rates? First of all, this is why the global bankers all join together to support Jay Powell's. It scares the shit out of them, them. I mean, there's an old line which is true if America gets a cough, the rest of the world gets the flu. And we are the bellwether and the standard, the gold standard for the rest of the world's economies are reactive to our economy. And that's why you got to get off the back of the American consumer voter and of course, of Jay Powell. When we come back from our last break, we'll talk about the, the, the remaining days of Pam Bondi. We just got note that she has been called to testify before the House and Senate Judiciary Committee on February 11th. I'm not sure she makes it. Circle that date on your calendar, folks. I'm not sure she makes it to February 11th. We may see somebody else sitting in that chair by that time, but certainly they, the oversight committees have called her in, which I think is appropriate. But yet they're coming out swinging against another federal judge, this time a Trump appointee in Judge Novak in the Eastern District of Virginia who on his own initiative entered effectively in order to show cause as to why Lindsey Halligan, she shouldn't just have her name taken off of pleadings and off the indictments, which is what they've created a straw man in their argument. You know, oh, you're doing an inquisition over the signature block. No, you must not have read the second half of his order, which was explain to me why you haven't violated five or six different professional rules of professional responsibility and ethics, why I shouldn't refer you for bar discipline. Why I shouldn't ban you from my courtroom and I want you to sign whatever gets filed because you wanted to see how she was going to sign it. And of course when we come back we'll talk about how she signed it, who joined her in signing it, and the arguments that they've made to attack Judge Novak and major updates in the Epstein files matter, including involving two major universities. We'll cover all of that and more. We're going to take our first break. Remember to become a legal AF YouTube member and paid member. That's what keeps gives us the resources to continue to grow and expand and add on new contributors and the American Civil Liberties Union, etc. Etc. For 20, 26 and beyond. And of course we've got legal AF substack as well where you you'll find content like no other. And I'll give you a return on your investment you've never seen before if you come over to Legalif substack and we're running a sale on our paid membership at 20% off there as well. But now another word from our pro democracy sponsors. 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Welcome back to the midweek edition of legal af with your host, Michael Popak and Karen Friedman Agnifolo Karen, what do you make of their continued support at the Department of Justice for Lindsey Halligan and and I don't know if you got a chance to read Judge Novak's order and the response by the Department of Justice in which I'll just summarize it this way and turn it over to you. Their argument is if they don't agree with a federal judge's interpretation of the law, they don't have to comply with it. That they have as an equally they have as equally a legitimate interpretation of the statutes that are at at issue about the appointment of a U.S. attorney. And they don't read judge this has to. But then we don't read Judge Curry as having created a vacancy, although her order says she created a vacancy and that Lindsey Halligan is banned from being U.S. attorney. And we just don't agree with her analysis. So we're not, we're not complying with it. What did you make of their position and what do you think Judge Novak does next?
- [63:38]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Never in my career as a prosecutor.
- [63:41]
Michael Popak
Or.
- [63:43]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
As a defense attorney have I ever seen ever a prosecutor or the Department of Justice take that position. The judge gets to decide. That's the whole point. Right? It's an adversarial system. You've got the prosecution on one side, you've got the defense on the other, and the judge is the referee, the judge decides what the law is in the judge's courtroom, period, full stop. If you don't like it, you appeal it, but you don't disobey it or say, I disagree with you, so I'm not going to, to abide by it. So I find it, frankly, astounding and really unbelievable that that is the position that they will take. But they are circling the wagons around Lindsey Halligan. You've got Todd Blanche and Pam Bondi also just signing their names to this and supporting her. And I don't really understand why they're supporting her so much. And it's not like she's. I mean, yes, she's willing to do whatever they ask her to do, but she's not getting results. And she's kind of an embarrassment. And frankly, no one wants to work with her. So it's really a strange situation that they have there. But I've never seen anything like it. You're not allowed to do that.
- [64:50]
Michael Popak
So what do you think Novak does about it?
- [64:53]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
That's a great question. I mean, will the judge hold her in contempt? I mean, I think at a minimum, the judge will refer Halligan to the Bar Committee's disciplinary committee, potentially risking her law license. Will the judge hold her in contempt? That's kind of the nuclear option. Will the judge dismiss any indictment that, or will judges start dismissing more indictments that her name is on? I mean, my open question is, why aren't the judges of the Eastern District of Virginia, why aren't they voting On a new U.S. attorney? Because they have. That's what's supposed to happen until Trump get someone passed through the Senate. Why aren't they just putting in their own US Attorney and have it be a battle of the US Attorneys? I mean, right now, Trump is holding his ground and saying that she's validly appointed and the judges aren't acting and it's really their responsibility, given the state of things. Because really, what Judge Curry said was the state of the law is you get to appoint someone under the appointments clause for 120 days, and once that expires, you don't get to appoint someone new and then reset a new 120 days. The 120 days is what you get for a temporary appointment. After that, the next thing that is supposed to happen is the judges of whatever district are supposed to vote and elect essentially a U.S. attorney until the president can nominate someone who is qualified and who is then confirmed by the Senate, which is what the process is for United States attorneys. And so that's the one question I have about why they haven't done that here. And so perhaps is it because they already did that with Eric Siebert and then Trump fired him. You know, that was who was the U.S. attorney prior to Lindsey Halligan. That was someone who was nominated by Trump whose 120 days expired, but who was the judges felt was qualified. And so the judges actually voted him in to be the United States attorney. And then Trump went on to fire him when he refused to bring cases against Jim Comey and Letitia James. And so I don't know if they're gun shy because they did it once and Trump fired that person. And they just think it would be, it would be sort of a fool's errand. But this is a stalemate that's going to continue to go on. The judge has to press it. The judge can't allow them to basically give the judge the middle finger, which is essentially what they're doing and saying we disagree with the law so we're not going to follow it. Well, he has to press that and push that and then it'll be appealed and it'll go from there. But I think that's where it goes.
- [67:50]
Michael Popak
Okay, we're in the home stretch, Karen. Let's talk about these new shocking developments that have now been reported by the Wall Street Journal about the Epstein files. It looks like, according to details provided to the House Oversight Committee led by Jamie Raskin, pardon me, it looks like major universities, in this case nyu, my alma mater, and Columbia University in New York may have been complicit in money laundering for Jeffrey Epstein, where Jeffrey Epstein not only used the promise, the bait of girls and young women being given seats and have paid tuition at these universities, but then overpaid their tuition and had the money returned to his predatory victims, which was a way to money launder. And they've now at the congressional level opened up an investigation. Lisa Phillips, one of those survivors who was offered just such a deal and is featured in the Wall Street Journal Bombshell Report, is going to be my guest in an interview, exclusive interview that will be up number one tomorrow morning on the Legal AF YouTube channel. What did you make of that? And then we'll talk about to round it out, Judge Engelmeier considering appointing an independent monitor or special master to take over from an untrustworthy Department of Justice. The process of continuing to produce the Epstein files pursuant to a law that was signed into law by Donald Trump.
- [69:32]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Well, these new allegations that that universities may have been used to, frankly, as, you know, launder money as trafficking victims were being trafficked certainly has to be investigated. And just like there are so many issues still left to be investigated in that case. And I think that certainly survivors deserve it, and that investigation really needs to continue in so many different. With so many different tentacles. Right. Everything that we're learning about, the various banks that potentially also help facilitate Jeffrey Epstein, people who protected him and other people who victimized the girls, the young girls that were trafficked by him. And so I think that there's still a lot to be investigated and a lot to be done. But what's happening right now is just to summarize where we are. Congress passed a law, basically the Epstein Transparency act, saying you have to turn it over, turn over all the records. And the Department of Justice has missed the deadline and publicly keeps reporting different numbers on how many files there are. Right. Based on Midas reporting, it was that Midas found something that referenced over 5 million files, and that's a lot more than was originally represented by the Department of Justice. Now the Department of Justice is saying, well, no, the number's actually 2 million files. And frankly, what we do know is that the deadline has passed and they have not complied with this statute. And so you've got this bipartisan. You've got bipartisan members of Congress basically writing to the judge and saying, we would like to intervene. We would like to be a part of this. And, you know, I think they're going to ask for a special master to be appointed because the Department of Justice isn't getting it done, and they're putting stuff out and then pulling it back out and, you know, pulling it off the website and not complying with the deadlines. And so, at a minimum, it's being mishandled. And I think a special master could, I think, be the thing that brings some legitimacy to this process and some independence and some transparency to this process, and maybe we'll finally get to see all the files. The sticking point is going to be the department, the exception that was created in the Epstein Transparency act, where they can withhold documents that are part of an ongoing investigation. And that's going to be, I think, the hook that the Department of Justice uses to try to withhold documents and other evidence from the public, certainly about Republicans, but not about Democrats. And there's a lot of the one thing that's clear, though, is there's a lot that needs to be done. In addition to just releasing these files, there's a lot more investigation that needs to be Done. And then you've got Congress trying to call the Clintons before Congress and then they're refusing to go and taking on Congress. I mean, this whole thing is really escalated into a mess and frankly, the people who are being harmed by this is not just the American people, but it's the Epstein survivors themselves who really I think are the ones caught up in, in this political mess that has been created by the handling of these files, these millions of records, the investigations in general and all of these files. So there's a lot that still needs to be done.
- [73:32]
Michael Popak
For sure, if I'm the Clintons, I don't testify to them in front of this corrupt Department of Justice off in the wings. I mean, but that's what they want. They want the Clinton have to take the Fifth Amendment to try to embarrass them politically as they try to undermine the Democratic brand and the, and the state's people within it. You know, like threatening to go after Barack Obama and threatening to go after Clinton. They're trying to like go after our Mount Rushmore of recent history.
- [73:57]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
And do you think they're gonna, do you think they're gonna go as far as they went with Navarro and Bannon and, and try to do contempt of Congress? I mean, you know, it's, it's an interesting question, right? If they just refuse to, to come and how far they'll take it. It, it's, it's a very interesting position.
- [74:14]
Michael Popak
They could and, but I mean, I think the right move, and there's a, there's a multi level chess game going on here. I think the right move for the Clintons was not to appear. Even if they do appear, it would be to take the fifth Amendment. But I think we're not there yet. I think there'll be negotiations about it. You know, maybe it'll be closed door, maybe it'll be a statement, maybe it'll be an affidavit. We will have to see what will happen and how that will play out. But you had, you hit something right on the nail, right on the head. There's, there was so much money around Jeffrey Epstein as whatever he was, some sort of financial advisor, talking hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars and money. Money's a funny thing because it ends up places. It ends up being spent, saved, held in banks, held in financial services, invested and used to buy and to fuel and to fund the child sex predator international trafficking ring. You know, it went into the island, it went into the plane, it went into the trips, it went into the promises it went into the bait that was used to get these impressionable girls to be preyed upon. And so now what we're watching, and this is what you and I do for a living, is following the money and where it ended up. That's why oftentimes in the next level or the tertiary level of investigations in the white collar area, it often goes back to the banks and the accounting firms. You know, it starts with the bad guy who stole the money, you know, and then it goes to, well, where did he put the money? Money, how often did he put it there and did they do proper due diligence where if they had shut down the criminal fraud ring, the child predator ring, the deposit of money around that ring earlier, then maybe the entire criminal enterprise would have been stopped if they didn't have a place to park their money. And that's the argument against Columbia and nyu. Listen, they're innocent until proven guilty. However, if the evidence is, is shows that they knew or should have known about these Epstein checks or credit card or whatever was used or donations to get these a bunch of girls into school. I mean, forget about, remember Varsity Blues? You know, a bunch of parents, including some famous ones who like, knew their kids were not good at sport and like paid to get them to be on the, the badminton team or get a badminton scholarship or whatever. Forget Varsity Blues. This is about whether a university and its relationship with Epstein was corrupted and they knew or should have known about it and shut it down to, to stop the child sex trafficking ring in its, in its tracks. And are they complicit in it or are they innocent? Like, oh, we didn't know Jeffrey Epstein from, from Billy Epstein. We didn't know who he was. I just don't think that's how it's going to play out. I think we're going to see a closer relationship and you know, tuition starved and endowment starved universities always looking to bring in cash and Epstein throwing it around. The question is, did they turn a blind eye that could have protected children from being trafficked in an international child sex trafficking ring or not? And then we got Judge Engelmeier on the issue, as we said about Special Master Independent Monitor, the victims are going to come forward because Judge Engelmeier basically in his order asked the victims come forward. And I'm sure there's going to be people, including Lisa Phillips, that will come forward in the next few days to join in with Representative Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie in their request to be recognized as amicus or amici briefs Friend of the court briefs to argue for the special master and independent monitor to be assigned to take the process away from the Department of Justice and frankly, cannot be trusted. They're conflicted, obviously, because they're protecting their boss rather than protecting the victims or the survivors. And so we'll follow that. There'll be developments. That wheel will turn maybe by this Saturday, maybe by the time you and I get back together again, or certainly we will cover it every hour on Legal AF YouTube channel Legal AF substack with my live reports and the rest. So, Karen, we've reached the end of our show. We had a great, great, I think, update and briefing of our audience. We always like to give you the last word. What's on your mind.
- [78:55]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
You know, a lot's going on. I'm looking at a lot of international things right now, right. What's going to happen with Iran? There's reporting that over 20,000 people have been killed and Donald Trump is, is escalating things there and talking about how he's going to take decisive action. And reports that the president of Iran said something like, next time, the bullet's not going to miss him. I mean, we're in a place right now that is so just volatile. He's threatening to take over Greenland and what that'll do to NATO and reports about what's happening in Gaza. I mean, there's a lot going on internationally that can't be lost and that we all have to really pay attention to because Donald Trump is not just trying to destabilize our economy, he's trying to destabilize the world. And he is more dangerous than I think anyone predicted or anyone could have thought of. And, you know, I remember when we first started podcasting and we first started doing this, there were some people who were accusing us of being hyperbolic. Right. And being extreme and being exaggerating, I don't think. And certainly we weren't right. Midas are the people who were the only people that were talking about it. And I think that was the frustration. And why Midas Touch Network was created originally was because everyone was both sidesing everything and no one was talking about this in real terms. And now here we are, we're exactly, I think, worse off than any of us could have ever predicted. And this is really a fight for our democracy. And so I say all this because I'm just so honored to be a part of this network and part of Legal AF with you, Popak, and this community that comes here and listens to us every week. And every day. And this is our way of speaking out and our way of protesting and our way of getting the truth out. But we have to keep staying informed. We can't put our heads down and say things like, oh, it's just too depressing. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to know. This is truly an identity crisis for our nation and for democracy that we're in. And it's just so important that we all stay as informed as possible and keep fighting in our own ways, however we can do it, whether it's through a protest, whether it's writing a letter, whether it's at the ballot box in November, which can't come soon enough, or just being a part of this community. And don't give up hope. There's a lot of hope and a lot I think is we're gonna fight back. We're gonna fight back hard and we're going to win because this is just bananas. What's going on. So I am just so honored to be here with you every week. It's my favorite part of the week. It's the thing I look forward to the most. And I just love, I love legal AF and the legal AFers and the Midas Mighty and everybody else who comes.
- [81:50]
Michael Popak
And that's the bell, everybody.
- [81:52]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Right on cue. Karen. Even speaking too long.
- [81:57]
Michael Popak
Great. No, that was just an alarm. I'm moving on to an interview in a minute. That's a great way to end our show. Thank you, Karen. Legal afers and Midas Mighty. We'll see you on Saturday with Ben Mysellis and of course, regular Reporting on Legal AF YouTube channel and Legal AF substack. Until then, shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal A.
- [82:20]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
You.
- [82:24]
Michael Popak
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Karen Friedman Agnifolo
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Michael Popak
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Karen Friedman Agnifolo
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