Ben (2:22)

Oh, fraud stars.

Michael Popak (2:23)

Also fraud stars, I guess. I guess that's a new genre right there, you know. And also recidivist fraud stars, I guess that's what we'll call them right now. Then let's Go to Minneapolis and St. Paul where the Trump regime is invading. We'll talk about a order, an injunction order based on some of the military tactics of this invasion that are being blocked. And let's talk about the Reagan appointed judge in Massachusetts, Judge Bill Young. His ruling there involving a case involving Palestinian activists and students where he says that Trump and his cabinet are just clearly violating the Constitution in the most terrific way. The name Bill Young may sound familiar to you. That judge has written other scathing orders. When Popak and I have talked about Reagan appointed judges who have been making these very powerful rulings against Trump, Young's been really at the forefront of that. And then we'll talk about the Trump doj. Few things, lots of staff quitting again. We talked about that before, but more people are quitting from the DOJ in Minneapolis and the civil Rights unit. And also you have these tactics like the FBI executing a search warrant on a Washington Post reporter's home. Who's the main reporter dealing with all the whistleblowers within the government agencies who have been describing all the crimes being committed by the Trump regime. Her personal phones and personal computers were all seized by the doj. I mean, right out of Russia. Let's bring in Michael Popak. Great to great to see you, Popak. We've got a lot to discuss on this episode. Indeed.

Ben (3:59)

Absolutely. On Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend. I'm away with my family now just to see what the Civil Rights Division under Harmeet Dhillon is doing to disgrace the name of the Civil Rights Division as you and I continue to hold it up. Federal judges invoking things like the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. And opposing the Civil Rights Division. When you and I talk about senior judges and older judges that matter here, like Judge Young, 85 year old appointee of Ronald Reagan, Judge David O. Carter, somebody in your backyard who famously found that Donald Trump had more likely than not committed a crime during the January 6 proceedings. He just issued a bombshell new ruling dismissing one of the many attempts by the Civil Rights Division to get your and my no, particularly your Ben's voter data in California. And that case just got dismissed with some choice words by David O. Carter. One interesting thing that we're not going to cover today, but I just did a hot take on it that'll go up Tomorrow on Legal AF. YouTube is putting together a couple of pieces of reporting. New York Times took a look at one full year of rulings by appellate court judges, over 900 of them to try to categorize. Are we watching a Trump effect. In other words, if it's a Trump appointed judge, mainly appellate judge from the first term, are we seeing statistical anomalies like they're ruling in large numbers that can't be explained otherwise other than partisan ideology for Donald Trump. And wait till you hear the numbers. I do. Like I said, a deeper dive tomorrow. Ben, listen to this one. Of Trump appointed federal appellate judges at the, at the top level before the Supreme Court, 92% have ruled in favor of Donald Trump in the last year. In 2025, 68% of non Trump Republican judges have ruled for him. So still higher than 50, 50, but 68% and 27% of Democrat appointed judges, Democratic appointed judges voted for Donald Trump. At the appellate level. When you break it down in its entirety, look at the battle between the courts here. At the district court level, Donald Trump is winning only 25% of his cases. That, that bakes in all the judges, regardless where they came from. At the appellate court level, it moves up to 51% mainly because of the Trump appointed judges voting overwhelmingly for him. Just to put this in perspective, that this was not a small sample. Out of 150, 145 cases involving Trump appointed appellate judges, 133 were in favor of Donald Trump, just 12 against him. And at the Supreme Court level, the numbers jump from 51% at the appellate court level in favor of Donald Trump to 88% at the Supreme Court level, mainly with, with through the shadow docket, just a stark battle going on. And we're going to, and we see it as an, as a thread, an undercurrent in many of the cases that you and I discuss, this battle between district court judges and their appellate court brethren and the Supreme Court, which often spills out into the open, which is fascinating. Fascinating numbers as just I'll end it on this Republican, older judges and you and I talk a lot about older judges, whether senior status or otherwise. David O. Carter, William Young, Charles Breyer and all the hard work they're doing to protect democracy and the rule of law. Right now they are also hanging on by their fingernails. And there is this tremendous slowdown in the retirement of Republican appointed judges who when Biden was appointed, they relaxed and retired in large numbers, giving Joe Biden a lot of judicial appointments. They are not retiring at anywhere near that same rate because they're just looking at their clock like is this Trump thing over yet? And then they're going to retire, which means Donald Trump's efforts to reshape the appellate judiciary the way he did in the first term is not looking very good for him. And it's looking great for the rule of law. Law.

Michael Popak (8:07)

Let's start off talking about this filing. Midas Touch broke the story regarding the response by Trump's DOJ to Epstein's, to the Epstein case, where Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie filed this request to be what's referred to as a meeche, an amicus brief, where it's basically just a friends of the court brief. Right. It's where people are not formally intervening in the case as a party because they can't intervene as a party. Right. Like in this case, there are parties to the case already. It is the doj and it is Ghislaine Maxwell. She was convicted of child sex trafficking. She was supposed to rot in a prison in Tallahassee. She got moved to Camp Bryan in Texas after speaking with Todd Blanche, the number two at the Department of Justice, the Deputy AG and the DOJ is supposed to be representing the interests of the victims and the survivors. They're not supposed to be on the side of Ghislaine. And it's supposed to be an adversarial process. Well, what happens when they're kind of on the same team though now, and the DOJ is covering up a child sex trafficking ring and perpetrating criminal violations of the Epstein Transparency act, where everything was due back on December 19th and a report about the redactions was due 15 days thereafter. And so you all will recall that Massie and Khanna filed a letter brief asking to just be amici and they wanted, as friends of the court, make this request. Hey, Judge, you know the DOJ has been using you court as their excuse about why they can't produce the Epstein files. Then they demanded that you release grand jury transcripts when under Rule 6e you're not allowed to. And then they tried to blame you there. Then when the Epstein Transparency act passed, they renewed their request, saying, we're trying to turn over the records. But, Judge, you're preventing us. And the judge says, I wasn't preventing anybody. The grand jury transcript is frankly irrelevant in the Epstein files. It's not a major part of it. And remember this specific judge in this Ghislaine case, Judge Engelmeier specifically asked the DOJ was, okay, what documents are you turning over on December 19th? And the DOJ listed in one of those docket numbers, one of those documents, all of the documents that they were going to. That they were going to turn over. Then they didn't turn it over. So all Khanna and Massie. And then I'll turn it over to you, Popak, in terms of what happens next, all Massie and Khanna were doing was saying, hey Judge, this isn't a mere deadline miss that took place. Okay. Like they're committing crimes. They're using this court as a citus of the crime to take place. They're using you. And the survivors are being re traumatized. Why don't we just appoint an independent monitor or a special master, somebody who can just ensure that these documents get turned over. That shouldn't be controversial, right? We all want it turned over. Let's pick a retired federal judge because we can trust the DOJ to do this job. How can we trust them? And so then Judge Engelmeier ordered the DOJ to respond. The DOJ responds and Popak, I'll turn it over to you. Tell us what the do the audacity of what the DOJ says here.

Ben (11:39)

Yeah, it is. It is the audacity of. Nope. With the Trump administration or as one of the commentators posted, I think Midas reposted, have you ever seen in the history of a presidential administration one that's more hell bent on covering up a international child sex trafficking ring than what we're watching day in and day out with the Trump administration? And not just here. You know, they run to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals about a case filed by the National Enquirer of all things. Boy, were they on the story back in 2017, 2018, when they drive through a FOIA Freedom of Information act request to get Epstein files and that case is up in the Second Circuit. No, no, we shouldn't have an oral argument. Not because we're going to release all the files just because we don't want to. Things done in public about the Epstein files and here where they could step every moment where they could step forward and prove to the American people that they're not about obfuscation, they're not about hiding, they're not about opaqueness. They're about the dignity of survivors and victims. They're about justice and all that. They do exactly the hump thing that we thought they were going to do, which is to vote for and make a proposal for the continued hiding of files. Now they the reason we are in federal court talking about Epstein files is not because of Congress and not because of the victims and not because of Ghislaine Maxwell or the dead Jeffrey Epstein. We're in federal court because the Trump administration and its Department of Justice ran to federal court even before The Epstein act was passed in order to try to confuse the American people and use the federal courts as a pawn or as a shield to argue to the American people. Oh, the Epstein files. Oh, they're. Oh, the thing you want us. They're not with us. They're with federal judges. We would love to release them. Remember when Cash Patel testified to the, to the, to the Congressional and Senate Oversight committees? I would love to produce the Epstein files, but federal orders won't allow us. So they ran to court to try to confuse the American public. Public about what is the definition of the Epstein files, as you and I have been talking about forever? And probably the only in the news media organization that has been so consistent and so relentless in its coverage of this, of this important issue. We've been saying from the beginning, the files have always resided, not. Not with Congress, not with judges in the executive branch. They never needed congressional approval to do it. We didn't need an act to be passed. We, we never needed. We don't. We didn't need judges to make orders. All we had to do was release the files that were within the administration's power. And that's been the dirty little secret that nobody wants to acknowledge. The act is great. I'm glad that every member of the House and the Senate but one voted for the Epstein Act. But the only reason we're in Congress is because Trump ran to Congress the way he ran to the courts. But my position is once you run into those tribunals, to those arenas, you are now stuck. So, Engelmeier, in my view, Justice, Judge Berman and the others, has the power, has the authority, has the jurisdiction, because the Trump administration has effectively waived any argument that he can't fashion a remedy for violations of the law, criminal or civil, or abuse of process, that have happened in his courtroom. And he's already made comments in his orders about the victims being maligned and being misled, the American people being maligned and being misled by the Department of Justice and pass orders. I didn't hear the Department of Justice say, judge, you can't write that in your order. You should strike your order. You don't have the power to make comments about our production. Yes, he does, because you ran there. And once you're in, you're in for a penny. You're in for a pound, as far as I'm concerned with federal jurisdiction. And you've waived any argument that. Oh, wait, he's going to say something we don't like. Oh, no, no. There's no authority for the Judge, to do that. We don't want you to do that. So they have filed, as you said, Ben, actually two things back to back. One, a day earlier, they filed an update to try to explain why there's 3 million missing documents. What they said in their filing, and this is a letter that they sent in under Jay C.L. the Trump. The Trump friendly prosecutor, U.S. attorney in Manhattan, in New York, he said in a footnote, well, the number is really just an estimate, and there's been a lot of duplicates. So when we said there were, you know, just an estimate, the numbers coming out of the Department of justice were 1 million, 5.2 million. 5.2 is a very specific number. Doesn't it could be an estimate and then 2 million. And they never. An explanation as to why these numbers are shape shifting before our very eyes here. They're like, Judge, it's always just been an estimate. Are we okay now? No, we're not okay. And you're over a month late.

Michael Popak (16:54)

And you keep.

Ben (16:55)

You're using the victims, again, as you said, Ben, to re. Traumatize them, to use them as the excuse. Oh, we'd love to produce everything, but we got to, oh, you know, gosh darn it, we got to, like, redact everybody's names. So that takes time. So that was filed two days ago. Then they filed late last night, hoping nobody would see it. On a slow news day, they file their paper to tell the judge. Judge, with all due respect, whenever they start, respectfully, Judge, I'm like, here we go. You don't have the authority to supervise anything related to the Epstein Transparency Act. You don't have the jurisdiction. You know, you only. Are you supervising over a criminal case. There's very little to do in that criminal case because she's already been convicted and the Supreme Court has confirmed her appeal. Leaving out the footnote, Trump is still considering, I'm sure, pardoning her along with the other pardons we'll talk about today. And, And. And certainly Representatives Massie and Khanna. They're members of Congress. They don't have any Article 3 standing here. So they're using an amicus brief. All right, let's stop right there and do a teachable moment. No one who files an amicus Brief has Article 3 standing to be in the case. They're all strangers to the case in that way. They might have different levels of personal knowledge, injury or interest, but they're all strangers to the case. That is, by definition, why it's called a friend of the court brief, because these are People that are saying we have something to add of value to the judge, to your deliberation and decision making. And a lot of times amicus briefs, there'll be dozens of them filed in like a Supreme Court case or another case at a district court level. And sometimes actually the amicus brief, depending upon who wrote it, can win the day and be the obvious basis for the jurisprudence of the opinion. I've seen the Supreme Court, you know, especially in maga, you know, go with a hard right law, law professors, analysis of some constitutional issue. You're like, oh, that came out of the amicus. So amica amici are important. But. But to argue. Judge, they're just stating the obvious. They're not. They don't. They can't be parties to this case. So. So, so therefore what? They can't be amicus? Who to the Epstein transparency than the sponsors of the Epstein Transparency Act. It's like getting a founding father to come talk to you about the Constitution, right? Okay, so let them speak now. This is only about whether he's going to allow the brief in or not. It doesn't. They just don't want the issue of this independent monitor or special master to. To be. They don't want that remedy to be considered by the judge at all, arguing that he's only here on the. On things related to Ghislaine Maxwell. But Ben, haven't they expanded and waived that argument by running to Engelmeier and the rest of the judges to try to use them as pawns to convince the American people that the Epstein files are sitting in the courts and not with the executive branch.

Michael Popak (19:54)

Look, I think a huge hat tip, though, to Kana and Massie, because what this achieved is it saved six to nine months of what the DOJ's plan was. They were going to wait for someone to try to enforce this a year from now, and they were gonna make this argument that no court can decide anything. And so to me, bringing this issue to the fore, I just wanna show people the language, just so you all know, like, what are you talking about? Just show me the words, because how could this possibly be? So just pull up the front page of the letter. So you all see now, this is The United States vs. Ghislaine Maxwell, dear Judge Engelmeier. And it says this is a criminal case with two parties, the government and defendant Ghislaine Maxwell. That is long since over. Okay, well, then why are you going to the judge and requesting that the judge do things? Right. Right there. So then it goes on to talk about on page two, that the amici cannot raise new issues and seek new relief, which they're not. Right. They're just saying, judge, you have authority to do certain things because Trump went in front of you. Then you go to page three and it says, representatives Khanna and Massie improperly seek judicial enforcement of the act. Now here on page four is where I think the key language is. Respectfully, the government submits that the court lacks the authority to enter the requested relief. When the Constitution or laws of the United States do not support a cause of action, a federal court cannot reach out to award remedies. The act, meaning the Epstein Transparency act, does not provide a cause of action because the statute does not evince Congress's intent to create the private cause of action asserted. This court may not create the action through judicial mandate. And then it goes on to say, if the statute does not itself so provide a cause of action will not be created through judicial mandate. In other words, they're saying the court or no court has any authority regarding the Epstein Transparency Act. One last thing I'll point out when you go to page six of six, the last page, it's signed by three people and three people alone. Pam Bondi, the Attorney General. Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General. Jay Clayton, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the top three people. This is unheard of. Okay. Normally a filing would be handled by an ausa, an Assistant United States Attorney, or a mid level or lower level Deputy Assistant United States Attorney. You're not getting filings by the actual aggressive Deputy AG and the United States Attorney with no other deputies signing it. I just think that's an important point. It's subtle, but no one else wants to attach their name to this. So the entire DOJ in this cover up is being run not by your rank and file ausas. It's being done by Bondi, Blanche and Clayton. I want to talk a little bit more about this when we come back from our first break. Then we'll talk about some of the pardons because I think it's all related with this rogue doj. A lot of the pardons and clemency grants actually followed the DOJ basically charging people with misdemeanors anyway that should have been charged with felonies in major cases with this DOJ doing that. A reminder, make sure you subscribe to Michael Popox YouTube channel Legal AF, Michael Popo's substack, the Legal AF substack, as well as all Michael Popo things subscribe to us on audio here the Legal AF audio and a reminder. If you or someone you know has been injured in an auto accident, a trucking accident caused by the negligence of other sexual assault sexual harassment, give a call to 877-popocaf or visit the popoc firm.com 877-popocaf or thepopoc firm.com available 247 and Popoc has lawyers across the country and that are here to help you out. So give a call or go to the website. We'll be right back after our first quick break of the show.

Ben (24:11)

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Michael Popak (26:44)

Welcome back to Legal AF. A lot to discuss. We'll touch upon it when I throw it back to you. Popak, if there's anything else you wanted to round out that segment on regarding the Epstein files, but it's just obvious they're going to continue covering this up. That's been their plan. They viewed the Epstein Transparency act as having this massive loophole. It doesn't have a private cause of action, so we don't have to follow it. And there's a broader point here. The Constitution has gigantic loopholes. I was talking about this at breakfast earlier with my wife and our niece and I was just saying a lot of people credit the founders for being brilliant and oh my God, maybe during that time period. But in terms of 2026, there are major problems. When I teach law, as I do this semester over at usc, I always find it interesting when I teach a class like Sports Law, when we talk about collective bargaining agreements that govern how a league manages itself. You know, basketball, NFL, whatever. They are thousands of pages and meticulous and anticipate every scenario. And then when I go and show the class, well, this is the Constitution, it's not all that long. The key amendments are a few sentences. And I think the extraordinary part that a lot of countries were unclear how we could accomplish this as a nation, is that the Constitution was built on good faith and norms and traditions and courses of dealing, not just the words themselves, because the words often are broad pronouncements and they often don't specify specifically what the drafters of the specific amendment truly wanted. And yet it held together for so long. Then you have someone like Trump who's ripped apart and shredded contracts his whole life, even when they're crystal clear what the obligations are. He looks at the Constitution as weak. And you see here a law like the Epstein Transparency act, okay, it doesn't have a private cause of action, but who would interpret that law as saying, gotcha, we don't have to actually produce anything because you Congress mandated we do something, we signed it into law, but no private cause of action. Gotcha. You know, and the question whether you're Democrat, Republican, independent is seriously, what society do you want to live in? Are We a gotcha on everything like that. And is that the way we handle things? By the way, I think they're wrong. There are some things called implied private causes of action. And when you go before a federal judge and you put out fact sheets about the Epstein transparency law, here's what we're going to do, and then you don't do it. There are other equitable and other principles that come into play, but it's just that's their position is so, is so low. It's so gutter. It's such, it's such trash human behavior. And again, I don't care whether you're Democrat, Republican, you should not want to teach people in your life to behave in that way. It's so, it's just not what we expect of leaders that their position is. Gotcha. Let's talk about that. But, but let me just tie it all together. But like, you know, Ken Vogel from the New York Times did this great piece where they talked about all of these people who were quietly pardoned, you know, this week, you know, with someone named Adriana Cambrero. She did like fake five hour energy drinks back in like 2021, you know, and she was pardoned back in 2021. Then she was. Then she committed fraud again. She did it again, gets another pardon. Then you go to Puerto Rico, Juan de Vasquez, who's the former Republican governor of Puerto Rico, Mark Rossini. And then there was another, this was all about bribes. There was a guy, Julio Herrera, and Herrera's daughter gave Trump's PAC 2.5 million and then another million, so three and a half million dollars to Trump. And then Herrera got hit with a misdemeanor for engaging in a massive bribery scheme with the Republican governor, a former Republican governor of Puerto Rico, and then got a misdemeanor for it, which is total bs, and then got pardoned. A guy who dumped sludge into cities in Southern California, got five months only and then got pardoned as well. You go through this list of other people. Taran Peiser, ex CEO, convicted of insider trading. And we've been covering this, the through line throughout here of all these other fraudster sex trafficking networks. Juan Orlando Hernandez, the biggest drug trafficker. Popak, what do you, what do you make of, of all of this? You could start with the gotcha. You know, just start with yeah. And then tie it into the party.

Ben (31:38)

Yeah. And on the gotcha part, and you're so right. I mean the, the Constitution was not built as a statute, which, you know, the code of Federal regulation or the United States Code annotated, which is our code book, which is supposed to be consistent with the aspirations of the Constitution or the teachings of the Constitution as interpreted by human beings. I mean, it was, you know, the since 1807 with the Marbury versus Madison case. Chief Justice John Marshall, who when you go to the United States Supreme Court, you will know who is the greatest Supreme Court justice of all time. Not John Roberts. Giant statues, two of them, and busts of John Marshall because he's the one that gave us our checks and balance system through a Supreme Court that has not always been nine. Over time it's been different numbers of justices and hopefully will be a different number in the future. But their interpretation of it, and frankly the support the founders and the framers never thought that we would not have amended this, the Constitution to fit morals and values over time. It is a little bit of a misnomer. I mean, I've always seen it as a living, breathing document, but it is not Tamaga into the right wing or as Antonin Scalia famously put it, the Constitution is not a living breathing document. It is the dead, dead, dead. And they interpret it that way through the prism of their own ideology. But whereas state constitutions, every state has its own constitution, which is why you and I certain sometimes talk about, you know, abortion was upheld today in Wyoming under the state constitution. Those constitutions have been amended thousands of times over the last 50 years. Thousands in every state. But the Constitution never gets amended. And the last time we tried, you know, the Equal Rights Amendment, you know, it either did or didn't pass depending on how you interpret, how long it took for the states to ratify it. But I think the thing, if you ask me what would be the most surprising, and I think there's a couple of things the framers and founders would be shocked by. One is this kind of originalism and textualism commitment that the right wing uses to try to block out civil rights. I think that would be surprising to them about. Well, we have to. It's whatever, you know, on gun rights, it's whatever in the old timey times, whatever was on the books for gun regulation in the 1780s or 1820s, that's what's going to govern today. I think they'd be shocked by that. I also think they'd be shocked by how few times we've actually amended the Constitution to fit and update it for the times. So. So with that, let me switch gears to the pardons. The pardons are not surprising to anybody and the Part that gets missed, although Vogel did a good job there is how much money is getting wiped out going to the taxpayers for restitution that go along with these things, you know, like the Chrisley family, like a hundred million dollar bank fraud and they were obligated to pay back tens of millions of dollars based on it. Every one of these people that had a conviction also had a restitution amount because they were all major league fraudsters, or what you called earlier today, fraudstars. These fraud stars owed so much money to the American people for restitution purposes and that gets wiped out along with the, when, when the pardon happens. They haven't paid it back, they've been in jail. And what is the message that Donald Trump is sending to the American people, to the recidivists, the ones that committed fraud? I'm the one that got, first time in history, got a pardon twice. Like, I mean, how many times does Donald Trump have to say, I don't really know you that well, but you were weapon, you know, weaponized. Department of justice, have a good life. This is how he writes his social media tweets around these pardons. How many times you have to pardon the same person twice? What is the messaging that it's sending to the rest of America, to your daughter and my daughter and other people and around the world, about values, like you said, about, about morals, about what it means to be an American and what it means to have a criminal justice system to be respected and rule of law to be respected. Now every potential fraudster says, fuck it, I'll make as much money as I possibly can because hopefully a MAGA will get back into office and I'll get a free pass, especially if I donate to the cause. You know, this is, we said originally at the top of the pardon list and everything. This was a presidency for sale to the highest bidder, whether it's big oil who bought our Venezuelan policy for us. Right? This wasn't a war. This isn't a freedom on the march. This is an installing democracy. This is how do we capture the Venezuelan oil from. For now and into the future. We'll get around to democracy and elections maybe one day. Look at me smiling with my Nobel Prize. This, this terrible, terrible scene. I felt bad for Machado too. You know, switching gears to Venezuela for a minute. You know, the leader of the party in exile who's probably going to be the president of that country, and most people want her to be. She had to go in there and like kiss his ring, give her, give him her Nobel Prize in order to try to get back into power and all with no cameras present. I mean, this is a guy that doesn't wipe his ass without a press photographer next to him or a social media Post or 2. No pictures of her, no official statements, no social media. It was as if it didn't happen except for the Nobel Prize being given to him, which led the Nobel Prize committee to say, that's not how Nobel Prizes work. You can't just hand it to somebody. And if you want to go back in history, you know, Hitler's public communications director, Goebbels, he was given a Nobel Prize by somebody, too, who also wanted something from the Hitler regime. So, you know, this whole bullshit there. But this is the immorality and the illegality of the Trump administration and Donald Trump. And this is why, you know, we haven't talked about it lately. The poll numbers are so terrible for Donald Trump almost in an ability to recover from them at the, you know, as he's maybe going past the 30% approval mark, which means a fair amount of MAGA have written him off for the midterms and beyond, you know, for his party and beyond. But what we're worried about over here on the Midas, on legal AF side is we know what happens when a desperate Donald Trump tries to cling to power. Jan6, you know, insurrection act gets invoked now and all that. We saw what happened on January 6th and Donald Trump's conspiracy there, even though, you know, he got an immunity passed from the, from the Supreme Court. But wait till midterms in 2028 when he's got nothing to lose and his flirtation with the Insurrection act becomes, let's seize voting machines, let's postpone voting day, let's continue our assault on voting rights because he can't possibly win any other way. That's something long. That's the long view you and I are going to have to keep a very, very, very close on. But this pardon thing is just symptomatic of a diseased, corrupt Trump administration and Department of Justice.

Michael Popak (39:17)

Two points. One on the textualist interpretation aspect of things, but the other on the oil. And this goes into criminality. What a rogue regime this is. The oil money from Venezuela right now is going to a bank account in Qatar. It's not going to the Treasury Department. It's not going to American taxpayers. It's being held in a Qatari bank account without checks and balances or controls. And I say this again, Democrat, Republican, Independent, you're okay with the money going. First off you're okay with the authoritarian regime of Maduro still being in power while they brutally repress the opposition in Venezuela right now. That's what America represents, that we just steal oil if we can just have our authoritarian and say that. And by the way, I don't know if you've seen this, but Senator Rick Scott of Florida, he's even been posting without any shred of irony based on his cult like admiration for Donald Trump. He's like, Deodatos Cabello is still holding hostage Edmundo Gonzalez's the other opposition leaders children. And he's brutally. Yeah, because they're a brutal regime. And the CIA was there in Venezuela with Delsey, with the Idados, with the whole authoritarian crew. You had anyone talk about CIA, Covert, covert intelligence agency. You know, supposed to be confidential, classified. We've got our CIA director chilling with Delsey Rodriguez, Maduro's VP turned the head of the country. And just so people know, that would be like Trump leaving office and getting Stephen Miller. Like, you know, that's pretty much what it's like. She was the worst than Maduro. And Deodatos Cabello is like bringing in Hegsen. That's who's running it. Miller and Hegseth are now running it versus Maduro. That's basically the equivalent. Next point, the issues of textualist originalists. All this stuff, it's all bullshit, you know, and it's sometimes tough for me as a law professor to have to explain that to the class because when I was in that, I used to.

Ben (41:41)

Start your con law class.

Michael Popak (41:42)

It's all class. I just want to let you know that basically everything here is ultimately bs and it's really just going to be who's appointed to the Supreme Court is going to rule or not rule in your favor. Because here's the thing, when we went to law school, you learn about these frameworks for analysis. Are you a textualist? Like every word matters. Are you an originalist? You go back to the origin and the meaning. Are you a states rights person and make sure that states rights are always protected. If you read the First Amendment, where do you stand on the free speech versus free exercise balance? Because the First Amendment, read it, it's pretty short. So there are all of these frameworks of analysis, but ultimately they're the frameworks of sociopaths. Because at the end of the day, the answer is determined by the framework from the outset. You want a certain outcome. You say you're an originalist. You want an outcome here, say you're a textualist. I'M a textualist. Until the Second Amendment starts to talk about regulation. Well regulated militia. And you're like, well, how does the words well regulated militia deal with the right to bear arms? You see, that's where we're an originalist. Okay? The founders never made any comments about semiautomatic weapons and these machine guns. And so they like guns. Yeah, but they had different types of weapons back that. Well, they never said it. Well, but what about the language that says well regulated militia? Wouldn't the word regulation and amendment imply regulation? No, no, no, no, no. Why? There's a comma. What do you mean there's a comma? Yeah, you don't read before the comma. Everything after the comma is Right. But before the comma, we don't care about those words. Why? Because we're originalists. Oh, we're states rights. Okay, well, your state's rights. But now we've got the federal government invading the states. Well, you've got a unitary executive. What does that mean? He could do whatever he wants. Anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're originalists. Okay, but isn't originally the Constitution intended to stop the monarchy? Isn't the whole originalist of our existence against absolute immunity? No, no, no. See, you're wrong there. We've created a new theory called unitary executive. Who created it? The Founders? No, no, no, no. Who? The Federalists. The Federalists? The Federalists and the Heritage Foundation. You mean in the 80s, they came up with it?

Ben (44:16)

In the 80s?

Michael Popak (44:16)

Yeah, they came up with it. So you're not an original. So my whole point here, what I just did, that exercise that I just did, is the problem, frankly, with the law. And when you go back to the loopholes, and maybe it's empowering to know the things that I'm. That I'm saying, but it is. It is a. Imagine playing soccer with people and one team, good soccer players, not great, but they have machine guns. Okay? And then the other team, you're playing against great soccer players, the best. You know, pick your favorite football club from, you know, the Premier League. Don't have machine guns. Okay. You start to play and then decide with the machine guns. And this reminds me of the movie the. The Dictator with Sacha Baron Cohen when he's running the race, and then he. He has the gun and he starts shooting people on the track. The team with the machine gun starts shooting everybody. And you're like, but we were better soccer players. Our answers made more sense. And we were. We, you know, we were. We were more talented. But yeah, but they're using machine guns. And so at some point, I don't mean to make it a violent reference, but the point is there's been one side that hasn't been going with norms, traditions, rules, but they've been pretending to, as Mamdani said during his inauguration speech, kind of using the facade of decency and intellectual language to actually do the repression while other people have been playing by norms and standards and rules and have been screwed. Popak, hold the thought because I want to talk about that and much more because this to me is addressed in the Reagan appointed judge, Judge Young, who's saying what I'm pretty much saying in his own way. And it's interesting when it comes from Reagan appointed judge. So let's take our last quick break of the show. A reminder. If you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, auto accident, caused by the negligence of others, any type of negligence of others, sexual assault, sexual harassment cases, medical malpractice cases. If you know someone who's died in an accident and you know their family, reach out to Popox Firm. Popak's firm is there to help. He's got lawyers across the country that give a free consultation. So give a phone call to 888-popocaf or go to thepopoc firm.com that's that's 877-popocaf or go to Thepopocfirm.com 877 popoc af or go to the popoc firm.com not 888877. Also check out the legal af sub stack and check out the legal af YouTube channel. I know there's going to be a big substack sale on the Legal af, so make sure you all check that out. Let's take our last quick break of the show.

Ben (47:00)

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Michael Popak (49:48)

Welcome back to Legal AF. We've got a lot to discuss. You know it's a serious Legal AF when I'm doing it in the courtroom. Legal AF in the courthouse Michael Popak, let's talk about a few things I'm sure you could weave in and tie it all together. We learned earlier today, which we knew before. This is why the prosecutors in Minneapolis, who are actually also the prosecutors doing the fraud cases and investigations and successfully under the Biden administration into Trump prosecuting the fraud that was identified in 2024, which Trump was using as the pretext for this invasion and tried to attack the entire Somali community to go after Minneapolis. We also know that the lawyers quit out of main justice in the Civil Rights division, but we know now that Federal Officials are officially investigating Renee Nicole Goode's widow regarding the killing of Renee Nicole Goode by the officer or not the officer, the ICE Gestapo guy, Jonathan Ross. Ross is not under any investigation at all. The feds are going after the widow. They're also going after Mayor Fry. They're also going after Governor Walz. Criminal investigations into everybody other than the shooter and everybody other than ICE, by the coj. And that was one of the reasons for mass resignations. You have that one, two. That same DOJ that's now going after the widow. Imagine criminally investigating a widow, a widow right now, and not the shooter.

Ben (51:13)

A grieving widow just lost her wife like a week ago.

Michael Popak (51:17)

That same doj, through the FBI, executes a search warrant on a Washington Post reporter, Hannah Natenson. She was the main reporter doing all those really good scoops on the federal workers who had been fired and all of their end the whistleblowers, federal workers who observed the crimes taking place. I think she developed 1,169 sources. The Washington Post wrote back in December of 2025. And she recounted in that article right before the new year, all of these sources that she had developed and she was raided by the FBI. Her personal laptop, personal phones were all taken and confiscated where she was communicating with those whistleblowers. And then you have tying it all together, Popak and I always love to throw three things out, have you weave it together. Judge William Glover Young, Judge Bill Young, as he's known in Massachusetts, appointed by Reagan, issues a scathing order against the Trump regime. So, Popak, the floor is yours.

Ben (52:18)

Weaving, weaving as we speak. Okay, so again, the thematic here is an easy one. We're watching the most corrupt Department of Justice run by the most corrupt attorney general in our history, a guy named Donald Trump, who runs his own Department of Justice. And when he doesn't like what they're doing, with all of their wickedness and corruptness, like Pam Bondi, he finds ways to get rid of her and find somebody that will do his bidding. And so we're watching the total immolation of the Department of Justice. It was already stripped of its credibility and stripped of its proud history in the first six months, if not before, by Pam Bondi, willingly. I mean, that was one of her jobs, was to chloroform the Department of Justice and joined, and she was joined, though with complicit sycophants and bootlickers like Harmeet Dillon to put out of its misery the Civil rights division, while continuing to fly the flag of being if you go on the Civil Rights Division's website, it still talks about where the division that investigated the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. And Medgar Evers. I'm like, are you effing kidding me? You, you're still using the history, wrapping yourselves in the Constitution and the civil rights movement while being led by the most corrupt, racist, anti civil rights to, you know, presidency in history. I mean, let, come on. So you got that as the backdrop in Minneapolis. What are we watching? We're watching federal judges like Judge Menendez issue a decision. Just yesterday it was a little bit confusing because she's handling two cases and one day people were like, oh, she didn't enter the temporary restraining order in favor of the state of Minnesota to stop these abusive ICE tactics on the streets. That's because she was also handling another case and she knew she was about to enter a preliminary injunction in favor of six ICE protesters, you know, peaceful protesters on the streets of Minneapolis, representing a class of all protesters. So while she didn't grant the temporary restraining order, which is kind of one of the lowest levels of injunctions during the course of a case at its inception for the state at a, at a status conference on Wednesday, she held a final hearing on Tuesday and said, I'm going to be issuing an order in the protester case. She's got the Minneapolis case and the protester case. She's issued her order, a scathing 83 page decision. I have it up on legal AF substack for paid subscribers. But I'll boil it down for you very simply. She found that the American Civil Liberties Union representing the protesters had made their case at this juncture subject to final trial or summary judgment, that the Fourth Amendment, illegal search and seizure rights under the constitution of the protesters have been violated by the ICE tactics and by the administration. She said, you didn't quite, didn't quite get there for me with the record as it is on First Amendment, which means freedom of speech and viewpoint based discrimination. But I'm all with you on the Fourth Amendment. She also excoriated the Trump administration for not bringing evidence into her courtroom. She said, I don't know. I got the protesters testifying about what happened to them, including a story that like, I almost had to stop reading it. That's in the order about a pregnant, pregnant protester who was stun gunned and thrown to the ground by ice. Separate from that, you got two people in Santa Clara, California who were blinded, blinded by ICE by shooting. Non, non lethal but deadly force, anything above the neck that you fire at somebody is considered, even under ice's own manual, deadly force. So they fired projectiles and blew out the eyeball of two people. One of them was a protester. It's a band, 5 foot tall and 102 pounds. I can't really see this guy getting in the way of obstructing justice, if you will. And certainly he shouldn't have been blinded on the streets as a penalty. So you've got all that going on with Judge Menendez supervising over all of this. The American Civil Liberties Union, who's now with us regularly on legal AF with, with, with the reporting and contributions. They just filed another new civil rights case in Minnesota. As there was the, the automatic response of this corrupt regime, the Trump administration is to double down and triple down. Now, while Donald Trump may have backed off his threats of using the Insurrection act for now because we're drawing attention to it, they are going after the victims. They're victimizing the victims. I mean, I mean, Renee Good's body's not even cold in the ground, leaving her, her six year old son, you know, a motherless. At least you know, Renee's motherhood. When they're going after Renee Good and Becca Goode, her wife, about whether. About whether what? To try to prove JD Vance's total incomplete disinformation campaign that he launched the first day after they learned about what happened on the street, that there's some sort of left wing activist being funded. They were on the board of education of a charter school in the south side of Minneapolis devoted to social justice, who were, who had done training about nonviolent opposition, peaceful opposition. She sat in a car, perpendicular but left open her back and her front to allow traffic to go around her. She just wanted to slow down a process. She didn't want to lose her life for peaceful protests. So I mean, I mean, how many. You can put it in comments tonight. How many domestic terrorists drive a late model car with an old dog in the back and dance in their car to try to slow down ice? How many domestic terrorists fit that bill? Not many. So instead of investigating whether Jonathan Ross committed civil rights, criminal civil rights deprivation the way that Derek Chauvin did when he crushed the life out of George Floyd. They've turned the tables in a Kafkaesque, Orwellian way and are going after the victims. Sure. Let's open an investigation into Becca Good and what she's doing for peaceful protest. Or Renee Good or the mayor of Minneapolis or the governor of Minnesota. Right. Everybody's being investigated except the shooter and the murderer of a US Citizen on the streets of America during peaceful protest. And right away they circled the wagons around the guy and they said, oh, self defense, you know, absolute immunity. Why don't we let the investigation not be tainted by your prejudging? Try that. That would probably give American people more confidence that you're being honest and true with your development of your facts, that if you declare upright up front that it was, you know, we've seen the video, yeah, we've all seen the video. But now let's let law enforcement, maybe state law enforcement, since you're so conflicted, take over and tell the American people exactly what happens. And then, you know, I've had Keith Ellison, the Attorney General, on. He's not afraid to go after federal officers and prosecute them for crimes, you know, that are committed on his streets. And that I think is the next wave, the next turn of affairs. If that'll come here. If the feds aren't going to do it, then the states and the state attorney generals are going to have to do it. And against that backdrop, you've got two judges, two 80 year old judges who are doing God's work, staying in their chair and opposing the Trump administration. William Young, Bill Young, okay, he didn't want this. He's a Reagan appointee, 85 year old. He'd like to be sitting on some golden pond somewhere with his grandchildren fishing. I'm sure he can't go anywhere because of this out of control administration. He just declared. I've never seen this before in my life. I've read thousands of Supreme Court decisions from law school on. So have you, Ben. I have never seen a federal judge say out loud, because it was a hearing say outlet in a written order say out loud what Judge Young just said, which is there is a conspiracy to violate the Constitution at the highest levels of an administration led by its two senior cabinet members, Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem, and then went into the detail, including making reference to their that in comparing the tactics of the Trump administration to those who chased after newly freed slaves to return them to their slave owners. You're like, if he's using this imagery to talk about it. Now, as I've said to people, this was this at the bottom. The facts are about. All right, we can fill in the blank. This one happens to be about pro Palestinian students and faculty and whether, whether they have a First Amendment right on US Soil to say things that some of us might find offensive. And I tell people I'm not Saying, I agree with everything. A protest comes out of a protester's mouth on any side of the, of the aisle or any side of the spectrum. But I will defend with my last dying breath the right for that person to say that out loud as long as it doesn't cross past the, the protections of the First Amendment into being some sort of, you know, hate speech, slash, you know, a call for violence or fomenting of violence. But short of that, the fact that it makes me uncomfortable is the reason it needs that is the speech that needs to be defended. And so they were deporting and throwing into ICE without due process all of these students, right. And getting them off of campus. And then until they had bond hearing months later. And the judge was like, no, this hearing was about remedy. He already found the violation several months ago. And of course, the Department of Justice, corrupt, led by Donald Trump looked the judge in the eye and said the same thing they've been saying to every judge. You don't have any jurisdiction here. He's like, what are you talking about? No, you can't fashion a remedy because that can only go to immigration court. He says, we're talking about constitutional violations that are, that I've developed the record and you're telling me I can't do anything about it. Trust me, he's going to be doing something about it same day. David O. Carter, in your background, in your backyard, who famously back in, in off the off the January 6th committee subpoenas to John Eastman, Donald Trump's constitutional law half wit that he relied on for the insurrection, who was trying to protect his emails from his law school server and others from being disclosed to the Jan6 committee because a lot of them were about or to Donald Trump. He made that famous ruling that the first one. It was the first. There was others, but he was the first to say that a president that Trump had more likely than not committed crimes and stripped the attorney client privilege away under the crime fraud exception. So we've been tracking. You knew David Carter from your days of practicing law in California. And I certainly learned a lot about him in that case. In the new case, he just shot down the civil rights division using civil rights law, perversely, to try to get their grubby, greedy little hands on our private voter data, where they've gone after 17 states or so so far to try to get our data. Now, there's a reason our founding fathers back to the, of the Constitution, why our founding fathers separated and the, you know, the allocation of responsibility for federal elections they are in the hands of the states because by and large, we don't trust the federal government running elections. That's just the truth. They're too far removed from us. We certainly don't want the executive branch and one guy doing it or one person doing it. So they very smartly, under Article 1, gave that power. Yeah, Article 1, to the states to run even federal elections. Time, place and manner, what, not the day, but how they're going to be run, what's the procedures, what's the logistics, accounting, the method, all of that. That's all with the states and the executive branch. And the presidency has no role in it. And so Judge Carter said, this is, you know, when you start seeing quotes of like Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln famously said that the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Ironic considering his end and other statements of founding fathers and framers. And he called out the administration for being unpatriotic, for being illegal and unconstitutional and just trying to suppress the vote and scare people into not voting under the guise that they have some role in that process. He dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning they're going to have to take an appeal now, because that case is now gone in one of two states that have done it. So when you, when you put all of these kind of cases together, you know, from Minneapolis to Boston to, in this case, California, what is the common theme and denominator? It is a corrupt Department of Justice who's lost its way, if it ever had a way, about ethics and morality, our Constitution and what its role is supposed to be. Just as an example of, you know, I talk a lot about what should be the independence of the Department of Justice, completely destroyed by Donald Trump, who's captured it completely under this whole unitary executive presidency model. You know, you have J.D. vance announcing the creation of a Department of justice office devoted to fraud, which, again, you know, here, over here, he's pardoning fraudsters, some of them multiple recidivists. Over here, he wants the American people to think he's tough on fraud. And he's opening up a new prosecutor's office related to it. J.D. vance announced it from the White House, not Pam Bondi from the Department of Justice. So now they're opening up whole new, who knows what's just admissions, confessions, that they are in control of this puppet Department of Justice. Everybody there should resign or be impeached. I'm not sure. Pam Bondi, you know, you know, I've done a lot of hot takes on this. I'm not sure if Pam Bondi makes it to our February 21st oversight committee hearing. Back in, back in the, in the Senate, I see Todd Blanche taking this whole thing over very, very, very soon. But in any event, that is the common denominator and we're watching is Judges Menendez, Young, Carter and others just, just trying their hardest with the tools in their toolpath to restrain a lawless presidency.

Michael Popak (67:31)

Take a look at what this federal judge ruled in Minnesota. Restricting ICE tactics against protesters who aren't suspected of committing crimes. I mean, just think about that. A judge has to even say these things. In the United States of America, agents are hereby barred from retaliating against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity, including observing the activities of Operation Metro Surge, arresting or detaining persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructed protest activity, including observing the activities of Operation Metro Surge in retaliation for their protected conduct and absent to showing a probable cause or reasonable suspicion that the person has committed a crime or is obstructing or interfering with the activities of a covered federal officer using pepper spray or similar non lethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools against persons who are engaging in, in peaceful and unobstructed protest activity, including observing the activities, stopping or detaining drivers and passengers and vehicles where there is no reasonable articulable suspicion that they are forcibly obstructing or interfering with covered federal agents. The act of safely following covered federal agents at an appropriate distance does not by itself create reasonable suspicion or justify a vehicle stop. The fact that that has to be put into a court order when that's just a statement of the United States Constitution and a of the law. The fact that you have these ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo and military fatigues asking people to see their papers and if they don't show the papers and if your skin looks a certain way, you get thrown into a detention center and maybe never heard from again. In the United States of America. The fact that you'll see peaceful protesters on the streets and then you'll see these ICE agents or Border Patrol take these canisters of gas and sometimes it's unclear, it's not just pepper spray and pepper balls, some of this noxious gas that's green and makes people choke and really hurts people and causes so much pain they just throw, they chuck the gas at the peaceful protesters because they wanna create the scenes and the imagery of war that they themselves are creating. And you have Governor Walz and the mayor saying to the people, be peaceful, be peaceful. People don't buy into what they're doing. At the same time you have the tactics of this invasion, inflicting the pain on the people to try to provoke and terrorize and cause these scenes. This is what's happening in the name of the United States of America. So I'll leave you with this though, with some positive news. I mean, today was the swearing in of Governor Spanberger in Virginia. There's now a trifecta in Virginia of the House of Delegates, the Senate, which comprises the General assembly there and the governorship. In a very short period of time, they've put forward referendums in April to protect women's reproductive rights, to protect voting rights, to protect access to health care, and all of these things that Governor Youngkin ripped away. So all of these things will be on the ballot, including gerrymandering mid district or mid decade redistricting there in Virginia. And there you have the, the president pro temp of the United States of the Virginia Senate, basically saying to, like, you know, there are all these like senators in the United States and other people who are like, you know, maybe don't overreach Democrats and you know, don't do a 10 to 1 map. That's too much like maybe try to make the map like 8 to 3 or 7 to 4. Like let's, like, let's relax a little bit here. And then the president pro temp, she's incredible. Luis Lucas, she goes, I have the utmost respect for Senator Kaine and Senator Warner, but we do not need coaching on redistricting coming from a cut chair in the corner. How about you all stay focused on the fascist in the White House and let us handle redistricting in Virginia? 10 to 1. I don't know what other choice you have right now. With every, with everything that we've said, in what world do we go, you know what, let's be, let's, let's, let's just kind of come up with what it'll be. Okay. You have to fight back, even selfishly. You have to fight back even if your pure grounds is selfish. If you do what Machado does and you're, and just thinking about it selfishly, did that benefit Machado? What happens when another administration comes in? Do you think that that Machado handing over her Nobel Peace process inspires confidence in her leadership? To me, everything that made her get the Nobel Peace Prize is thrown out the window. When she hands over her Nobel Peace Prize to the person who invaded our country and propped up the authoritarian, her whole legacy was destroyed. I mean, do you, I mean, do you think Nelson Mandela when he was in prison for decades, you know, was out there, you know, trying to cut deals with authority. Is he trying to cut deals, you know, and be like, actually, you want all the oil here? Like, what? And you'll let me out early at some point, you know, and I don't mean to end on a bit of a morbid note, you know, you either will stand on principles and be attacked for that, but keep your principles and values, or you'll sacrifice it and you're going to be attacked anyway. It's a simple choice. Even if you had the most selfish reasons for it. And you shouldn't have the selfish reasons, you should have reasons that we're here to help people. That's the whole point of this all, to be better people. When we talk about what the government is doing to the people, the pain it's inflicting on people, that's not what governance is supposed to be for. Government's supposed to be for helping people access health care, access homes, access opportunities, access a better life, not be the terrorists. There you have it. We'll keep covering this all the time. We've been doing live reporting from inside Minneapolis in St. Paul today. I'm sure you've seen that coverage. We appreciate you all watching. Make sure you subscribe to Michael popox substack legal af. Just search it on substack. Subscribe to Michael Popo's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel, and subscribe to all of the Legal AF channels, including our YouTube channel here and Legal AF on audio. Finally, if you or someone you know has been injured in an auto accident, a trucking accident, if you've been injured by the negligence of someone else, if you know someone who's the victim of wrongful death or someone else's negligence, give a call to 877-popak-AF or visit thepopocfirm.com that's 877, popocaf. Or go to the popoc firm.com they have people, lawyers, administrators, 247 getting back to you. The consultation is free and there have been so many Legal AF listeners and viewers who have called who are actually being represented by the POPOC firm. So make sure you give a call 877-popocaf or go to the popoc firm.com available 24, 7. Don't be shy. Thanks, everybody for watching. We appreciate it. We're grateful for you. Stay safe. Keep fighting for democracy. We're in this together. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and shout out legal actors. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces.

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Michael Popak (75:30)

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Ben (75:35)

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Michael Popak (75:36)

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