Michael Popak (4:14)

I'm doing good. You and I, you and I have been doing this for over 5 years and I feel left out because you and Cohen have this whole thing with the boxing and the political beatdown. You and I don't get like, like a secret handshake. I never know what to do when you turn it over to me.

Ben Mysell (4:29)

That something, I mean, look, let's just say this. The content on the Cohen show is slightly different than the content on this show. You know, it would kind of be like asking why in a hockey game are you not showing the basketball.

Michael Popak (4:45)

Yeah.

Ben Mysell (4:46)

You know, on Legal af, you know, it'd be hard to go, let's go legal, you know, and then let's down.

Michael Popak (4:54)

Yeah, yeah. The energy is different. I understand energy. So thank you. Thank you. I'm back in my home studio. As people saw I was traveling trying to keep up with all the news, the breaking news. It's just so important. Just things that you and I have to cover. Terrible, terrible week. Ten months both for America and for Donald Trump, who is just, what's the word I'm looking for? And he's just losing his shit, whether it's it used to be. And you do a great job of all of his midnight rants and raves, three o' clock in the morning. I don't know who post these things for him. He's obviously fast asleep. But somebody's posting all these all caps, rants and raves that he approves and just to watch him, this is a guy used to call Joe Biden Sleepy Joe to watch him in a Cabinet meeting where it was orchestrated. I called it an orchestrated j off session where they just go from person to person like it's a hostage video celebrating the fearless leader. So best Cabinet, best president, best this. Thank you for solving the web. Thank you for stopping hurricanes. He can't even, like, keep his eyes. Like they need toothpicks to keep his eyes open. Except when they get to the things about like Pete Hegseth ordering the double tap of two people clinging to a shipwreck in the middle of the Caribbean. And he's like, well, I don't know. You know, I didn't get, I didn't really see that video, Pete. You know, you know, this faint praise for Pete Hegseth who may not make it much longer as the head of the Department of Defense. And then these just series of court courts rejecting Donald Trump and his Department of Justice at every level. I mean, in two weeks, he's lost two US Attorneys, soon to be three US Attorneys. We'll talk about that later. Today, Letitia James winning, as you said, both with grand juries, which is what we hope. Now the people are starting to speak. Federal judges have spoken. Appellate court judges have spoken. Now the people, juries and grand juries are starting to speak and reject it, as we predicted. I said, who right now doesn't know what's going on with Letitia James and the vindictive prosecution of her that's going to sit in Norfolk, Virginia and indict her. Good luck there. Even if you change out your prosecutors, which they apparently did. So you've got all that going on. And then of course, which is a thematic for legal af, great work being done by federal judges at the district court level, amazing work at the appellate court level, first level of appeal. And then you get to the United States Supreme Court and you and I are like, we got an emergency ruling from the Supreme Court about maps or now they're going to take up birthright citizenship on the regular docket. So it's always white knuckle at the United States Supreme Court. But oddly, and I'll leave it on this, Ben, for you. Oddly, Donald Trump in one of his rants coming onto the show today, started talking about the Democrats wanna destroy the United States Supreme Court. Who in our audience thinks that the United States Supreme Court is under attack rather than the other way around? I've been around for quite some time on planet Earth, as people know. I just celebrated a Big birthday. The entirety of my time on Planet Earth, the entirety. The Supreme Court has been controlled by conservatives and Republicans. I have never known in my lifetime a period where there were moderates or liberals ever, ever. And I'm talking over 50 years. So how is the Supreme Court under attack?

Ben Mysell (8:30)

Well, you know, Trump's attack on that was the interview that we did on the Minus Dutch network with former Attorney General Eric Holder. And what former Attorney General Holder simply said is that looking at how corrupt the Supreme Court is and how their rulings are so incongruent with 70 to 80% of where the country is on all of these issues, that there needs to be a thinking in the future about some sort of reform, because this court is, you know, just doing whatever the hell it wants and coming up with whatever structures and frameworks that exist in their own mind to justify these outcomes that are all pro Trump. I mean, this absolute immunity ruling that really, I think is the, you know, I mean, obviously there's horrible rulings going back to overturning Roe v. Wade and their ruling saying that there's basically no separation between church and state. They're gutting of the Voting Rights Act. I mean, there's so much we can talk about there. But at its core, our country is built on the premise of no kings. Right? I mean, the entire Constitution. And preceding that, the Declaration of Independence was a declaration, was saying, we don't want the monarchy, we don't want absolute immunity. So how you grant absolute immunity and create a king like structure when it's so obvious that someone's going to abuse it and engage in the types of war crimes that we're seeing? Those hypotheticals were presented to the Supreme Court. What if SEAL Team Six kills Trump's political enemies and he says, well, I'm the President, I'm the commander in Chief, I can do what I want. Are you okay with that? The Supreme Court goes, that'll never happen. Well, we're pretty close to that happening. I mean, you've got Seal Team 6 killing people who are defenseless, who are waving their hands, begging to be saved off the coast of Venezuela. They're standing there for. They're floating for 45 minutes, posing a threat to no one. From an initial fishing boat that now we know absolutely didn't have fentanyl, may have had cocaine.

Michael Popak (10:32)

May.

Ben Mysell (10:33)

And was absolutely traveling east. Look at a map. Look at Venezuela. Look at east. Hint, hint, that's not in the direction of the United States. This ship wasn't even going close to the United States. And Seal Team 6 ordered to kill them to satisfy Donald Trump and Hegseth's bloodlust. And this derives from the Supreme Court giving sickos absolute immunity. Let's get into it, though, about how do you hold these people accountable, Pop? Let's just start with the declaration submitted by Kristi Noem in connection with the case where, you know, one of the big immigration cases that started it. Trump rounds up people, sends them to El Salvador. There's already a court order in place by Judge Boasberg saying, you can't do that. Let's make sure we satisfy due process that before you send them to a concentration camp in El Salvador, they still have some rights. Okay, you can't do it. And now we know that Kristi Noem at the highest level, Trump's Department of Homeland Security Secretary. Screw that. She said, send them there. Send them. So we know that now because the Justice Department was ordered provide the name of the person, they say Kristi Noem. So Judge Boasberg, and I'll pass it to you now, says, okay, Kristi Noemi, you need to submit a declaration that lets us know. Just tell us what happened. Tell the court. No. What happened and why you made this order so we can see what, what we do next. What did she do? Pop?

Michael Popak (12:00)

They're already, and I'm talking about the Department of Justice and the Trump administration, they're already lying in new sworn declarations that you just referred to in front of judge poster. Judge Boasberg issued an order that required by the 5th of December that all those who made the decision to effectively violate his order.

Michael Popak (12:24)

Issue a declaration first before he orders them all into court, which is coming up next to give live testimony where he cross examines them. He's going to say, all right, you want to do this by sworn statement first? Go ahead, try sworn statement. Let's see how you do. But I'll reserve my right to pull you into court for a full live evidentiary hearing. The people that were involved with the decision making at the top, as identified or thrown under the bus by Donald Trump, was Kristi Noem, advised by Todd Blanche, the number two in the Department of Justice, and Emil bovey, the number three at the time, who's now a 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals judge. And then Joe Mazzara, who is the Homeland Security general counsel acting, who got his advice from Blanche and Bove to give to Noem about it. They are already lying in their filing because of two major factors. The judge pulled everybody together back in March, March 15, for an emergency hearing in the afternoon, gave them notice in the morning. He pulled everybody in in the afternoon. During that hearing, in the afternoon about whether the. As the ACLU had presented the case, whether the Trump administration, without due process, was sending 200 people, allegedly part of Trend Aragua or Venezuelan citizens, and removing them under the Alien Enemies act to El Salvador of all places. Whether that was being done without court supervision or the ability for the court to entertain a writ of habeas corpus or other due process attack. In that hearing, the judge issued a temporary restraining order orally. His. It is as a binding and effective as if he had put it in writing. And he told Drew Ensign, who was there on behalf of the Department of Justice, you or to inform the rest of the administration that I have ordered that all planes that have not left federal jurisdiction be turned back around and ground. All planes, and you are not to continue to send these people to El Salvador while I get my arms and hands around the issues here. Do you understand? Yes, I understand. Okay. Later that evening, he puts in writing the temporary restraining order, but it was binding at the time he gave it. You and I both know as federal practitioners that when a judge makes a ruling from the bench or a tennis or otherwise, it is binding. I don't have to wait around. It's not subject to the later written one. And the game that they're trying to play at the Department of Justice and Homeland Security is we waited around until the. Until the evening order, and then by then, all the planes were gone. Judge and they were outside of your jurisdiction? No, he already developed Judge Boasberg a record that there were a number of planes that had not yet left American airspace at the time of the afternoon oral argument and oral pronouncement of the temporary restraining order. Then there's a gap where some continued to be flown even after Drew Enstein was instructed by the court to tell his client to ground everybody. He's there as a representative of the Department of Justice. Then there's a. Then there's the evening order. Then there's another set of planes that go out after that. So they. If you read the three declarations, which I have, and there's one missing, there's no email Bovey, Judge Bovey declaration. Although I'm sure they'll argue that even though he was involved with the decision making, that he is no longer under their control because he's a federal judge himself. All right. Doesn't mean that Judge Boasberg can't and won't pull Emil Bovey in to be examined at a hearing. For his role when he was the number three acting in the Department of Justice. The other person that he knows that we know that the judge is going to pull into a hearing is Erez Ruveni, who worked under Drew Ensign and famously or infamously was instructed by, according to him, by Emil Bovey, to F off the judges, not ground the planes, continue to fly them, even if so ordered by a federal judge. That's what Erez Roveni said. Erez Roveni was fired by the Department of Justice. He's now working at Democracy Forward as a lawyer. And he is going to be brought in because the judge says, I want to hear from the whistleblower against Amel Bovey, because that would. That would explain to me why my orders were violated. So let me just read to it for our audience. And it's posted up in Legalif substack, if you want to read them for yourself. And I'll give you where even they're inconsistent, even among their own declarations. She says, I made the decision, Kristi Noem, to continue the transfer of custody of the Alien Enemies act detainees who had been removed from the United States before this court issued its restraining order in the evening of March 15th. And I wrote next to that. No, the order was the afternoon order that grounded those planes. It's almost a confession here that they didn't, that they violated the oral argument, the oral temporary restraining order issued by the judge and waited for the evening. But it gets worse because Todd Blanch, the number two in the Department of Justice, he has a different version. Here's what he says. These were all drafted by the same person, by the way. Why they're inconsistent, I have no effing idea. Except they can't get their facts straight. Here's what Todd Blanche says in the evening of March 15, after analyzing this court's oral statements. Oral statements, not a ruling. Oral statements. At the TRO hearing and in the subsequent written order, Emil Bovey and I provided privileged legal advice, which we're not going to tell you to the Secretary of Homeland Security and regarding the decision whether to continue to transfer custody of the Alien Enemy act detainees who had been removed before this court issued those pronouncements. All right, let me unpack that.

Michael Popak (18:48)

They're not recognizing the validity of the afternoon order. They're basically conceding that they flew planes, even though Drew Ensign was obligated to ground those planes during, after, between afternoon and evening. And then they're saying that he didn't even get around to knowing about the oral TRO until the evening. How convenient.

Michael Popak (19:14)

Then I was updated in the evening, but between the afternoon and the evening, all the planes went, yeah, that's not going to fly. No pun intended. And then Joe, Joe Mazara also won't acknowledge the legality or the enforceability of the oral afternoon order to talk about sending the quote, unquote, terrorists. Now he calls them terrorists, issued to and sent to El Salvador. Now, footnote, those 200 are no longer in El Salvador. Those 200 men who were sent there without due process have been traded in a prisoner exchange of some sort with Venezuela, the country I thought we were at war with and the reason we're blowing up cocaine, fentanyl boats in the Caribbean. We just sent enemy combatants back to Venezuela, a country we are allegedly at war with. Does that make any sense to anybody? Or is it a case of Donald Trump trying to bury his mistakes by sending the people to Venezuela and sending Emil Bovey to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals? That's what it looks like to me. Now, what I think is going to happen is we're going to have a very angry and pissed off Judge Boasberg and the American Civil Liberties Union who's on the other side. He's going to say, look, this does not help the court to determine whether criminal contempt has been committed, what we call contumacious conduct in violation of my orders. You keep saying that the Oral TRO is something you could ignore. You cannot. I know the flight schedule for all of the planes because you provided that to me earlier. And this legal argument that you're trying to make, that you only had to comply with my evening order because it was in writing and you could continue to fly planes regardless, is not going to fly. And I want Emil Bovey in my courtroom, and I want Erez Ruveni. You know he's coming for a full evidentiary hearing. I want Christine Noem, I want Todd Blanche, and I want Joe Mazar, Joe Mazzara, all in my courtroom. That's the next step. Now, lastly, Ben, their other legal argument that they've raised is that there's nothing to see here. This is the Trump administration, because there's no contempt. Because one judge on the D.C. circuit panel, Judge Katz, said that the order was invalid at the time and oral versus written mattered, and therefore, you shouldn't find anybody in contempt. There's no willful disregard of your order and the like. And the judge said in his order, no, the en banc panel, meaning all of the judges of the D.C. circuit, have told me I can resume my criminal contempt. And there's only one judge, Judge Katz, who believes I shouldn't. I'm going back to my criminal contempt proceeding, and if I determine this is where this is going, if he determines that there was a willful violation of the terms of his order as, as given at any time, orally or in writing in the evening, he is going to find criminal contempt against somebody in the. In the Trump administration. And I think that somebody is going to be Kristi Noem, Todd Blanch, Joe Mazara, and maybe Emil Bovey. And he's going to use this other testimony that we just talked about. The last thing is, as you said, they're raising the attorney client privilege to say, we're not going to tell you what we told them, but we're just going to tell you that's not what the judge ordered. The judge ordered. I want to know who did it, why they did it, and what did they know at any particular time, what he should have seen. If you want to know what a proper declaration would have said is at this time, at 10:58 in the morning, we were informed by Drew Ensign that you had ordered blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. These planes were on the ground, These planes were in the air. These planes were over here. And no, because they know the facts suck for them. Because they continue to fly the planes and tell federal judges to f off even after the oral temporary restraining order was in place. We are quickly running into yet another constitutional crisis with a district court judge pulling in an appellate court judge to give testimony along with a whistleblower.

Ben Mysell (23:40)

Just think about this. Kristi Noem makes all these cosplay videos. They use Sabrina Carpenter's music while doing these videos that show themselves torturing migrants. Kristi Noem went to El Salvador and did a video in front of the terrorist concentration camp center. Whatever you want to call it. They call it a terrorist detention center. I call it a concentration camp, given the types of what we've seen, the abuses that take place there, which, by the way, is another violation of international law to do videos kind of parading yourself. And she was wearing, like, a $60,000 watch also, you know, in front of prisoners like convention behind her. She's out there holding press conferences and spreading all of these lies. The regime is on Fox spreading their lies every day. When it says, all right, do a declaration under oath and tell us what happened, we don't want to do that, doesn't that tell you everything you need to know about them, that they want to go on Fox and Say one thing, but then when a court says, all right, great, you want to do that, Whatever. We're in a court of law now. Submit your declaration, tell us what really happened. Objection. Privilege. I can't tell you that. We're not going to go into that. And they do that with everything. But now think about this other example. Special counsel Jack Smith wants to testify under oath before the House and the Senate. He goes, look, you're out there on Fox saying a lot of lies about me, and you're spreading all of these things on your social media. Jack Smith, this can I testify public? I want to do it. Right. Whereas Kristi Noem is ordered to do it and refuses to do it. Right. Jack Smith says, I want. Let me testify publicly, please, so that I can let the world know what truthfully happened. Right. Magas, Jim Jordan, James Comer, Mike Johnson. Let me do it. Senate. I'll speak any day, anytime, as long grill me. And if I lie, you could prosecute me. Go for it. And what do they do? What do the Republicans do? No, no, no, no, no. We can't do that in public. We're gonna do a secret deposition behind closed doors, limited in time, and no one's going to get to see it. That should just tell you without even getting into the facts and the evidence. That should just tell you what's happening here that the Trump regime is hiding and uses their propaganda networks versus what really happens in a law and order situation when the facts and evidence are on your side. So with that said, let's take our first quick break of the show. We've got a lot more to discuss. Next we'll talk about the Supreme Court ruling and the response by Virginia. Then I want to talk about some updates in the Epstein file release and what's happening there and what Delaine Maxwell is doing. And we'll talk about the grand jury proceedings as it relates to New York Attorney General Letitia James. First break of the show. Reminder, make sure you check out Michael Popak's new law firm. Michael Popak's representing people who listen and watch the legal af. So if you've been injured in an accident, a car accident, trucking accident, call 877- POPAK-AF or go to thepopocfirm.com that's 877- POPAKAF or go to the popoc firm.com. the consultation is free. And if you know somebody who's been injured, Popox representing a lot of legal AF listeners and viewers. So check, check out his firm and get that free consultation. Also check out the Legal AF substack and Legal AF YouTube channel, which are both doing really good and expanding and really reaching bigger and bigger audiences every single day. All right, first quick break of the show. We will be right back.

Michael Popak (27:28)

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Ben Mysell (32:02)

Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you everybody for checking out our pro democracy sponsors. Right there. We're grateful for them. All right, Popak, let's talk about what the Supreme Court did in this ruling as it relates to Texas's gerrymander. Everybody knows this story now. Donald Trump, same way he said, find me 11,000 votes, right? He said find me five or more Republican congressional seats in Texas. So he reaches out to Governor Abbott, Texas MAGA Governor. At first Texas was resistant. Then they came up with a plan where the Department of Justice would write a letter to Texas saying that, oh, we, we think that you are discriminating against certain groups. So you have to do racist gerrymandered maps to not discriminate against the groups. It's like a crazy concept. Don't ask me to explain to you the logic and what the DOJ did, but they said you've got to do these racial gerrymanders, which is like per se unlawful under the Voting Rights act to do racial gerrymander. And it was so bad that even a district court judge appointed by Trump in a three judge panel saw this.

Ben Mysell (33:12)

Map that was created in Texas which the purpose was to create five additional Republican congressional seats before the midterms. And the Trump appointed judge, like a very MAGA judge is like, I don't know what you want me to do here. We've held the nine day hearing the district court judge did, we've gotten thousands of exhibits, we've heard from tons of witnesses and like everyone's saying like the whole purpose of this gerrymander was to move around the Hispanic population and move around white population and dilute black population. Like you're saying it's so there's nothing I can do. Like this is clearly like we understand that partisan gerrymandering is bad, but I guess technically allowed, but you can't do a partisan gerrymander on the basis of race. Then it becomes unlawful. And Texas's argument is we're just trying to help the Republicans win, we're not doing it in a racist way. And the Trump appointed judge said no, that's not what the documents say. So Donald Trump rushes to the Supreme Court and initially you have Justice Alito temporarily block what that district court panel did and then said but we're going to wait, we're going to do a more fulsome ruling. Popak, we got that fulsome ruling and basically the six right wing justices in their opinion say we're going to keep the map in place. That was done by Abbott and Trump because number one, there is a strong presumption of good faith that everything the legislature does is good so we can't disrupt that. Number two, the people challenging the map, the groups challenging the unlawful map did not provide an alternative map. Therefore we have to make a strong adverse inference against the group that filed the lawsuit saying the map was unlawful. And I was thinking to myself, pope, I want to get your take. What do you mean there wasn't an alternative map? It was the map that just existed before that was the alternative map. The, the map before you changed it to add five additional seats. And then the Supreme Court went with the Purcell principle, which you and I always talked about, which is we, the Supreme Court, don't want to get involved in any of this before an election because we don't want to change the status quo willy nilly. So we don't want to change it. So we're just going to keep it, come back to us in a few years and we'll deal with it after the midterm elections. So that was basically the Supreme Court's ruling. So, Popak, any surprises there? Any surprises there to you at the Supreme Court?

Michael Popak (35:41)

No. I mean, you've got.

Michael Popak (35:44)

You'Ve got the refusal by the Supreme Court to acknowledge that you can have both an attempt to make a map overly partisan, red, red and blue and at the same time do it through means, as Justice Kagan pointed out in her scathing dissent, of having it be an example of racial gerrymandering. See, the Supreme Court wants to put on their red and blue glasses and ignore the discrimination of black and brown. So even though it's, well, all the Democrats are black and brown in this one area, but we're really just doing it because we want it to be red if we're going to continue with our color analogy. And they picked this up because they were waiting on a major decision coming out of the United States Supreme Court, which based on this ruling, does not bode well of.

Michael Popak (36:41)

A case called Calais involving Louisiana, Mike Johnson's state and their maps and whether they're going to completely chloroform Section 2 of the Voting Rights act and find that effectively you can have an entirely white.

Michael Popak (36:58)

Set of congressional districts in a state that has a percentage of black and brown people as long as you do it in the name of partisan redistricting. And that's not okay with most Americans in a state like Louisiana that's a third black. To have one out of the seven districts be black and to do what's called cracking and or packing, which is you take a district that is.

Michael Popak (37:27)

That is black and in order to avoid it electing a black or brown candidate, you spread them out, you crack them and you spread that group out through redistricting among many groups, diluting their power or you pack them all into one district so they only get one district. And you pointed out well in one of your hot takes, and I think I followed Susan about Harmeet Dhillon, who's the Civil Rights division head for the Department of Justice, wrote a letter that was relied upon by the Trump judge in the 2 to 1 decision in the right leaning 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that this case is based on in which she effectively said, you need to racially gerrymander. I mean, they had it dead to rights. This is what when somebody like Alito in his concurrence writes, you know, oh, you didn't give the presumption of regularity and legality. And you, and you construed every, every ambiguity against the legislature. Yes, because it's, you look at the map, you look at the evidence, you look at the letter from the Department of Justice. There's no other way to construe it. And what Kagan said is what, a disrespect to the lower court and to the appellate court below, who spent hours, 3,000 pages of exhibits, dozens of witnesses, nine days or eight days of trial testimony, and we sit here on a short track without full record over a Thanksgiving weekend, and this is the decision that we make. How dare we? She said. We may be a higher court, but we're not a better court than they are in making these factual findings. And we should have, unless we found clear error, which is the standard, we should have left the 2 to 1 decision by the Trump judge alone. Now, the only good news that came out of this, the only silver lining, it's a pretty big one though, is that even Alito, who led the charge here, not only was he the associate justice responsible for Texas in the Fifth Circuit, but also, you know, likely leading the Maga 6 in their decision making on this particular issue, even Alito said effectively, well, a lot of different states followed suit and did partisan map drawing include not just Texas, California did it, too. So it was almost an admission that that there this lawsuit that's been filed by the Trump administration, brought by Harmony Dhillon to join a case brought by her old law firm, the Dylan Law group, challenging Prop 50. And the new map in California is going to die because they've now announced partisan gerrymandering combined with we're going to give an assumption that it's not being done for racial issues and there's no assumption that it's being done in California for racial issues is likely. Okay. And then that has now released the hounds. And you did a great interview with the leaders of the, of the legislature in Virginia about, hey, you want to go plus 12 with 3 different states? How about we go plus 9 in Virginia alone? You know, but I want to make a point here. The Democrats, as recently as five years ago, eight years ago, led by Barack Obama, led by Eric Holder, the former attorney general, you know, they're like, we don't want any partisan gerrymandering let's eliminate that completely. Will you agree? And the Republicans did not meet them there on that point and said, no, we want to make, as Governor Abbott said in Texas, a red state's going to be redder. Okay, then f you, we're going to do the same thing right now when the dust settles. And there'll be more redistricting, I think after the Calais decision comes out in the next month or two by the United States Supreme Court. I think at the end, we're going to see still a net win for Donald trump of maybe four or five seats. It may not be the 12 or 20 that we feared because of things that are happening in Virginia, but there is going to be a net plus for Donald Trump. So how do we pay back the legislators and the Governors in the 27 red states who are trying to pull this off? And, and the way we do that is at the ballot. And it, you know, he made start with an extra five points at the start of the basketball game. But if we overwhelm them at the midterms and vote the bastards out.

Michael Popak (42:12)

And try to reclaim down ballot where we can, these state houses, because that is the dirty secret of the Republican Party. While we were always focused at the top of the ticket on trying to get our presidents elected, and maybe if we can, the Senate and the House, they were working on boards of education, secretaries of state, election board officials.

Michael Popak (42:36)

And state houses. And they were very successful in implementing that strategy. That's why we have 23 blue states and 27 states that are controlled by red. But we can reclaim that power come the midterms. And based on polling you and I have done reporting on, if we just continue to call out the Trump administration for its barbarism, its depravity, its immorality, its violation of American values, its violation of the Constitution, it's erratic behavior, then the choice will be relatively easy to be made as long as we all go out and vote at the midterms and beyond.

Ben Mysell (43:17)

Well said, Michael Popak. And I just think.

Ben Mysell (43:22)

As you look at what the Democratic priorities were versus Republican priorities, the Democratic priorities have been, okay, let's figure out a way to expand health care coverage, make education more accessible. Like, what can we use government as a tool for to help people. The Republican agenda, though, is how do we use our power to further entrench our power and then using propaganda networks to facilitate a division amongst people so that the efforts being done by the Democratic Party to help in these areas, whether it's health care, education, whatever, are viewed as you Know, communism or socialism or all of these things and DEI and all, you know, while the Republicans have been focused on let's use our power to get more power. And I just think the mindset of Democratic leaders until recently just wasn't to do that. You know, it was a little bit, you know, when they go low, we go high, you know, stuff like that. And it's like, yeah, but they're going low allowed them to entrench the power and create these structures that have now created an agenda that's not aligned with where the American people are. You know, And I give credit to my friend David Pepper over in Ohio, used to run the Democratic Party up there, who came up with this phrase and of the laboratories of autocracy. And he described some of these red states, like what he was seeing take place in Ohio, which used to be a purple state, but then became a fully red state. Or you look at a place like Tennessee, where there was the recent special election there, where Nashville has been carved up into like seven different districts basically to remove Democratic control at all by like, if you ever look at a Tennessee map, you'll see Tennessee. I mean, Nashville and Davidson is just all messed up. So these laboratories of autocracy were creating these models of what can be done at a national level. And that's what Trump and MAGA are trying to.

Michael Popak (45:33)

Before you move on, did you see the. There's so much polling that's out right now. Negative 56 point favorability. Unfavorability rating for voters under 30 for Donald Trump used to be plus 10 points independence approval rating for Donald Trump is at 26%. But did you see the polling about young voters, meaning 30 and under? That now a majority of young voters believe that socialism is a better system than capitalism. 50, more than 50% choose socialism over capitalism. All I'm raising that for is it helps explain what happened in New York with Mamdani. But that means that there is a large segment of voters, young voters, who believed our system, our constitutional republic, on top of a capitalist system, when it's run as a purely capitalist system the way that Donald Trump is, and leaves out the people who are disadvantaged and who can't afford to live in America. When that happens, people reject what has always been a foundation, a guiding principle of America, which is we are a capitalist country embedded, which means we've got to do a better job. Both of the Democratic Party. Democratic Party has to do a better job at explaining how capitalism combined with social programs and social safety net and affordability being the focus Is America as opposed to I want to become a socialist country?

Ben Mysell (47:10)

Well, look, I don't know. Is my pushback to you is I'm not sure we're a capitalist country, to be honest with you. It seems like we're a socialist country for billionaires. It seems that we are social welfare and social programs for billionaires. Now, you can call that crony capitalism or you can call that the natural extension of where capitalism ends in this creation of an oligarchy. But to me, the system that you have under Donald Trump looks a whole lot more like communism and oligarchical socialism that we've seen in communist dictatorships than a capitalist society. I mean, ownership of the means and methods of control and production. Trump seizing businesses and interests in businesses. Donald Trump picking winners. People show up with gold nuggets or like gold tchotchkes, and then that influences what he's going to do with policy. And I think people are saying, why you're doing socialism, but you're doing it for billionaires who don't need it, while 99% of Americans are absolutely getting screwed. And so to me, whatever you're calling it, a label is a label. But are you helping the people that you govern, to me is more important than even the, from my view, capitalism, socialism, I just want to know, is a governing body delivering a government that governs by the people, for the people in a democracy. And then you have, I agree that, you know, I want to see competition in business. I want to see antitrust, though, enforcement. Right now we're seeing all of these massive businesses have these mergers and acquisitions, you know, and are limiting competition. And so it's an important point. But I think the voters are actually reflecting something smarter. I think the voters are saying, wait a minute, Trump and Mag America, you're trying to fear monger us with socialism and communism, but you've created a structure that looks a whole lot like Soviet Russia versus what we thought America was. We thought this was a land of opportunity. We thought this was the home and the free, the home of a brave where everybody can make it. And you're crushing us. Let's do that debate a little more. Let's take our last quick break of the show, but I want to talk about when we get back, Epstein updates. And then I want to talk about New York Attorney General Letitia James updates there because that was a big embarrassment for the Trump regime as well. They say you can indict a ham sandwich. Not if you're the Trump regime. So maybe they'll try again. For a bologna and cheese sandwich. See if they can indict that. But we will see. Reminder. Michael Popox started his own law firm. It's called the Popoc Firm. Check it out thepopochfirm.com or call 877-popoc- AF. That's 877-popoc AF. Or go to the popoc firm.com consultation is free. If they take your case, the representation is done on a contingency meeting. They don't recover unless you recover. And they have lawyers across the country. So if you've been injured in a car accident, auto accident, if you're the victim of assault, sexual assault, or you know somebody who's been in a wrongful death situation, or you know somebody who may have a case, reach out to Popo. Consultation is free. Also check out Michael Popak Substack Legal AF substack. Just go on substack and search Legal AF and the Legal AF YouTube channel. Subscribe there as well. Let's try to get legal AF1 million subscribers before the end of this month. They're like 20,000 subscribers away from hitting 1 million. All right, last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.

Michael Popak (50:40)

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Ben Mysell (54:57)

Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to our sponsors. Discount codes for all those sponsors are in the description below. They support Legal AF wouldn't be able to exist really if it wasn't for them. So support them. Jordy spends a long time working with POPOC to bring you sponsors that we think you'll like and Popak spends a long time on those ad reads also. So reach out to those sponsors to take advantage of those discount codes before the holidays as well. All right, POPAC want to cover a few things right now. Let's talk about briefly the Epstein update, what Ghislaine Maxwell is doing there. Then let's talk about New York Attorney General Letitia James and we got some time for it. Let's talk about the Supreme Court accepting that birthright citizenship case on its docket. Let me pass it to you, Popa.

Michael Popak (55:44)

Yeah, well let me take it a little bit out of order. Let's, let's dive in because people are really interested in Letitia James thing. Let's hit it right now. So Letitia James has had a very, very good 48 hours in a number of ways almost as the way you and I had predicted it that there's so much publicity, negative publicity around the Department of Justice's prosecution of James Comey and of Letitia James as their, their starter set of vindictive prosecutions with more to follow if they were successful here using their hand picked political hacks of, of non prosecutor prosecutors like Lindsey Halligan and, and you, you and you have Judge Curry less than two weeks ago who bounces Lindsey Halligan fires her as the U.S. attorney in Virginia because she finds she was illegally appointed. And as a remedy for the illegality of her appointment as a U.S. attorney not confirmed by the Senate, not properly appointed, you know, can't be your own first assistant special attorney doesn't help her. You know, that just doesn't end run around the statute and says I got, I'm going to kick the indictments too. So she kicks the indictments. We then sit back and wait for the Department of Justice to take their next step. First they say we're going to appeal. All right, so appeal. But then it became clear they didn't care about Lindsey Halligan. Talk about throwing people under the bus. They cared about the indictments. So rather than immediately appeal to get Lindsey Halligan back into power, they, they instead apparently according to leaks and what we just saw in the last 48 hours, they said let's see if we can get two clean indictments of James Comey, which is going to be a harder mountain to climb. We'll talk about that in a second. And Letitia James, Letitia James a little bit easier because there's plenty of time left on the clock for statute of limitations on quote, unquote, mortgage fraud. But you got to convince a grand jury, 14 of them or so, that. That you have a. That there's been probable cause to believe crimes have been committed. So it looked like their strategy was as implemented. Let's get clean indictments without Lindsey Halligan. F. Lindsey Halligan. Let's use the first assistant that we just brought in from Kentucky, this guy they pulled out of semi retirement to like, go be her babysitter. Let him go into Norfolk, Virginia. Let's avoid Alexandria, Virginia, where the other grand jury. Let's go to Norfolk, Virginia, where the house is located on this mortgage fraud case and see if we can convince them. And you and I looked at each other like you think now, based on the publicity of the Department of Justice and their vindictive prosecutions, it's going to be easy for a prosecutor to walk in with a grand jury and say, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, the grand jury. You're here on a case of US vs. Letitia James. How many effing eye rolls must there have been in the room? And actual audible groans will learn later on with the grand jury when they were like, we're doing that case. And then they put on the same. The problem with the case is the same problem as before. And it's the reason why a prior grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, would not indict her, because there's nothing to indict. She bought a house for $118,000 in Norfolk, Virginia, that she was going to use both as a second home for her and. And to let her niece with a couple of kids live in in the interim. There is nothing wrong with that. It doesn't violate any certificate that she signed as part of her. Of her mortgage. And they're like, oh, she saved money because she said she'd only. She keep it locked and shut when she wasn't living there. She wouldn't let her niece live there. And she saved $50 a month over 50 years. Does anybody really believe, and certainly the grand jury didn't, that Letitia James, the New York attorney general, to save 50. $50 a month, you know, the equivalent of like six Starbucks coffees, decided that she was going to commit mortgage fraud with willful criminal intent. No. So that they had enough time to go back to a grand jury and try to get it a second time. For those that are tuning in late to the story, we already had the major crimes prosecutor in Norfolk Virginia write a memo to Lindsey Halligan saying there's no crime to indict, and I'm not going to indict it. She got fired, right, Liz? You see fired, then you get this guy from Kentucky. I guess leading another prosecutor band to go back in front of a grand jury in that town to try to get Letitia James prosecuted comes back as no. Will it stop the Trump administration? Probably not. Because if you, you interview. I don't know if you interviewed her. We had her on legal af. We had the protester who got beat, who got pushed up against the wall during a protest in D.C. they tried to indict her four times before a grand jury, and all four times the grand jury said no. So they had to move it on to a misdemeanor charge. I'm not sure they're ever going to get Letitia James indicted in any part of Virginia. It has to be Virginia, because that's where the house is located. Or Norfolk, Virginia, on this particular issue, James Comey, they'll try again, too, but the rumor out there is that they know they can't use the perjury charge for his testimony in September of 2020 to Congress, which is always a weak case anyway. But they're going to try to use another manufactured criminal case or criminal indictment that doesn't have a statute of limitations problem. I'm not quite sure what that is. If they try it, we, of course, will report on it. They got another problem with Comey because the Professor Richman has filed a motion about getting all of his documents and laptop and emails back that were the basis of the original Comey indictment, because his Fourth Amendment rights were violated, which was pointed out by the magistrate judge already. And there's a new judge that's going to be looking at that issue, Judge Kohler Catelli in the District of Columbia. And if she decides that none of that Professor Richmond Comey communications can be used in his case, that case is dead. So you got that going on. And then to continue the good week for Letitia James, her other set of lawyers on behalf of her New York Attorney General's office, go before Judge Schofield in Manhattan earlier in the week to quash subpoenas issued by another political hack named John Sarcone up in the Northern District of New York, who was issuing subpoenas for a grand jury to go after the Attorney General's office for having brought the successful fraud case against Donald Trump and his family as a civil rights violation. But in order to do that, you gotta be validly appointed. He wasn't for the same reason that Lindsey Halligan wasn't. And of course, last week, Alina Haba was fired by the 30 by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. So Halligan Haba, soon to be John Sarcone. Because in the John Sarcone hearing about whether he was legally appointed or not, Judge Schofield spent most of the hearing.

Michael Popak (62:57)

Basically saying to the lawyers for Letitia James in New York Attorney General's office, suppose I grant your motion, what should the remedy be? When a judge is talking about remedy, how to fix a problem and less about the violation, you know she's gonna be bouncing John Sarcone as well. That'll be the third U.S. attorney that's fired by a judge or a courtroom in the last month or two. On top of Nevada, on top of California. And the reason people might say, why is this happening? Because Donald Trump refuses to put a quality candidate who can get through a confirmation process and a senator blue slip approval process to put them in place to run the 93 different U.S. attorney offices around the country. Because that's not his goal. His goal is to pick a political hack whose sole purpose it is is to go on his vendetta campaign and to vindictively prosecute his enemies list. And so who'll do that? Right? The John Sarconis, the Alina abas, the Lindsay Halligans of the world. Not a legitimate career prosecutor. Even those that consider themselves Republican or conservative aren't going to, like, go after people, you know that, where there's no probable cause to believe that a crime's been committed in violation of the DOJ manual. So you got to take people who have never been prosecutors before, Alina Haba, John Zarconi, Lindsay Halligan, and you have to, like, push them out there. And then, of course, you've got plausible deniability when things go wrong. You don't see them appealing to get Lindsey Halligan her job back. They haven't filed the appeal to the Supreme Court on Haba yet. So all they care about is getting their pound of flesh and getting these indictments up and running to no matter how even Lindsey Halligan, Ben, doesn't believe that she's ever going to be the U.S. attorney for Virginia confirmed by the Senate. Neither does Sarcone, and neither does Alina Haba.

Ben Mysell (64:51)

Well, and here's the thing, and I'll pass it back to you to talk a bit about Epstein. One of the things we've been seeing, though, is Halligan refuses to remove her name from court Filings. And she continues to pretend that she's the United States Attorney from the Eastern District of Virginia. Alina Haba continues to pretend that she is the United States Attorney for the District Court District of New Jersey. They show up to work, they go to an office, their cards should be deactivated because they are not that position. And they show up to an office where they don't belong. It's like the Seinfeld episode where Costanza pretends that I think this is, unless I'm imagining it, that doesn't he pretend that he, that he's still like working with the Yankees. And he shows up, and he keeps on showing up like he's got the job after they fired him and a.

Michael Popak (65:41)

Famous movie office space where they just kept showing up even though they never got the job.

Ben Mysell (65:45)

And it's incredibly humiliating because the judges have zero respect now for the Department of Justice. And they're really. Who's suffering from this, though? You know, and it's not just the targets of these high profile prosecutions. It's the American people, because the Eastern District of Virginia is known for its prosecution of espionage cases and public integrity cases and terrorism cases and trafficking cases and things that are in that D.C. area. Similarly, New Jersey office, you know, Republican Democratic prosecutors, though, known for prosecutions of Mafia people and embezzlement schemes and sex trafficking schemes off the coast of New Jersey, New York, and also kind of major fraud and issues that deeply impact the financial security and markets in our country. You know, you're talking about Nevada, you're talking about gaming, and you're talking about a lot of criminality that exists there. I mean, so we're degrading our prosecutorial abilities for drugs, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, terrorism, counterterrorism, crime, bribery, you know, financial crimes with these fake prosecutors playing dress up. And it's, and it's that, that's ultimately what's. What's happening. Let me pass it back to you. Talk about Epstein.

Michael Popak (67:10)

Yeah, let's talk about Epstein. A couple developments there. One most recent. I'll do it. I'll do most recent. And then go back to something happened a few days ago, which I found very fascinating. Most recently, Judge Rodney Smith, who I know well because he used to be a judge in Miami trial court level, who got elevated to federal court. He revisited the issue post the Epstein Transparency act passage about whether the grand jury transcripts from 05 and 07, when Epstein was originally investigated in the Southern District of Florida, by then U.S. attorney Alex Acosta, later promoted and I guess rewarded by Donald Trump to become his labor secretary because he's the one that entered into the non prosecution agreement with Epstein, giving him a slap on the wrist for being a child sex trafficker and allowing him to continue to child sex traffic, you know, and keep that going for a longer period of time than if they had taken him off the street the way the New York prosecutors had done and put him in jail awaiting trial. That grand jury transcripts, which I'm not sure what's in it, but whatever's in it when it's released, you and I will take a look at it. Back in the summer, the Trump administration to distract attention from the fact that they were refusing to release the mountain of evidence that and mountain of material that they had in the executive branch. Instead, we're trying to blame federal judges. Oh, we got to relate transparency. Well, we're not going to give you this jungle pile over here, but there's these little thin grand jury transcripts with very little in them. That's what we're going to focus our attention on so that Cash can, Patel can say during Senate hearings and congressional hearings, there's court orders, I would release everything, but we can't release everything. And because they conflate on purpose, this issue of the mound of stuff that Cash Patel's FBI looked at, you know, for 3,000 overtime hours and these little tiny things over here, secret grand jury transcripts and maybe some other material to be released. First round of judges, Judge Berman, Judge Engelmeier in New York, Judge.

Michael Popak (69:17)

Rosenberg, Judge Rothenberg in West Palm beach said, no, we have a rule. It's called the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6e. And you don't get secret grand jury material unless you show me that you satisfy one of these criteria and you haven't. And all the judges, well, at least Engelmeier and Berman pointed the finger back at the Trump administration. Like, we've looked at all the grand jury material. There's really nothing in there. There's like one witness, it was FBI agent. There's no victim testimony. There's very. The Epstein files. You got them, you released them. And get off our back. That was in July. Fast forward to the final, you know, almost universal.

Michael Popak (70:04)

Support, except for one guy, for the Epstein Transparency act to finally get Donald Trump to sign it, which we have about less than 20 days left for the release of the Epstein files pursuant to it, subject to Pam Bondi saying, well, I got an active criminal investigation in the Southern District over only Democrats, so I won't be able to release everything. Subject to that, they then went the Department of Justice back to the same judges, Berman, Engelmeier, and now a newly assigned judge, Judge Smith, because it wrote, because. Because Rothenberg.

Michael Popak (70:42)

Closed her file, closed her. Her case, it got reassigned to a new judge in Fort Lauderdale. Judge Smith said, well, the Epstein Act, I think, supersedes Rule 6E, by the way. I totally disagree with him on this. I mean, I'm fine with getting the grand jury transcripts, but I totally disagree with this analysis because the, the. The act did not say that this overcomes grand jury secrecy in Rule 6. It just said everything that the executive branch has needs to be produced within 30 days. Doesn't talk about Rule 6 and what's in courts in the judicial branch. But be that as it may, Judge Smith has ordered that the grand jury transcripts that were once secret and some other exhibits that were part of that process be released to the public. As of the recording, as of our live, there hasn't been an objection to that. There hasn't been victims coming forward as. As being done in New York. There's a process in New York for Judge Engelmeier to figure out whether he's going to release his transcripts about Ghislaine Maxwell. Now, interestingly, in that issue with Judge Engelmeier, Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyer, David Oscar Marcus, filed a very peculiar letter. He told the judge that things should not be released about Ghislaine Maxwell because she intends pro se to file a writ of habeas corpus. Let me unpack that. Pro se means without a lawyer. That means either she fired David Oscar Marcus, or David Oscar Marcus filed. Fired her, and he's just doing his ethical duty to, to like, on the way out to say to the judge, my client on her own may be filing a petition from Texas, likely in Texas, to get out of jail. Doesn't sound like he supports this, because the word pro se tells me he doesn't. And it's a very odd turn of affairs because he's been out there all along campaigning to get her pardon and clemency. But he, like all of us, has watched her lie to Todd Blanche and lies proven after the oversight committee, led by the Democrats, released emails from the Epstein estate from a hard drive we didn't even know existed, showing email communication between Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell, which put a lie to most of her testimony to Todd Blanche. So either David Oscar Marcus was like, I can't represent this person anymore, or they have had a falling out about the writ of habeas corpus that she's filing because he doesn't see merit in it and doesn't want to be associated with it. So we got some interesting developments in the Epstein as we count down the days to see when Pam Bondi is finally going to admit that she's not going to release all the files.

Ben Mysell (73:42)

I think it's a great point that you raise. We know that David Oscar Marcus has a great relationship with Todd Blanche. They go back, they're friends, they're on each other's pod podcasts all of the time. And I think that that interview actually really blew up and backfired in the face of Todd Blanche. And it's really a David Oscar Marcus preserving his relationship with Blanche. He's got to kind of choose someone here. And his move with Ghislaine is simply, I'm not going to be affiliated now with your habeas petition because I'm valuing my relationship with Blanche over filing something that likely isn't going to.

Ben Mysell (74:22)

That habeas petition is going to get laughed out of court. Now, the only reason why they would have this habeas petition at all is that it provides her, at least in her own mind, a pretext to try to invoke the Fifth Amendment when she is deposed by the House Oversight Committee. Or it allows her to say, look, I've got a motion pending still, so I can't incriminate myself. That's why I'm invoking the Fifth, because I have this habeas petition pending. I think Marcus would have been the person to write it despite it being relatively frivolous. But it's not worth it to him to do a frivolous.

Michael Popak (74:57)

I'll tell you why you're right. Why I agree with you. Two reasons. This is not his only client. And this administration, whether we like it or not, is going to be around for another three years. And David Oscar Marcus has a successful federal defense practice, and he's going to be up against the Department of Justice in lots of cases where he claimed Maxwell's name is not on there. So preserving his relationship with the number two in the Department of. Of Justice. I agree with you and this. And people may not like it, but I will tell you, in our, in our profession, your reputation, when I say people may not like this, what I mean is your reputation as a lawyer is paramount because if you lose it, you don't have an ability to represent clients any longer successfully. So sometimes, even though you may be like, yeah, I'm gonna file this bombastic, crazy motion, but you're like, no, I'm not going to do that because I got to live to fight another day, even for another client. And I don't know if you caught it. Ben Todd Blanche basically threatening members of the bar, you know, in the last week or two, last week or so, where he basically, well, if you want to get, you know, favorable treatment for your clients, then you better stop taking these positions against the Department of Justice, basically, you know, doing a carrot and stick against the bar.

Michael Popak (76:13)

So if you're David Oscar Marcus and you don't want to just have one client and you still want to have a federal defense practice, you maybe not want to represent Ghislaine Maxwell in her. In a writ.

Ben Mysell (76:23)

It also shows you the everything Trump touches dies mantra is accurate. Like David Oscar Marcus, I think, and Todd Blanche, when they hatched this plan, believe this would be helpful for Donald Trump. But ultimately, when you're doing bad things to cover up bad things, I think you have a higher probability for unintended bad consequences because the bad people you surround yourself with are unpredictable. And look, David Oscar Marcus and, you know, and Todd Blanche for doing this, I'm not letting them off. I mean, I think they're bad people for, for doing this. But the fact that you are hatching a plan to facilitate a plan between Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell effectively to cover up a child sex trafficking ring, which would Trump and Ghislaine want to do, the unintended consequences are actually the in. You should know that they are going to occur like they're not actually unintended because Trump and Ghislaine have different agendas than you two, which is a Trump and Ghislaine agenda.

Michael Popak (77:29)

And they were purposely sloppy. I mean, you and I would never, if we were Todd Blanche and Todd Blanche used to be a good lawyer, we would never do what he did. Because you, you would say, I don't. I would have. I would have Maureen Comey, who prosecuted the case against Epstein and Maxwell, who knew the case like the back of her hand sitting next to me in the interrogation, in the interview, because she would be able to tell me that's a lie. There's an email. Don't that's untrue. That we have it on videotape. He didn't want that. He must have known that the Epstein estate hadn't had him finished producing everything, including emails and, and servers. And yet he was willing to go out on a limb, purposely blind himself from these issues. And now bad things happen because there are emails, there are servers, there are Documents there. There are Maureen Comeys out there, and it just.

Ben Mysell (78:24)

Here's the thing. Maureen Comey this week, though, was in federal court for her case where she's suing the Trump administration for wrongful termination. And she's arguing that she shouldn't have to go to the Merit Systems Protection Board, Merit Systems Protections Board, as the precursor to filing the lawsuit, because Trump gutted the Merit Systems Protection Board. So she's like, why should I have to go through the prerequisite before filing the lawsuit? But even there, the federal judge was telling Maureen Comey, it seemed where the judge was leaning, as though, even though Trump destroyed the Merit Systems Protection Board, you still have to go through the prerequisites and lose, even though, you know it's a foregone conclusion, you'll lose before you bring your federal case. So there's a whole incongruency there. But the point is, without necessarily getting into the weeds there, she's suing Trump because Trump terminated her. The main prosecutor in the Epstein Delaine case, who would be actually a very valuable person for helping bring transparency to there. But look, a lot of people have this question mark, and I should. And you should. And we should be asking it because it hasn't been answered, which is Maureen Comey. You know, why isn't she out there now? I mean, she's been fired. Talking about what she knows in her review of those, you know, of those files. Right. She knows who's on a lot of this stuff. She must have seen it. You know, granted, her prosecution was against Ghislaine, but a lot of that discovery I'm sure she went through, it involves. Involves everything. So it's just an interesting question to me why she's not out there. And that just may be her own personal decision. That's. That's not how she is. But there's also a little bit of when they go low, we go high. That's also, you know, brought her father into, I think, difficult situations also because her father believes that I'm above this and I'm above that, but I'm gonna get involved here. And then it was like, well, now you've been brought into all of this because you didn't affirmatively fight back and push back against everything that's happened. Popak, before we go just quickly, we don't know what the outcome is going to be. That's why I just want to go super quickly. Birthright citizenship. The actual substantive. The merits of birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, which literally says birthright citizenship exists The Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case. Does that tell you anything that they want to hear it?

Michael Popak (80:52)

Two, two big Supreme Court developments. One's going to be on Legal AF Live on Monday at 10am The Supreme Court's going to be hearing the oral argument of Slaughter versus the United States, which they've said they want that case, the case with Lisa Cook in January, the Federal Reserve, they want to get their rulings out on that before they decide whether the Library of Congress can be taken over by Donald Trump. The issue is whether congressionally created boards, agencies and officers can be fired at will by Donald Trump. Yes or no? Rebecca Slaughter was the head of the Federal Trade Commission, which ironically was the same body, same agency that is a part of a 90 year old case called Humphreys Executor. Humphreys was on the FTC who got fired without cause and the Supreme Court said no. Congress wanted that to be bipartisan. Congress wanted that to be for cause. And the president can't fire them at will. That has been the law for 95 years. Rebecca Slaughter is the descendant of Humphreys, literally on the Federal Trade Commission. Big hearing about whether Donald Trump's firing of all these federal officers agencies, the Merit Systems Protection Board, National Labor Relations Board, Federal Reserve, whether that's going to be legal or not, we're going to know a lot from the oral argument. 8:10am Eastern time, legal AF live. We're running that stream. That's coming up now. Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided that they're going to take the case coming out of New Hampshire. But it's one of four or five cases around the country in which a judge in this case, Joe LaPlante, ruled that the 14th Amendment doesn't say what it says. I mean, he ruled that the 14th Amendment says what it says, that if you were born on US Soil and you're subject to the laws thereof, you are a US Citizen regardless of the legal status, immigration status of your parents. Donald Trump decided that that only applies to the children of former slaves. I'm not making this up. Even though people who wrote the Constitution at various times know how to write about black people and slavery when they want to. That's not with our Reconstruction amendments. The 14th, the 15th and the 16th amendments say they just talk about forevermore. If you're born here and you're subject to the laws here, which you are meaning if you're from Honduras and you're waiting for asylum, which Barbara, this is the case of Barbara versus Trump. Barbara, which is a pseudonym, is she's from Honduras waiting for political asylum and had a baby. Her baby is a US Citizen just like she would be, or he would be in Mexico or in Canada or 30, 29 other countries. Donald Trump, on the first day of his administration did the Executive Order 14, 106 that said, no, if your mother is illegal and your father's not green card or a citizen or vice versa, that child is not going to be recognized. We're talking about over 4 million children under the age of 18 that this would rip away birthright citizenship, forgetting about the Future and about 100,000 or more a year of babies that we're talking about. There's 150 year old precedent that the Supreme Court would have to run away from. Now, some people might be thinking, didn't they already do this case sort of in the summer we reported on a part of birthright citizenship about universal injunctions, whether federal judges could issue universal injunctions from their perch as district court judges to block the implementation of something especially constitutional principles, constitutional violations or not. The Supreme Court basically said not touching birthright citizenship per se, said, no, only the United States Supreme Court can make a ruling that has universal application around the entire United States. The best you can do federal judges is to do class certification and do an injunction on top of it unless your states, and maybe states will make an exception. All right, so that was the muddled ruling that came out of the summer on quote, unquote, birthright citizenship. Now, what they could have done is they could have said no. There's four different courts and three different circuit courts, appellate courts that have all said Donald Trump was wrong on birthright citizenship. We're not going to take the appeal, meaning we're going to leave at the lower court level the decision. Nothing to see here. They didn't do that. In a one liner yesterday, they said, we're going to allow by writ of certiorari this case to come up. They're going to hear it in February, January or February, March maybe they're going to rule on it. You know, it's going to be the last decision on the last day of the term before they leave for summer vacation in June. But what's at stake is whether we are going to be a country that's going to allow by executive order any president, including one named Trump, to amend the Constitution or to change its meaning out of existence by a stroke of a pen or not. And, and they would. In order to do that, the Maga 6 would have to come up with a, a, a what's the word I'm looking for, they would have to agree with the interpretation of the phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Look, if that Honduras Honduran person that's. That is getting political asylum or applying for it in the interim, she runs a traffic light or she kills somebody. I'm not saying she's going to. She would be subject to the laws. She'd be arrested and prosecuted and subject to the laws. They're talking about people that are like in, in diplomats who are not subject to the law. That's why you see people double parked in front of the UN because they're not subject to the laws of the United States. Because they are. They reside on foreign soil when they're diplomats. That's what it refers to. Not. Well, her, her mother is. Has muddled immigration status, so she's not subject to the laws there too. It is a ridiculous argument. It should be quickly shot down by the Supreme Court. You and I will know better when we hear the oral argument.

Ben Mysell (86:57)

We'll keep everybody posted. As always, thanks for watching this week's Legal A F everybody. Make sure you reach out to Michael Popox law firm. If you or someone you know has a case or you think you may have a case, call 877- POPAK AF or go to thepopoc firm.com consultation is free. If you or someone you know were in a car accident or trucking accident or medical malpractice or sexual assault or harassment, or if you know someone who died in an accident, that's called a wrongful death case, reach out. The consultation is free. Popoc has lawyers all across the country in every state who will look at your case, evaluate it, let you know if you have a case. So don't be shy. Popo's representing a lot of people who listen and watch Legal af. And again, the consultation is free. Also, subscribe to Michael Popo substack. That's the Legal AF sub stack. And subscribe to his YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel on YouTube. Legal AF is just 20, 000 subscribers away from 1 million, hitting a major milestone in about one year. Pretty impressive work over there. So if you can subscribe. You may think you're subscribed, but you may not actually be subscribed. So double check that. That as well. Thanks everybody for watching this episode of Legal af. We're grateful for you. Thank you. Thank you to our sponsors. Thank you to everybody who watch Stay in the fight. We're in this together. Shout out Midas Mighty Shout out Legal A effort.

Michael Popak (88:29)

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