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- [00:01]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
A Mochi moment from Sadie, who writes, I'm not crying, you're crying. This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi because I didn't have to convince him I needed a GLP one. He understood and I felt supported, not judged. I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy. Thanks, Sadie. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com Sadie is a Mochi member, compensated for her story.
- [00:32]
Michael Popak
Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal af. We sit at the intersection of law and politics so you don't have to and we don't blow smoke or Sunshine. Karen Freeman McNiffelo and Michael Popak, your usual anchors, been sitting in these chairs for six long years. They've gotten even longer with this Trump administration. But we can't think of a better audience to spend our time with than the Legal AF and Midas Touch audience. With a lot to talk about. We would be remiss if we didn't start with Minnesota and everything that's happening there. We've got several judges, from Judge Toasted to Menendez to Schultz, who are valiantly holding the line and protecting our democracy and rulings. We've got the Trump administration and open warfare with itself. People are lining up against Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem. If we're ever wondering would there ever be a moment when Trump would lose confidence in Stephen Miller and or Kristi Noem, we may be at that point now. And certainly continued public outcry, which we will help lead here on the Midas Touch Network and Legal A will only help exert pressure to change the political calculus for Donald Trump. We've got an update in the Epstein saga with a Second Circuit Court of Appeals hearing in which the Trump administration took an unusual position and letters sent again to federal judges who don't want to exert any jurisdiction over the issue. But being updated again about the extent of the production of the Epstein files. And finally, we've got our first of many lawsuits. People always ask Popak. We see the civil rights violations. We see criminal law violations. We see see civil liberties violations. What is the next phase? The next phase is what we're starting to see. The lawsuits that are being filed by plaintiff's lawyers on behalf of people and or their families and estates who have been murdered, maimed, injured, had their property taken, due process rights taken away in violation of the Constitution and statutes, and the first of many cases being brought by people killed, murdered by the US Government in boat strikes in the Caribbean since September and October till now has just got filed. It's hard to believe it's the first one one, one two Trinidadian. The estate of two Trinidadian fishermen who were killed have filed a suit in the District of Massachusetts. And this is the natural consequence of a lawless presidency is the. We talk a lot about the, the civil cases filed by the public interest groups against Donald Trump's policies, but then there's the people who are actually injured, maimed, killed, murdered, worse, tortured by the Trump administration, his agents, his henchmen, his federal officers and security teams. And, and this is, this is how we hold them accountable. And this, this suit is important. And we'll talk about this sort of next phase that we're going to see play out over the next months. Now, into the end of his term, it'll be just a series of lawsuits brought by groups who have been horribly injured. I mean, Alex Pretty's family, obviously bringing a lawsuit. Renee Good already has her lawyer. There's. There's been 38 people that have died by the hand of ice since Donald Trump's been in office in just a year. Not that that's different from the people who have disappeared, who are in dark, dank custody, detention centers where they could be subject to torture, be sedated and, and, or killed. And so that, that is the repercussions for that. Let's bring in Karen Freeman. Igniflo. Karen, what were you doing yesterday?
- [04:20]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Very funny, very funny. So was fun yesterday I flew down to Florida to accept an award on behalf of my husband. It was for Trial Team of the Year. He and his partner, Tenny Garagos, got an award for Criminal Defense Team of the Year last year. And this was by the National Trial Lawyers Association, a fairly prestigious award. But my husband couldn't receive the award because he's on trial, which is what happens when you're a trial lawyer. So I flew down thinking, oh, this will be fun. I'll go accept the award, give a little speech. And as I'm sitting there putting, Popak was texting me and he's like, oh, I know, it was hilarious. And it turns out neither one of us knew that the other was going to be there. And Popak was one of the keynotes, doing a moderated discussion with Omarosa, who used to work for the Trump administration, was on Celebrity Apprentice. And I was accepting the award, and it was just a funny little exchange and my flight was delayed. So. So the best part of the whole day was after I got to come back to the Popoc residence and see where the magic happens, see the studio that you record in, and meet your amazing, adorable Francesca, who I know has been on the pod a few times, and she's just the cutest little thing. So it was just a fun little surprise to be at the same place together, neither one of us knowing we'd be there. You were up on stage, I was.
- [05:52]
Michael Popak
Up on the day. I said, I'm like, oh, the Garagos firm. I mean, not the Garagos firm, sorry, the Mark Eknifolos firm. Justin, one for. That's amazing. And so knowing you and knowing Mark, I start. Because I heard he wasn't there, and I knew he was on trial in New York. I start recording the video presentation of the award, and then I hear. But his wife Karen looked down and there's you going up to give a speech that he had written for you, so to speak. And, and then I, I, I trolled you for a good few minutes without you realizing that I was on the room of like, look over at the day. And then, and then we did the rest. But that, that's what happen. That's what. It's great when there's a lot of people there.
- [06:32]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Yeah, it was really like a thousand people or.
- [06:35]
Michael Popak
Oh, yeah, that's that national trial lawyers thing, which I've done now a couple of years, was absolutely packed. And it was funny. I was trying to get Omarosa to finally spill the beans. Spill, spill the tea, as the kids say, about, about somebody she had a friendship with, that a relationship with for 17 years named Donald Trump. She's very hard to get information out of. I was like, and tell us about this. And then it was. So we were talking about something else. I was like, tried two or three. And in the middle of it, the lights went out in Miami beach as I was talking about Trump. Literally the entire Miami beach lighting system went out, including power went out everywhere. Power went out. We just ended up standing up and yelling. And people, of course, thought a Trump had something to do with it because I was bashing him, bashing him pretty hard at that moment. But really, really, really great to see you. Let's, let's turn serious, because it's serious what's happening. You know, I see Minnesota as a crucible for all that is wrong and depraved and immoral about the Trump administration. And I'm not alone. And the political miscalculation of Donald Trump in particular. And I'm not alone that Alex pretty. His death changed the Weather in the room. Not because it was a greater tragedy than Renee could. It's not. It's that for the Maga World, a VA nurse packing a Sig Sour, you know, P230 under his jacket, exercising his Second Amendment amendment rights along with his First Amendment rights changed the calculus for them. And then they watched the Trump administration struggle with how to react. The initial reaction, Kristi Noemi, Stephen Miller, the rest, FBI domestic terrorist again, brandishing a weapon, running, you know, he had to be. Yeah, he was threatening to shoot people. Then the video came out. You know, you had Stephen Miller. Oh, would be assassin. Nobody should bring a gun to a First Amendment protest. And that freaked out MAGA and the NRA and the Second Amendment people. I may not agree with their interpretation or the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Second Amendment, but they certainly do. And they freaked out. They recoiled in horror at the Trump administration attacking Alex Brady for having a weapon or blaming his death on him carrying in an open carry state a weapon. And Trump miscalculated and they had to start walking it back. And we watched it day by day, hour by hour from Trump saying things about Alex Brady that Todd Blanche. And then they sidelined Kristi Noman, completely humiliating her. Took Stephen Miller's now, well, you know, let's talk about the Second Amendment. Yeah, let's talk about it with a big vigil and a memorial for Alex Pretty. Can't really forget Renee Good in all of this either. And so for me, the Alex Pretty moment is where this administration, if it was already circling the drain of history for the American people, is already now. I mean, really based on polling, is really beyond that. So let's start with your view of sort of Alex Pretty changing the weather. Then we'll talk about the cases led by Menendez and Tostred and Schiltz doing Lord's work, if you will, in Minneapolis against this administration.
- [10:10]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Yeah, this is clearly an inflection point, I think, for the Trump administration and everybody. Because, look, at a certain point, you can say the Trump administration can say what they want, but people can also see with their own eyes what's happening. And the Alex Preddy massacre, this execution was absolutely undeniably not okay. And, and I agree that the whole thing, the whole narrative around him carrying a gun really backfired, and it backfired to the Trump administration. I mean, everybody remembers Jan6. Right. Look at any picture from January 6th of these peaceful protesters that Trump talks about. They're all carrying guns, or many of them were certainly. And they were Open carrying these guns. And they all talked about how this was their right and this is what they're allowed to do. And that's what Alex Preddy was doing. The only thing he had in his hand was his cell phone. And he was a nurse. He's a VA nurse, which means he helped veterans in the military. By all accounts, he's a great guy who really cared about people. And they had just tossed a woman on the ground and he as a nurse, was bending over to help her and was recording what was going on as part of what he was doing to help hold these ICE agents accountable for their violent and vicious acts that they were committing. Lawless acts, frankly. It's not just ice. It's Border Patrol, it's Department of Homeland Security. There's a whole Alphabet soup of agencies that are showing up and they are going there. And there are people who want to document this for the American people because it is absolutely lawless. And the fact that he was shot and killed in doing that is just, I think, a bridge too far, even for right wing, even for MAGA people. And look, it's even all. I've been listening to law enforcement commentary on that shooting. And when you, when they talk about it and they talk about de escalation training or even just training on what to do when you're trying to subdue a suspect, any suspect, even an armed suspect, the amount of mistakes that they were making, that these agents, God only knows who they were from, because again, it was a bunch of different agents from different agencies who were there. All of the mistakes they were making. You're not supposed to have five, six, seven guys on one person. It becomes very complicated. You have different agents yelling commands at the person, sometimes conflicting. And so who does Alex Preddy listen to? Does he listen to the guy who says, put your hands behind your back or does he listen to the guy who says stop moving or does he listen to the guy? You've got different people saying different things and there's lots of arms and legs going around. When you have so many people there trying to subdue him, you don't know if that's an agent's arm or Alex Preddy's arm, who's moving around, et cetera. You also had them spraying tear gas in his face. That's very disorienting. And that should be enough to subdue someone. Enough so that 1, 2 or 3 at the most officers are necessary to subdue the individual. But it just. All the mistakes they made, all of the brutality that they exhibited by just the way they treated him, the way they beat him, and then the way they shot him. And this just was a bridge too far for everybody. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what political party you belong to. And I think Trump is really reeling at the response, the nationwide response. There's only a few people who are still defending, oh, well, you know, he. Whatever, agitator, that kind of stuff. But the vast majority of people aren't. And I agree that this is really, this is a turning point. And you're starting to see the cracks wide Biden in the administration for sure.
- [14:11]
Michael Popak
Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right on the inflection point. And a complete political miscalculation. The reporting is that Susie Wiles is. We're struggling behind the scenes to open up a back channel to Minnesota. It. She's the reason that Tom Holman was sent in, Greg Bevino was sent out. Kristi Noem was, in a humiliating fashion, completely sidelined. Stephen Miller has been ordered to roll back his comments about the Second Amendment, about the gun. They're all, when you have the NRA berating Cash Patel, like, read the Constitution, what do you mean he's not allowed to bring it? I mean, for them, Alex Pretty is Kyle Rittenhouse. And you know what kind of hero worship they did about Kyle Rittenhouse during Black Lives Matter. That's a guy that killed and maimed people and he became a hero in the MAGA world. Alex Pretty is, for them, another version of it. And it's just, as you said, just a bridge too far for maga. And it's allowed this coalescing of public opinion and a targeted focus in the martyrdom, if you will, of Alex Pretty and Renee Goode. I mean, the right, the alt right, try to use Charlie Kirk's killing to rally the troops, to crush dissent, crush First Amendment expression. But here you've got the cross section of the First Amendment, freedom of speech and press, Second Amendment, the right to carry, right to bear arms, and the Fourth Amendment. Because right until the moment when Renee Goode is killed, murdered, and Alex Pretty is too, you have a Fourth Amendment violation of illegal search and seizure. They should not have been stopped. They should not have been gang tackled like a pack of wolves. For Alex Preddy, as, as you pointed out, Karen and Renee Good should never have had it, had it, should never have had an interaction with law enforcement in that way where they were grabbing her door handle and reaching into her car to motivate her to try to drive away from the scene at that moment, that should never have happened. That's a Fourth Amendment violation. Now we've got the judges. That's what the crowds of the Courage are doing now. You've got the judges. So Judge Menendez is, I thought the case that was brought by Minnesota, the state of Minnesota, with Menendez having already, the judge having already been slapped back a couple of times by the 8th Circuit about trying to regulate how ICE and security officers operate on the street. I thought she was a little reticent and a little bit hesitant to issue an order about Minnesota's demand that the ICE surge end and her substitute her judgment for ICE and Border Patrol until Pam Bondi, the day of Alex Pretty's murder, without acknowledging his execution, wrote a letter to Tim Walls, the governor, in which he made an extortive demand that if you, if you, if, if you, if you play nice, like the mo. It was like, it was like the mob again. It was like the Godfather again. You know, if you, if you do these three things for us, nothing's going to happen to you. So you don't like the ICE surge. Okay, give us your voter data. This is what she writes in a letter to Timbals. Get stop being a sanctuary city or state, which means help federal law enforcement catch detain, arrest, abuse, imprisonment, undocumented. And they're like, we're not doing that. And third, give us all your, which they have a right to anyway. Give us all of your welfare and entitlement program, SNAP program, all of your, all of your personal information and data. They're like, go pound sand. But the judge said the other side makes a compelling argument about this letter. How is this not a quid pro quo? How is this not an example of the Trump administration trying to accomplish through force that which it cannot accomplish through a court proceeding? So I want you to write another brief. But she's going to get, I think tomorrow, Friday. Until that letter was written. Leave it to. Leave it to Pam Bondi to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory or to do like in sport and own goal. She kicked the goal into her own net to lose the game. Because if she hadn't written that letter, I'm not sure Menendez gets there because of other things going on in the other case that she's handling related to protesters, First Amendment protesters. But this certainly was a gift. And the state, the U.S. u.S. Attorney, sorry, the attorney general for Minnesota, of course, Keith Ellison, jumped all over it and said, yes, that's what they're doing. So she wants briefing on that point with that, she may end up making some sort of ruling. She's really hung up, Karen, on remedy. Like, I see the violations, but what can I do about them to prevent them from happening in the future? Because I'm just a federal judge, what would the remedy be? So that's what she's struggling with. So let's have you here comment on Menendez, then. I want to get to one right up your alley from your former prosecutor days, which is the crime scene, collection of evidence and other. Everything else related to Alex Preddy's execution.
- [19:25]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Yeah, look it, I agree with you that I don't know that Judge Menendez would do anything because there's this whole separation of powers argument. And the 8th Circuit has basically said, look, not so fast. You don't necessarily have the powers to stop Operation Metro Surge or to stop the executive branch from doing what they want to do. But don't forget the whole executive branch justification for Operation Metro surge was we need help essentially enforcing immigration laws, and we need help to. We need to be able to send people to help enforce immigration laws. And that letter was basically an admission by the Trump administration saying, well, actually, you don't really need these agents because we're willing to bring them back. We're willing to pull them back if you give us this information that we want from you. And so that is not okay. Right. Either they're necessary or not. And if they're not necessary, and you're only using this as leverage to try to get them to do what you want, that I think the judge is not going to buy and is not going to like. But you're right. At the end of the day, what can she do? That's the open question that I think she's going to struggle with. But I just really think that it shows a few things. It shows that the left hand isn't speaking to the right hand. Right. The fact that Bondi would send that right when this shooting just happened and Noem's under fire and the administration is reeling in this, I don't know if she thought it was gonna be a distraction. I don't know if this is her way of saying, oh, let's just talk about something else so that we don't focus on the shooting. But it was very misplayed and very mishandled from her point of view, if she wanted to win this lawsuit, because she just gave something to the judge, which is really their true motivation and their true motivation for being there. So I agree. It was. It was absolutely snatching defeat from the jaws of. And it's absolutely going to backfire because everybody sees what they're doing and why they're doing it. It is not necessary to send in all these agents and all these troops to Minnesota. Minnesotas don't want it. People are losing their lives. And they're not enforcing immigration. They are trying to squelch protests is what they're trying to do. They're trying to basically infringe on people's First Amendment rights to protest and to speak freely. And they don't like it. They don't like it. And they don't like that there's nationwide support for what's going on in Minnesota. And so this was a gift. This was an absolute gift that Bondi did by sending this letter and saying the quiet part out loud and saying basically telling the judge what their true motivation for being there is.
- [22:19]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. You hit the nail right on the head. Is it. Is it a necessity based on violence and that the federal troops during their surge there have to be protected by other federal troops in order to execute on federal law? Or is this just the. We're going to keep punching you in the face from the federal government until you give us what we want? We want the voter data. We want to investigate your state for fraud. Because for everybody to remember, this all stemmed from an allegation that there's fraud in the entitlements program, that part of it is federal funding in Minnesota that the Somali community is participating in. You know what? If there's hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud, it wouldn't be the first time. Healthcare companies do it all the time and have been prosecuted for it. But if that's what's happening in a state program, great. You have a Department of justice, you have a inspectors general. Send them in. That's what white collar criminal defense lawyers like you and I get paid to do is represent states and entities that get in the crosshairs of government about an allegation of fraud. What you don't do and what no administration has ever done is say, giddy up, let's get the troops in. Let's send in the federal security forces with their guns and their mask and their long rifles and their allergy to respecting the Fourth Amendment or any part of the Constitution. Put them in the street in. In conflict with First Amendment citizen protesters and let's see what happens. You want it to stop? You don't like the deaths of the shootings? Give us the voter data. What the f does voter data have to do with you having to send and create a powder keg of, of conflict and resulting in death of innocence. Because you want the effing voter data. That's where it comes in. You want voter data, you go to court. The court allows it. You get it. Court doesn't allow it. And many courts have blocked it or dismissed it. You don't get it. Oh, no, we have something else at our disposal. We've got masked men who can come in and burst into your house without a Fourth Amendment warrant. Yet no f that. And that's what judges like. I'm very salty today. That. And that's what judges like Judge Menendez are, are struggling with, quote, unquote, this remedy. They see it, they can taste it, they know it's happening. But now they have to thread that needle that you outlined about separation of powers. And, you know, I use this on one of my hot takes. I said, you know, we've had courts like 7th Circuit, 8th Circuit say a version of, I'm going to bring this into, you know, sort of, you know, black and white terms. You can't step out to the street and stop the car accident, Judge. You got to let the car accident happen. And then once the parties sue, you can provide equitable relief and proper remedy. And a lot of us are like, what do you mean? They can step out right now and tell them the lights out. Like, no, no, that's not your job. Your job is not to do that. And that's. That is that friction and tension that we have. I want to, I want to, when we come back from a break, I want to pick up with Judge Tolstrad, who is another, you know, Trump appointed conservative who is issuing orders about what happened at the crime scene of Alex Pretty's execution. The, the refusal, the boxing out of the state investigators by the feds and what he's done. And then, you know, the, there's been several affidavits filed. But you know, where, where I think the Trump administration thought, well, this ought to answer the questions and actually asked more questions than it answers about the chain of custody, about the evidence and who's got it, where's the gun? I mean, there's lots of things that actually were made worse by the declarations, not better. So with your prosecutor background, crime scenes, collection of evidence and things, chain of custody, I want to talk about that. And then we've, I want to touch on Judge Schultz, who's a chief judge. He's in the cheese. The judge involved with Don Lemon and whatever's happening with Don Lemon, we'll talk about an update and then also about him ordering Todd Lyons from the acting director of ICE to show up in his courtroom unless he's got a little extortive power, too. Unless a detainee was released from custody. Talk about Epstein and this warfare that's now spilled out inside of the White House and what it means for the midterms. Miller nomenclature whiles Trump Are we seeing the beginning of the end as these aides start backbiting each other and not waiting for Donald Trump to throw them under the bus as they throw each other under the bus and all of that. But Karen, let's, let's pay the bills. Is that the right friend? Let's pay the bills. 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- [33:24]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
And find me the 11,780 votes.
- [33:27]
Michael Popak
All I need. You know, Fulton County, I mean just, it's just, you know, Rudy Giuliani is has $150 million judgment for going after, you know, the two election workers shame.
- [33:41]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Us and Ruby Freeman.
- [33:42]
Michael Popak
Right. The mother daughter team. And he's still searching six years later for fraud over there. It's just what a waste of taxpayer dollars. But again, flexing whatever muscle he thinks he continues to have, it usually backfires. So we've got that going on. Why don't we turn to what's your observations about Kristi Noem who has been defanged and sidelined now? Tom Holman taken over Bevino out. She's not, they're not trotting her out talking about Alex Preddy anymore. Miller, who made a big Second Amendment boo boo in how he approached it, and then kind of Susie Wiles trying to hold all this crap together as chief of staff.
- [34:22]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Well, let's just say the first thing I want to say is in the midst of all of this, right, with all of this going on and the horror of Alex Preddy, just sort of the death, you know, front of mind, top of mind, to get on an airplane yesterday and to walk into the Fort Lauderdale airport and to be greeted by TV screens all around of Kristi Noem's face with this smile and, you know, all her makeup and, you know, whatever. It felt very like Westworld or some kind of a, you know, like Handmaid's Tale or something. It just felt this terrible, like, oh my God, you know, all the countries on fire. And here she's got her fake fix mile talking at the tsa. It was quite jarring and very unsettling. But it seems like the reporting is, despite Trump trying to defend her, seems like she's on her way out and that there seems to be a huge rift going on in the administration. And Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, is long term person who's worked for him for a long time, who many have said was the grownup in the room, is really trying to keep things together and she's opened up a back channel with Minnesota officials trying to work out a way to get Trump out of this situation since, since the mess that's been created by Noam. And it seems like Stephen Miller has also been left out of certain key meetings as well as part of this backlash. And so, you know, it's, it looks like they're all pointing fingers at each other, but it looks like Noam and her longtime rumored boyfriend Corey Lewandowski, who works for her, that they're the ones who are really on the outs with Susie Wiles and that Trump is holding meetings without Kristi Noem about this. And I think they're doing what they have to do and they're all, of course, protecting Trump. But it looks like I've seen both that Miller has been left out of certain meetings and he's been noticeably absent, but also that Noem also in Lewandowski and Bovino is being pulled. Greg Bovino, the guy in the Nazi looking SS troop jacket that walks around, he's, he's really going to be the fall guy. And he's been taken out of Minnesota and sent back to California. And Noem and Lewandowski are apparently responsible for Bovino being the face of all of this. And so I think they're realizing that these, you know, that the puppy killer, you know that the fact that she should kill a puppy should have been, should have been enough to tell people what she thinks of human lives and you know, other lives. The way this is being handled and the things that she is saying I think is really backfiring and they're pulling her out, it seems or sidelining her, I should say. That's what I'm saying.
- [37:18]
Michael Popak
Yeah. I don't think there's any doubt on that. When you have Tom Holman reporting directly to the president, you have him sidelined and you've got the Democrats who are leading pretty good charge now against knowing that Kristi Noema is on the ropes. They're going for the, they're going for the knockout.
- [37:36]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Yeah, they want to impeach her.
- [37:37]
Michael Popak
Right. And so you need 218 to impeach. People think, well that's far fetched. It's not because right now The Democrats have 213. There's four runoff, four special elections to fill vacancies like Marjorie Taylor Greene and, and Mikey Sherrill, the governor now of New Jersey. If we flip one of those seats, it comes down to like 216. You just need to flip two Republicans. And there's plenty of Republicans that are not happy with Kristi Noem right now and depending up own political calculus about what would win in their district may decide to vote with the, with the Democrats. That might be a safe bet. In other words, you may not get harmed at home if you take out puppy killer Kristi Noem all over the death of Alex Pretty. If you're a big second amendment district, it may be time to take out Christie and vote with the Dems. And they've already seen like that glass ceiling has already broken with Epstein. I mean when the entirety but one of the House chamber voted for it wasn't. Remember we were talking about forever will we get to 218 signatures on the discharge petition? Yeah. 434 votes for the Epstein Transparency act at the end. So that's already been gone. That you can vote against Trump and against a Trumper. And Trump's doing very, very faint praise of Kristi Noem. You know that old line about damning faint praise. Oh, what is it? Who? Christy. Christy Noem. Will you fire her? No, I was like, I was watching the press conference. Like what? No, the border. She's doing really great on the border. Next question. I'm like, oh, here we go. And for people that think he'll never fire anybody. He'll never leave them twisting in the wind. I refer you to the first Trump administration. Well, that's one and that's true. And I refer you to the he fired his chief of staff every five minutes. But I refer you to exhibit A. Lindsey Halligan, who's no longer the prosecutor in Virginia, is no longer in the Department of Justice. Alina Hamba, where did she go? So he has a way and then he has the Susie Wiles of the world make the phone call. He's got Todd Blanche waiting in the wings to be the new Department of Justice head when Pam Bondi finally falls through the ice. And she's, no pun intended, but she's very close. So I could see, especially before the midterms, as he tries to right the ship. Bondi out, Blanche in, Gnome out. I mean, the bribe taking, Tom Holman in. I mean, somebody like that or a governor, another governor that he can, he can support, maybe they move somebody who not that controversial like the, the interior secretary over Doug Burgum or whatever his name is, and sort of start shifting this around because this current crop of aids, not only are they going to be impeached at the midterms once, I mean, they're definitely fodder for impeachment in January of 2027 because by all the statistical models looking at the polls right now, the Dems are going to get like 224, 225seats more. It's there. It's impeachment proof. It's more than enough. Now to convict and remove, you need 2/3 of the Senate. That's a, I mean, look, listen, if people really hate Donald Trump, they'll flip about six or seven seats Senate and give the Democrats the 60 filibuster proof and two thirds they need to get rid of somebody. But impeachment is enough for us right at this moment. Let's Stephen Miller would be impeached. I think half the Department of Justice leadership would be impeached, if not all of it. And so but we are sensing here in the Midas touch illegal AF world, based on our total review of what's happening, that as you said at the top of our podcast tonight, there's an inflection point. And when you look back at history, the death of Alex Pretty the way a lot of times the death of one person encapsulates everybody's feelings. You know, what is it? Prince Ferdinand assassination starts World War I and sometimes it just comes down to one person. And that being the straw that broke Camel's back. And I think in history we're going to find that. Let's talk about Judge Tostrid, who is a Trump appointee first term. So that means he's not maga. And he issued an order right away, which I've never seen before, ordering the Department of Justice and the FBI not, and the Trump administration not to destroy evidence. The fact that you have to issue an order for them not to destroy evidence tells you everything you need to know about how federal judges feel about the trustworthiness of the Department of Justice in this administration. And what you would think is to bail themselves out. But the Trump administration would respond with, judge, you don't have to enter an order like that. Of course we wouldn't do it. We'll do it by a consent decree or an agreed order. No, they filed an opposition paper telling the judge he didn't have the right. He's preserving the evidence so that the state, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in Minnesota can do its job and do an independent investigation related to Alex Pretty. With the weapons gone, with the crime scene polluted with shell casings, gone. Witness, I mean, and just preserve that. And then they filed three affidavits. Did you get a chance to take a look at those affidavits?
- [43:09]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
I did.
- [43:09]
Michael Popak
All right, so why don't you tell. So you got one from Border Patrol, one from FBI and one from Homeland Security. When you lay them on top of each other, what struck you, what struck.
- [43:21]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Me, even before I saw, you know, before I get to those three orders is what you just said about the fact that how incredibly unprecedented in order to not destroy evidence to the government is, a judge can do that and has done that to, in civil cases, right. To plaintiffs or defendants, counsel when there's a dispute over things or in, or to a criminal defendant or to witnesses in a case. Right. Because you're worried that evidence or information might be lost or destroyed, but not the government. That does not happen. The government, of course, they're in the business of collecting evidence, securing evidence, analyzing evidence and utilizing evidence for the judge to issue an order to prevent federal agents from destroying or altering evidence related to the shooting. Like you said, tells you everything about how this, this Trump appointed judge views law enforcement at this particular time in history, at this particular moment and in this particular case. Now, as you said that there were three different affidavits, right. Which are sworn under oath statements by three different people saying what their position is about these different, you know, about, about the, about the evidence and these affidavits filed by these three different Trump administration agencies with a memorandum of law. Basically doesn't say what you just said. Oh, you don't have to do that, Judge. Of course we know our obligation. Of course we're the government, we would never do that. And we're investigating this. First of all, we know that there's no criminal investigation. They've already said there's no criminal investigation. They're just looking at it as.
- [45:06]
Michael Popak
An.
- [45:07]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Officer involved shooting investigation, like an internal investigation. Just let's look at our internal policies and see what happened and see if the officer should be disciplined. That's very different than a criminal investigation that could be conducted and should be conducted. That's what usually happens. Doesn't mean it goes anywhere. It doesn't mean that anyone ever gets charged. But you should have a joint investigation. State and federal law enforcement people who have this expertise, because that is what every single local law enforcement entity is trained and equipped to do. If not the local, then the state. Right. That's what all states have this ability to do. Because what happens, Officers, guns go off and officers sometimes shoot people. And so you have these investigations that happen and they look at these investigations and district attorney's offices do it. State AG's offices do it. And they have a lot of experience in officer involved shootings or officer involved fatalities. And so guess who doesn't have this experience? Not ice, not dhs, not Border Patrol. And the FBI does have some experience, but the FBI, they're not the 247 shop that responds at an incident. Right. And so the FBI relies on local law enforcement who does respond to a 911 call or a shooting. Because they're 24 7, they have officers everywhere. They secure the crime scene, they put crime scene tape out, they put little cones near all the shell casings. They don't let people walk in to contaminate the crime scene. They go there with an eye towards, let's preserve the crime scene. And if it does go and get turned over to the FB to investigate, it's usually done in conjunction with local law enforcement who is in this rapid response 247 kind of, you know, how they respond to incidents. So when I was a prosecutor, for example, that's how we did it. We were always with the nypd, we were the first responders. We were the ones who showed up at the crime scene and did that. And then again, if it needs to get turned over sometimes to the Attorney General's office if they had jurisdiction, or to federal law enforcement, that's how it Happens, but you do it in conjunction. You do it together. And so these three affidavits basically saying, oh, judge, you can't do this. From these three different agencies essentially acknowledged that the crime scene was not secured, that Alex Preddy's firearm, that they don't know where it is, or at least they're not telling the judge where it is. And two out of the three declarants refused to say or represent to the court that they won't destroy any evidence, which that's what found most astounding. Now, of course, the FBI said they won't because the FBI knows that they won't and can't and shouldn't. But, you know, it was Homeland security got there 40 minutes after the shooting. They said that they didn't do evidence collection because. But they're in charge of it. Border Patrol said they aren't. They didn't collect evidence, but they do have some body cam footage. And the FBI agent said, basically, you know, we, we work for Evidence Recovery Team. They're the ones who said they have the gun and the cell phone. But we turned cell phone to hsi, but didn't say anything about where the gun is. I mean, it just, it really didn't answer any. It asked. It to me, asked more questions than it answered questions. It seems like evidence is missing. It seems like nobody's in charge and that you've got this cluster of agencies seemingly not working together, but somewhat saying that they're working together. And it really, I think if I, if I'm the judge, I think it, it makes those affidavits made matters worse, not better.
- [49:04]
Michael Popak
I totally agree with you. And I think he's going to keep the order in place, extend the temporary restraining order. And I, it, it, there's, where's the gun? I mean, they, and why are three different agencies, none of which are the one or two different agencies, none of which are in charge. Why, why are, why is the evidence spread out, out between these three agents? The FBI has the phone, but not in the body. This one's got the body cam. This one says they got the phone but not the gun. I'm like. And then they just decided, only because of public outcry, they just decided to put the five ICE Border Patrol agents on leave. They, up until now, they were out. What. And where were their weapons? Were they retained? Were they, Were they still shooting them? I mean, for forensics purposes?
- [49:50]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Well, they have to, they have to retain them. Again, if this was a real investigation. We still don't know whose guns went off. We don't know if Preddy's gun misfired. We don't know which ones of the agents fired their weapons. We have no idea. They have, they have to take their weapons in this situation.
- [50:08]
Michael Popak
I don't know. They have. Do you know?
- [50:09]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
No, no, I'm saying that's what they show. Right, exactly right.
- [50:13]
Michael Popak
And in terms of the gun going off now, it looks like a gun may not have gone off at all to start, to start the shooting, that they reacted not to a gunfire because remember, the beginning was like, oh, maybe his Sig Sauer accidentally went off. No. Now there's reporting and testimony that they, they heard gun. When one of them reached in and found a gun, the guy was already prone on the ground and effectively hog tied. How did they think he was going to get to his gun? They. And so disarm him. Sure, that's appropriate in that situation. But that, that apparently that led. And I've been involved with shootings where you get this kind of jumpy trigger finger and they flinch and they shoot, but they shot some combination of one or two guns, fired 10 bullets into this person and killed them. So, yeah, they're just now on administrative leave only because we continue to talk about it, because we're on the streets, because we're arguing. I mean, you've got such a heartless talent. Administration. Donald Trump, once again, you know, when he's not going after gold star families and besmirching the reputation and name and memory of somebody like John McCain, he hears about a Democratic member of Congress. Okay, this is a guy who allegedly had two assassination attempts against him. Right. So you think he'd be a little more empathetic. And he finds out that, that Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, while she was at a town hall, had some crazy come up to her yelling shit. And had a brown liquid in a syringe and shot it at her. And they reached Trump and his immediate reaction is, no, I don't think about her. I think she's a fraud. I really don't think about that. She probably has herself sprayed, knowing her. So disgusting. And I've said this before, of course it'll be borne out at the midterms. America will tolerate a lot in political discourse and will tolerate obviously a lot in who occupies the Oval Office. But a heartless president is not one of them. And that's what we're seeing now. The question is politically, will the Democrats rally around a candidate and candidates for the midterms and hammer home a message to make him Pay politically a price for all the things that we watch. You can't, you can't run a campaign against him talking about the 500 craziest things that he's done in the last year, okay? Because it's just too much. But you can take the top five, you can take the top ten, and you can run ads and in debates and in town halls and in messaging, disciplined messaging. You can, you can make the point home. We don't expect our audience to have encyclopedic knowledge or have this data seared into their frontal lobe the way we on legalif and Midas touch, because this is our, this is our business, this is our profession, the way we do. And the average voter is not tuned in the way that our audience is. I mean, that's a shame, but the average voter is not tuned in the way we are. They'll learn it at the end during the campaign. They hear it here and there, bits and pieces. But, you know, our audience is devoted and focused and, and, and reads up on this stuff and, and, and what. But the average, the average person, frankly, doesn't. And so we need that kind of discipline to, to, and, and that's the mistake we'll make. Hopefully we won't make. Hopefully Midas will lead the way. Legal AF will lead the way. You can't just fire out a fire hose of a thousand, you know, for every, every one of his. It would, it would be, it would be tens of thousands of things that he's done, said, did since he started in office. You can't, but we have to. So we've got an embarrassment of riches. We've got to narrow it down and talk about. But this is one of them. This is the thing that sticks in people's mind, right? Alex Pretty and his reaction to an asset, you know, to a. Somebody harming, you know, when people die. He said nothing about the Minnesota law. We're always talking about Minnesota. Sorry, shout out to our friends and family and loved ones in Minnesota. Such horrendous things happening there. You know, the two lawmakers killed with their dog in the middle of the night. Donald Trump doesn't say anything. Neither does his administration. Nancy Pelosi's husband almost gets brained with a hammer by a deranged person looking to hang Nancy or interrogate her wearing a costume, whatever this crazy was. And it was like, oh, he's probably a gay sex looking for gay sex and did it to himself. I mean, just this depravity. They'll say anything and then, you know, of course, the American people have to respond to it. I want to talk about Epstein and developments there. And then that new lawsuit, a first of many. It probably opened the floodgates related to those that have been. What's the word? Unalived, killed, murdered, executed by the Trump administration in the Caribbean in dozens and dozens of boat strikes with 100 people. 100 people have lost their life. We got the first lawsuit in Massachusetts. But we're at that point where we need to talk about some things together. Hard truths. We need your support. We need your. Your commitment to us. Legal AF YouTube channel 1012 new videos every day that I curate along with about a dozen contributors of ours. The American Civil Liberties Union is now there with us. Democracy Forward is there with us. Regular interviews. I just interviewed Governor Shapiro. We've had senators, attorneys general on a regular basis and people that are in the courtrooms. And you can become a subscriber and help us there. That really helps us, as does becoming a paid subscriber. Legal AF Substack. There it is. To shorten that B roll one day. That is a amazing ecosystem where independent journalism and commentary lives. And I think you'll like what we're doing there. I curate that seven to eight pieces a day, including two live reports. Sometimes I bring in other people. We just had Adam Klassfeldt talking about a hearing that he attended with Judge Menendez, and we had instantly, without too much publicity, no publicity. We had about 4,000 people join our live with comments and commentary that we were bouncing back and forth from. So that's a great, great opportunity there on substack. And then we've got our sponsors, which have, some of which have been with us forever, some of which are brand new, but all know what our point of view is. You gotta have a point of view here. And we do. They know what it is. They know who our audience is and they want to be here with us. And we appreciate that. And here's another word from our sponsors. Let's talk candidly about something that no one wants to talk about, what happens when you pass on? Because unfortunately, it's going to happen to you and me. 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They'll send local professionally trained design consultants with an average of more than 10 years of experience right to your home, give you expert guidance and a free no obligation quote the same day. And if you're not handy, they design, measure and install everything for you. Plus you get thousands of options from light filtering and blackout blinds to smart blinds that work with Alexa. And they've been trusted for over 45 years by more than 2 million people right now. Get quality window treatments that fit fit your budget with three day blinds. Head to three day blinds.com legalaf for their buy one get one 50% off deal on custom blind shade shutters and drapery for a free no charge, no obligation consultation. Just head to three day blinds.com legal af one last time. That's buy one get one 50% off when you head to the number 3D a Y blinds.com it's a little known fact that many years ago the National Enquirer of all things sought the Epstein files. Did you know that Karen?
- [60:20]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
I actually did not.
- [60:22]
Michael Popak
Right. I did not know that either. I mean way before maybe for Midas Touch was even, you know, anything was even formed back in 2017, 2018. They were going after the administration, which was the Trump administration, and seeking the Epstein files back then off of the reporting of what was happening and the deals that were being cut with Jeffrey Epstein and they sued for it. They made a FOIA demand, a Freedom of Information act demand. And that case kicked around for a number of years. Nobody really paid attention to it except they did and they won at the a federal court level in New York with an order. It wasn't really covered with an order of turnover.
- [61:10]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Learn something. I love learning something.
- [61:13]
Michael Popak
Who covered this? And then it was just kicking around in there a little dusty lawsuit until the Survivor movement and Midas and legal af we started banging away about the Epstein files. But that case didn't get preempted because there's a new law and they had their own obligations. So they, the Trump administration appealed and it went all the way up to the Second Circuit and the. They trot out this Department of Justice lawyer and they basically start. She starts ignoring many of the things that we've heard about. For instance that there is a. Remember when Pam Bondi, Karen announced with great fanfare that they were going to open up an investigation. It's all the Democrats who were listed in the Epstein files. Yeah. And to bring, to bring those child sex predators to justice, ignoring the person she worked for and the Republicans that were in there as well. And then, you know, she said it was going to be the Southern District of New York and Jay Clayton was in. And then we didn't hear about it again. Right. So it came up during oral argument at the 2nd Circuit because the lawyers for the National Enquirers parent company brought it up. Why don't you tell our audience about that Second Circuit hearing.
- [62:35]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
You I'm learning about this now for the first time. No, I'm saying you tell me.
- [62:39]
Michael Popak
Oh, all right. So. So the 2nd Circuit was not buying most of what the Department of Justice was saying in their arguments. It was very, it looked very askance at it. They may end up sending it back to see if the Epstein Transparency act solves the problem. But basically because of what's going on with the Epstein Transparency act, including a late night filing last night by the Department of Justice, talking about one hand not, not coordinating with the other hand in which they filed an update with two judges. I don't even understand these updates. They keep filing these updates with Judge Engelmeier and Judge Berman, who preside over the effectively closed Ghislaine Maxwell case and the closed Epstein case, but they keep filing it because they ran to these judges originally about getting, quote, unquote, the files, and they keep updating them on the millions and millions and millions of documents and the hundreds and thousands of hours that are being spent and when they're going to finally get around, which is in the near term, whatever that means.
- [63:45]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
I saw all of that. I just didn't see this as the Second Circuit thing.
- [63:48]
Michael Popak
No, no, I know, but I'm going to tie it back. So my point, they keep running to these judges and my point is, if they keep running to the judges and the judges keep saying we have very limited jurisdiction in these closed cases. I think their jurisdiction has been expanded by the constant letter writing to these same judges to inform them about the process. It's like telling the judges, you get, what do they just get to be voyeurs? They get, oh, this is very interesting about the process. But if they see something wrong with the process. Well, have you ever met a federal judge that doesn't jump in when they see something wrong in a process they're being updated on?
- [64:21]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Exactly right.
- [64:23]
Michael Popak
So that's going on. So if they're going to send it back to the judge handling foia, what I don't want is him somehow, you know, punting it over to Engelmeier or Berman. I mean, I, I would like the 2nd Circuit to make a ruling which is they need to comply with FOIA in a. The transparency act doesn't vitiate the obligations under the Freedom of Information act case been kicking around for years. They had a very funny back and forth on the 2nd Circuit today about Ghislaine Maxwell, who's now unrepresented. Remember that lawyer we kept talking about, David Oscar Marcus down in Miami, of all places, and how he was, he was angling for a pardon and then he watched her testify under oath with a deposition. She's gonna be testifying again, apparently. Oh, my God. By herself this time with no lawyer, probably up. This is going to be a high wire act. That kid, that guy that climbed the building in Singapore, Taipei. Wait till you see Ghislaine Maxwell without a lawyer prepping her go before Congress. That's going to happen in the next couple of weeks.
- [65:23]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
But she, she has an audience of one that she's going to be speaking to.
- [65:27]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. I love, oh, he's, he's such a kind and gentleman. He never exactly did anything to me. I never observed anything.
- [65:35]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
That's exactly right.
- [65:36]
Michael Popak
But her lawyer got out as soon as I, I Think as soon as he saw that she perjured herself, he's like, I'm out. So she's writing her own from the jailhouse, like on toilet paper. She's writing her own writs of habeas corpus and whatever. And it came up in the second, like the toilet paper imagery, you know, and, and, and the 2nd Circuit was like, isn't there a writ of habeas court? Like, isn't that case closed? Like, oh, well, there's a. She's filed a writ of habeas corpus. And the judges said to the Department of Justice says she's unrepresented. What are the chances that she's actually going to get a new trial? Right. In other words, because if the, these courts have limited jurisdiction, because they kept pointing to Engelmeer and Berman, because Engelmeer and Berman don't want to do anything, even though we, we're imploring them. Full disclosure. Lisa Phillips, who I think saw Jake, Jake Tapper tonight, is a client of mine. We filed a declaration, an affidavit on her behalf to encourage Judge Engelmer to appoint a independent monitor and special master. He quoted her affidavit approvingly in his order. But at the end, almost like bittersweet, like, I see the problem, but I have limited jurisdiction here. I don't think you have limited jurisdiction or they shouldn't be writing you as if you do have jurisdiction. That would sort of be my point. So that, that's, you know, I was maddening it once again without, with impunity, the Department of Justice telling a federal judge, you know, we got a lot of people, they're looking at it and there's millions of pages. Why aren't they doing. Two questions for you? One is rolling production. Why aren't they rolling out as they finish 100,000 pages or documents every week as they finish? Why do we have to wait for this indeterminate period to get millions of pages when you and I do rolling productions all the time with bigger, even bigger numbers than some of these I've been involved with, with. Why do they get to not level to the American people? And then, I mean, it is having such an effect, Karen, on the Southern District of New York that it's backing up into their other cases because more than half of the office is doing Epstein file review. In fact, they're actually at the point where they're asking federal judges for extensions of time in other cases, like, remember that Maduro is being prosecuted by the Southern District. But there are other cases it just came up in a case involving another law firm that I won't mention, who said to the judge, we can't get our required documents while we're on trial because half of that office is on Epstein duty. And the judge had a great line. The judge came back and said, I would think they would find a way, considering that Epstein is dead and this trial is going on right now, to provide what they need to provide in this case. But you see the gurgling going on with the Southern District of New York, once proud prosecutor's office, you know, has everybody on Epstein duty.
- [68:41]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Yeah. You have to wonder if the fact that they're not doing rolling production and rolling production, really what it means is as you go through the documents, you turn them over, as you redact them. They have millions of documents and that's what they. These, this letter that was filed said that we've gone through millions of documents. We have almost the whole office working on it day and night. Okay. And that we're going to have it in the coming weeks. Right. No date certain, but kind of soon is the impression they're giving. But that means they've completed some. That means they've gone through and they've redacted out the victim's names and the victim's addresses and their phone numbers and other personal identifying information that needs to come out. And rolling production would just mean as you get to it, as you redact it, as you put the, the black line through it, you, you then turn it over like they did with the first 6,000 documents that they, that they turned over. And it makes you wonder, are they doing it like this so that they can dump a million documents out and at once and so that anything in there gets buried? Because otherwise if they do it little by little, then we can digest it little by little. And it would also be a story. Every day, every time you go through the next 10,000 documents or whatever they would dump at a time, you could go through it and highlight things that are in each of them. Right. That's what the media will do if they do it all at once. I wonder whether this is a concerted effort on the part of the Department of Justice to do it like that. And that way they can just bury them all and make it a one day story instead of a long, dragged out, multi day story. I think it's going to backfire because no matter what, as the media and as people start to go through it, you're going to see every single day because it's going to Take time to go through it. Right. No one's going to read the million documents or 2 million documents. What people are going to do do is you're going to do word searches and keyword searches and that. That's how you go through millions of documents in discovery or in any other way. And you'll put in various spellings of the same thing and people's names, and you'll look for things that way. And then you'll find certain key documents that will refer to other documents. And so then you'll go and look for those documents. And so it'll. It'll be a very interesting process. And so either way, I think if that's what they're doing it for, I don't think it's going to work. And I think people are going to be going through these for a long, painting a story, painting a picture, and ultimately we'll finally get to see. And more importantly, the survivors will get to see. You know, the thing that struck me the most hearing from the survivors is many of them don't know what happened. Right. They know what happened to themselves, but they don't know the full picture. They don't know the full picture of what was going on and who was involved and how big this was, who financed this and who covered this up and who allowed this to happen and who was protected, et cetera, and who are all the other people involved. And so they want answers for themselves because they want to know what was that and what happened. I know what happened to me, but I need to know what this monster was that I was a part of. And so I think that in addition to the stories that people are going to be talked about, are going to be talking about these isolated stories, I think what's really going to come out ultimately is the full picture. And once they turn all of that over, hopefully we'll finally start to get answers about what that picture is.
- [72:01]
Michael Popak
Is. Yeah, totally agree with all of that. Well, it's. Again, we can't allow, you know, we do. We in our audience can walk and chew gum at the same time. And so we need to continue to follow these stories and not let them off the hook, not let fatigue set in like, oh, Epstein again. Yeah, Epstein again. Because we have survivors and victims and people that have to be brought to justice. And it's going to be done on this watch, on our watch. And we appreciate our audience for bringing the public outrage and outcry. And it works. It works. I assure you that if there was not a Midas touch if there was not a legal af, if we didn't have the drill down focus that we bring to stories and even sometimes break the stories, and didn't have the audience, which gives us the street cred and the power. When you link 6 million people together, 7 million when you add legal AF together, and we're all vibrating on the same frequency and we're speaking in one voice, at least on these major issues, it has an impact. We are bending metal. We are bending Donald Trump to our will. Not on every issue, not at every moment, not in the, maybe not at the velocity that we would like, but it is working. And as the ice underneath him gets, no pun intended, thinner and thinner and thinner, he will eventually drop through. There's only so many people you can throw under a bus. How big is this bus that Donald Trump is using? I mean, it's only so many AIDS you can fire. There's only so many people you can blame. This, unfortunately, is not the last Alex Pretty that this administration will have blood on its hands for. Or that'll ask Renee. Good. It just won't be there. There's going to be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that have been disappeared, if not thousands without due process, without a writ of habeas corpus, in dark, dank detention centers, who die in custody, who are abused, who die on the streets in First Amendment protests. This is, this is not the last First Amendment protest against the Trump administration. This is, this is we, We. This is we. We are in progress. Right? This opposition is televised, is body cammed, is videoed, is on YouTube. And we see it because we're so close to our audience. You know, when status coup is on the streets of Minnesota, 1 degree and minus 1 degree weather, surrounded by other patriots in America, Americans reporting guerrilla style from the streets. We see how our audience is responding to that and saying, we are with you. What else can we do, you know, and wait till the spring rolls around and there are another hands off. No Kings day, Law Day, 5501 protests. You think, you think the last round at 5 and 10 million, that was nothing. Wait till you see the next round as we get closer to the midterms. And so there is a importance. This is not, I guess is what I'm trying to say is this is not wasted time for people on YouTube in case your family gives you grief, if you haven't been able to get them over here. This is not wasted time on YouTube. Okay? This is not like a cat video or, or some sort of crazy dance craze. On Tick Tock. Okay. This is important that we are here together in chat, in community, in postings. You. You learning from us, and us learning from you, and, And. And together, the power that. That comes from 6 million and more, because there's people that aren't subscribed, so to speak. They're, you know, double, triple that those numbers. It's a big number against an administration that, frankly, barely won.
- [76:06]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
The president say some of us actually like cat videos. Okay. No, I'm kidding. You know, the thing that struck me about Minnesota in terms of. In terms of numbers is that there's so many people out on the streets and it's below zero. I mean, it is frigid, freezing. It's. It's there. I saw. I saw today about 10 people have died in New York from being exposed to the cold. And these are people who are out there for hours and hours and hours to protest. And that says something to me. And when the weather. When the. When the frost chills and the weather gets better, I agree with you. We are going to see numbers like we've never seen before.
- [76:47]
Michael Popak
And it's perfect timing with the midterms. And I'm glad everybody's here. Karen, I'm glad you're here. More importantly, I'm glad that you and I got to spend some quality time together since I left New York. That's becoming rare. You saw my wife again. You hadn't actually been in the same room with my wife in about five years. It was great, you know, and you spent quality time as Aunt. Aunt KFA with our daughter Francesca.
- [77:10]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Do you want to talk about the. The boat, the lawsuit crap?
- [77:13]
Michael Popak
I'm, like, signing off. Okay. Sorry, folks. Yeah, so there's a bunch of. You want to do it, you do it. You start it.
- [77:19]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
No, no, I. I got. I know you. I know you so much now that I know when you're. When you're not pivoting to the next topic, everybody.
- [77:27]
Michael Popak
All right, so look, we gotta. We've got what we. What we expect. Respected, Karen. Right? You've got a hundred people that have been disappeared permanently by the Trump administration in Caribbean, you know, executions in boat strikes, you know, and. And using that term turns me off because it's like it minimizes what's happened. You mean the violation of constitutional and international rights of people without any due process because Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump decided to push a button along with Marco Rubio? I mean, that. That is. It's not a boat strike. It's. It's taking away someone's life. They were, they're not all or any, as far as I know, drug smugglers. They certainly weren't smuggling fentanyl in the middle of the Caribbean. And two Trinidadian, Trinidadian men who were fishermen and their families for the estates of these deceased men filed in the district of Massachusetts under death on the high seas laws and international law for civil, these are civil cases to obtain justice in the form of compensation for it. And it's the first of many. The case just started, so there's no injunction hearing. We won't be talking about. It's a case that the government is going to have to respond to. And what are they going to do, come forward with evidence that these two Trinidadians were smuggling drugs? I doubt it. There'll probably be a secret settlement that they'll try to do quietly put this away. But I, I expect many of the hundred that have been killed will, will come forward maybe with these lawyers that are representing them, and they should. But I, this is, again, this is the, the crack in the, in the glass ceiling of cases that we're going to start seeing, as I said at the top of this podcast, against the Trump administration and its violation of civil liberties and civil rights, international law, law, and, and the Constitution. Because we just got the first wave of like 500 cases, 700 cases. But this next wave of cases off of the things that we're seeing, every time we see somebody blinded, beaten, maimed, tortured or killed by an ICE office, there's going to be a lawsuit or Border Patrol or National Guard, there's going to be a lawsuit behind it, following it, and then we'll follow those and bring attention to that. Right?
- [79:47]
Karen Freeman McNiffelo
Yeah. And what I like about this lawsuit is it's going to really, I think, shine a bright light on the pretexts that Trump administration uses to justify these things. Right. It's the war on drugs. So we have to. Drugs are killing Americans, so we have to do this on this war on drugs, right? Well, on the one hand, that's how they also justified the Maduro arrest. Right. Because of that. But then they pardon the president of Honduras who was actually convicted of smuggling drugs. And I think the fact that this is all pretextual and this has nothing to do with drugs, I think is going to all come out through these lawsuits, through discovery, unless they settle, of course. And I do think that it's great that the families are bringing this. And look, the complaint brought by the ACLU that the families are bringing, it talked about how these were fishermen and these weren't drug smugglers and how you know what nice people these were and they were just minding their own business and you can't just go and blow up a boat because you want to. We're not at war. These were civilians. And the fact of the matter is the legal commentary around this that I thought was so interesting was look, not only is this illegal, not only can you not do this, this is a premeditated intentional strike of a boat. Even if it was, if you were at war, even if we were at war, you're still not allowed to do that against civilians. And so I think it's going to be very, very hard for them to justify this as they have been trying to say as this was targeted designated narco terrorists involved in bringing drugs to the US because and I think they're going to have a hard time justifying that when they are acting differently in other areas as well. So they're gonna have a hard time justifying this. It's gonna bring, it's gonna be very interesting lawsuit through discovery and I think you're right because so far we don't know a lot about. We just see the videos that the, the Hollywood style videos that they like to put out of a boat being struck by, by a bomb and, and I think we're gonna learn a lot through, through these lawsuits. So I think it's great that these are being brought.
- [82:07]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. And thank you for catching that. I'd forgotten to do that last story. So I'm glad everybody's here. We're running a little bit late today folks. I appreciate everybody being here with us. Support Legal AF on YouTube on Substack on the podcast and of course this Saturday we will be with Ben Mysalis catching you up on the week's breaking legal and political news. So until the then Karen Freeman Agnifolo and Michael Popo shout out to the Midas mighty and illegal afers. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out out Check the math at tmobile. Com switch and now T Mobile is in US Cellular stores Savings versus comparable Verizon plans plus the cost of optional benefits plan features and taxes and fees vary. Savings with three plus lines include third line free via monthly bill credits credit stop if you cancel any lines Qualifying credit required.