Legal AF Full Episode - 1/31/2026

Summary

Legal AF by MeidasTouch – Full Episode Summary

Episode Air Date: February 1, 2026
Hosts: Ben Meiselas, Michael Popok, with discussion of comments by Karen Friedman Agnifilo

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Overview

This episode of Legal AF delivers a sobering, unfiltered analysis of mounting legal and constitutional crises unfolding under the Trump administration. Centered on the bombshell release—and the troubling shortcomings—of the Epstein files, hosts Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok investigate cover-ups, threats to civil rights, the politicization of law enforcement, and attacks on independent journalism. The episode further explores Trump regime overreaches, MAGA-fueled legal violations, and the erosion of institutional checks—a dire warning for the rule of law.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Epstein Files: Document Dump, Missing Evidence & Complicity

[00:30] – [23:34]

• 3 Million Documents Released, 3 Million+ Missing: DOJ released “purportedly 3 million of the Epstein documents,” while admitting to withholding another 3 million. Ben Meiselas notes this initial "doc dump" may serve to “hide even worse stuff” beneath the surface.
  • Quote – Ben Meiselas [00:48]:
    “Usually after people resist producing documents, then turn over a first tranche of a doc dump—it’s usually used as a moat to hide even worse stuff. And the stuff in this tranche is bad.”
• Victims’ Privacy Violated: Survivors are “absolutely livid” as their private information was publicly exposed, contradicting DOJ's claim that redaction delays were for their protection.
  • Quote – Ben Meiselas [09:20]:
    “Their names appeared prominently on a lot of the documents and their personal identifying information was outed. …So it’s been very, very sloppy, it’s been very malicious towards the survivors.”
• Implicated Names: Howard Lutnick, Elon Musk (over 1,400 emails), Donald Trump, among others.
  • Lutnick repeatedly claimed to have cut contact with Epstein in 2005; email evidence from later years disproves this.
  • Elon Musk denied visiting the island, but is shown actively seeking invitations for “the wildest party day you have.”
  • Serious allegations against Trump are present, including being introduced to victims and references to “calendar girl parties with underage girls,” which were quickly removed from public files by DOJ.
  • Quote – Ben [32:41] (on Lutnick's communications):
    “Hi Jeff, we are landing in St. Thomas… does Sunday evening for dinner sound good? I have another couple… and each of us has four children—two 16s, two 14s, a 13, a 12, an 11 and a 7 year old.”
• DOJ Defensiveness & Inaction: Todd Blanche (Trump’s former defense attorney, now federal spokesperson) denied knowledge, accountability, or further steps.
  • Quote – Todd Blanche [16:54]:
    “If we learn about information and evidence that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will. But I don’t think that the public or you all are going to uncover men within the Epstein files that abused women, unfortunately.”

Notable Quote – Ben Meiselas, on DOJ and Blanche’s Response [18:09]

“I’m just sickened by it. I’m actually like shaking right now. I want to fucking cry… This is disgusting. I’m looking at the files right now that says names.”

• Scope Manipulation – Documents vs. Pages: DOJ claims are further obfuscated by conflating “documents” and “pages,” with Popok noting that as few as 3 million out of potentially 50 million pages have been released—less than 10%.

Notable Quote – Michael Popok [37:31]

“They’ve only produced 3 million pages. Let’s get apples to apples here against 50 million pages. Sometimes even the Congress people confuse it… There’s not just half missing. We’ve only gotten 3 million out of 50 million pages.”

2. Fulton County: Raids on Election Offices & Tulsi Gabbard’s Role

[38:39] – [52:24]

• DOJ & FBI Raids: Trump-aligned FBI agents, with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard present, raided Fulton County election offices, improperly seizing 2020 ballots, despite multiple recounts affirming Trump’s loss.
• Popok's Analysis: This, he argues, is a “dress rehearsal” for further authoritarian action—testing paramilitary and law enforcement powers against blue states and cities.
  • Quote – Michael Popok [52:24]:
    “This is a dress rehearsal to see what he can get away with… The use of the National Guard on the streets of America freaked out so many people… This is a total dress rehearsal.”
• Performative Authoritarianism: Ben stresses the raids aim to obstruct the midterms, borrowing from the authoritarian playbook.
  • Quote – Ben Meiselas [49:30]:
    “It’s obvious that what Trump is trying to do is to obstruct the midterms and in a very authoritarian but sloppy way at the same time, which is very Trumpian.”

3. First Amendment Under Attack: Arrest & Persecution of Don Lemon

[58:27] – [78:03]

• Don Lemon's Arrest: Lemon, an independent journalist and Meiselas’ friend, was arrested while reporting on a protest in Minnesota (at a church suspected of collaborating with ICE). He identified as press and merely filmed events; nonetheless, he was indicted under the FACE Act, a federal law designed to protect against violence at reproductive health clinics and places of worship.
  • Quote – Ben Meiselas [58:27]:
    “Lemon said, ‘I’m a reporter. I’m here videotaping. That’s all I’m doing.’ …He repeatedly said on the livestream, ‘I’m not with them. I’m here to report.’”
• Legal Overreach: Federal judges repeatedly rejected arrest warrants, with chief judge Patrick Schiltz (a George W. Bush appointee) declaring there was no crime committed by Lemon. The administration then shopped case after case before finding a grand jury to indict.
  • Quote – Michael Popok [66:55]:
    “Chief Judge Schiltz...effectively vouched for Don Lemon that he didn’t commit any crimes. There’s no other way to interpret Judge Schiltz’s writing… The magistrate judge…also found that Don Lemon was exercising First Amendment freedom of the press rights and didn’t commit a crime.”
• Weaponization of Law Enforcement: The administration’s deliberate use of excessive force and spectacle—sending “DEA dressed as SWAT teams” to arrest not just Lemon, but other journalists like Georgia Fort—reduces all pretense of normalcy or fair process.
  • Quote – Ben Meiselas [61:50]:
    “They sent like DEA dressed as SWAT teams to her house and basically scared her to death and scared her family. And what you’re supposed to do in situations like this is, you know, one, not do this in the first place, but you would get a warrant, you would reach out to the person...”
• Chilling the Press: Both hosts contend this tactic is designed to suppress independent journalism and chill dissent, not to prosecute any actual crime.

4. MAGA Lawlessness & Judges in Open Revolt

[66:55]; [78:03]; [83:08]

• Federal Judges No Longer Silent: Judges like Schiltz and Menendez (both conservatives) have gone on record about “hundreds of court orders” being “violated in January alone” by Trump’s ICE, describing an “out of control, rogue DOJ.”
• Quote – Ben Meiselas [78:03]:
  “Now the conservative movement is co opted and it is just a MAGA cult. And this Judge Schiltz...is out there basically saying...the Trump regime is not using warrants, that they're not giving bond hearings, that they are violating the Constitution every single day.”

5. Call to Action and Final Reflections

[83:08] to End

• Rule of Law and Moral Imperative: The hosts urge listeners to remain vigilant and participate in people-powered movements—through independent media, organized protest, and pressure on institutions.
• Popok's Summation [83:08]:
  “Only way that we’re going to overcome the Trump administration and take back our country…is millions and millions and millions…join together…We don’t have that right now. We’ve got a criminal who’s running the White House and a party on the other side…”
• Importance of Authentic Information: Both stress that this analysis is about “law and order,” not partisan advocacy, and is rooted in documented fact and moral duty.

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Timestamps for Critical Segments

• Epstein Files Released, Missing Docs, and Naming Names:
  [00:30] – [23:34]
• Epstein Files: Specifics on Musk, Lutnick, and Trump Allegations:
  [08:06] – [36:11]
• Fulton County Raids & Tulsi Gabbard:
  [38:39] – [52:24]
• Attack on Journalists: Don Lemon and Georgia Fort Arrests:
  [58:27] – [78:03]
• Judicial Resistance; Final Reflections; Call to Action:
  [78:03] – [88:53]

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• Ben Meiselas:

  “I’m sickened by it. …I’m actually shaking right now. I want to fucking cry.” [18:09]

• Michael Popok:

  “There is not just half missing. We've only gotten 3 million out of 50 million pages. That's just about less than 10%.” [37:31]

• Todd Blanche (DOJ Spokesperson):

  “I don’t know whether there are men out there that abuse these women. If we learn about information and evidence that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will.” [17:15]

• Ben Meiselas, on the attacks on Lemon and the First Amendment:

  “Don Lemon wasn’t even protesting. … Don Lemon, they try to get a magistrate judge to sign off on a criminal complaint… they then arrest Don Lemon in Los Angeles with federal agents.” [58:27]

• Michael Popok, on why the administration pursues journalists:

  “This is nothing more than the Trump administration deciding to scratch Donald Trump’s itch to go after media in order to have a chilling effect, not just on Don Lemon…but to make the next reporter… think twice…” [74:27]

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Conclusion

Legal AF’s analysis in this episode is a clarion call for democracy and the rule of law. The discussion meticulously documents the current administration’s assault on legal norms—through selective disclosure, weaponization of law enforcement, and targeted repression of the press—while amplifying the voices of judges, survivors, and independent journalists in resistance. Meiselas and Popok frame the situation as not merely a “constitutional crisis,” but as an existential moment for the republic, emphasizing active participation, solidarity, and independent media as vital counters to authoritarian erosion.

Listen to the full episode for a more detailed breakdown of the ongoing legal battles and actionable insights from the hosts.

Transcript

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[Ben]

We've got a lot to discuss on this episode of Legal af. And I think for every single legal AF from here on out, that's going to be the case. We are going to be very busy. The Department of justice released purportedly 3 million of the Epstein documents and records on Friday. There seems to be at least 3 million records that are missing that the Trump regime admits to. We don't know if it's more than that, but I'll tell you that there was some bombshells in what was already produced. But I could tell you from an experience as a litigator, usually after people resist producing documents, then turn over a first tranche of a dock dump that's usually used as a moat to hide even worse stuff. And the stuff in this tranche is bad. We'll break it all down. We'll talk about the latest legal fights, the that are fight that are coming out of Minnesota. We'll talk about a George W. Bush appointee who is a, you know, really just someone in the conservative bar who's out there saying that the Trump regime is engaged in violation after violation of court orders. I think he said that. I don't think I've seen an agency violate this many orders in their entire existence, as ICE has in the month of January alone. Talk about the arrest and the persecution and prosecution of independent journalist Don Lemon, who's at my wedding where Michael Popo was as well. Don Lemon is a close personal friend of mine. So obviously it's a deeply personal issue. But it's a deeply personal issue regardless, for all of us, because our Constitution is under attack. Our First Amendment's under attack. He was reporting as a journalist. Our Second Amendment is under attack. All amendments are under attack, frankly. We'll break that down. Then we'll take you to Fulton county, where the Donald Trump FBI raided the Georgia election offices and they took all of the 2020 ballots despite multiple recounts, despite Donald Trump clearly losing in Georgia in 2020. And in Fulton county, the Trump FBI is focused on that and they brought in Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was there at the raid of the Fulton county election office. And by the way, where was Pam Bondi at the press conference when there was the announcement of releasing the Epstein files? They just had Donald Trump's former criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanch there. So what? Pam Bondi recorded a selfie video of herself talking about Pam, talking about what's it, Don Lemon, Michael Popak, let's get into it. But I'll tell you what. Pam Bondi. Word. I was looking for Pam Bondi, the name I was looking for. She's getting nervous. She's going to be on Capitol Hill soon where she's going to be testifying in the next few weeks. And I know people who know Pam Bondi. I've known Pam Bondi's reputation in the past. Pam Bondi is scared about that hearing, and I think she's scared right now. In general.

[Michael Popak]

I know, I know people that know Todd Blanch. I just spoke to one the other day that work with him closely in the U.S. attorney's office, and he said to me, I don't recognize this guy that's masquerading as Todd Blanche. There's just something in the water supply, the Kool Aid container around the Trump administration where they all think they have impunity. They all think they, they enjoy the immunity protection that Donald Trump alone enjoys. And they sacrifice their, their professional credentials and oaths and ethics on the altar of their ambition. And when we talked about it in the Nixon administration, it was referred to as blind ambition. And that's what we've been watching. You And I joked before I got on, I only half joked before we got on to record today, when are the impeachment hearings starting? And to give people a little bit of solace, a little bit of comfort, a little moment of Zen here on Midas Touch and Legal af before we kick it off, there are going to be, there are going to be repercussions and impeachment hearings and, and perhaps convictions at the Senate depending upon the results of the midterm elections and criminal investigations of these very people who are currently in the Department of Justice, who are currently in the intelligence community, who are currently in the Cabinet, when adults and patriots return to the White House and the Department of Justice. So while we're what we're, there's a sort of a, there's a split screen going on here. We're watching in real time, in real life how federal courts, public interest groups, the public are expressing themselves to try to control on the fly and out of control rogue Department of Justice, most corrupt in our history and administration that makes the Nixon criminal administration look like a kindergarten class. That is got to happen. We got to chop that wood. We got to do those cases. We got to bring in court a thousand times. We've got to get the orders from judges like Judge Schultz that we'll talk about today, Judge Menendez, who we'll talk about today, Supreme Court and all of that. But then there's this broader arc of history and the not so distant future where the calculus changes. This goes to your point about Pam Bondi being nervous about her job, about that she's not going to be able to squint and smarm and, and sarcastic her way out of the next Oversight Committee hearing. Neither will Todd Blanche, neither will Tulsi Gabbard. Neither will you fill in the blank. So the Zen moment is that the things that are happening there's going to be, there's going to be a whole nother wave of lawsuits, by the way, for people who actually, whose civil rights, civil liberties have been violated, some mortally violated, like they're dead as a result. I just saw Donald Trump post in social media that for and look how commercial and transactional he is. Alex Preddy's stock is dropping because I just saw a video. Alex Preddy, who was murdered and executed on the streets. His stock has dropped about as low as it can go because federal forces killed him in the streets as a citizen. But this is how he talks about things. His stock is dropping because I saw another video of him kicking a tail light. And apparently in the Trump world, that is a death sentence. And so people are watching you and I talk about the polls consistently and where people are in voting. But Judgment Day is coming and where blind ambition meets Judgment Day, we're going to be there for it. So right now we're talking about this second wave of lawsuits and, and, and pressure outrage that's being brought by our community here that, that you built with your brothers and me and all on Midas touch and on legal af. The public outcry at what's happening in Minnesota is working because it's making them change policy. And so we got to continue that, that firepower that only comes from a united America against the president. And then we go into the next wave, which is the civil rights and civil liberties lawsuits, and then we get to impeachment hearings and then maybe we get into criminal prosecutions in 2028 or beginning of 2029.

[Ben]

First, let's talk about the release of approximately 3 million Epstein documents. I say purportedly because there's no report about chain of custody and we don't really have a sense if what's being produced is what it purports to be because it's been handled so horribly. But it's 3 million Epstein documents produced on Friday. Let's talk about what's missing by the admission of Trump's doj. Three million more Epstein documents that they're withholding. They're supposed to prepare a report to explain their redactions and what they're withholding. Todd Blanch held a press conference where he didn't really explain why, other than he said it was just these 3 million that met the criteria of the Epstein Transparency Act. We know from prior court filings earlier in the week that the Trump DOJ planned to withhold documents on the basis of pro purported privilege claims, attorney client privilege, executive privilege, deliberative privilege, work product privilege, and so some of the most significant memos, internal correspondence between FBI officials with each other, United States Attorneys, AUSAs with each other may still be withheld. Drafts of indictments, that deliberative process, the drafts, the, the, the emails that weren't actually sent, or the internal communications, a lot of that may be withheld also from what was produced. We know that these survivors are absolutely livid because their names appeared prominently on a lot of the documents and their personal identifying information was outed and the Trump regime was trying to use them to say this is why it's taken so long, since last February was when we said the files were on Pam Bondi's desk because we were protecting them. But their names are out there. I'm not going to post those files right here or those emails, even though some of the survivors gave us permission to do it, because why bring more attention to their names? And they probably have lawsuits that they can file for the violation of the Epstein Transparency act with their names released. So it's been very, very sloppy, it's been very malicious towards the survivors. But also there were some very revealing moments. And we'll turn it over to you, Popak, to discuss those. But Elon Musk's name appeared over 1400 times with emails to Jeffrey Epstein saying things like, I want to go to the island on the wildest day. Can you give me the wildest party day you have? Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump's commerce Secretary, who's said publicly that he only saw Epstein one time in 2005 because Epstein lived in the townhouse next door to him in New York City. And he said that Epstein invited him over. He goes over and he got so disgusted by Epstein. In 2005, Lutnick said he told his wife, I'm not ever going to go to that man's house again. He's disgusting. Well, the emails have. The documents that were released have a lot of emails from Lutnick to Epstein, Lutnick's representatives to Epstein's representatives. Lutnick talking about the ages of his children who were with him on a trip and if they. If they were going to go to Epstein's island and what days to show up there. They were like almost confirmation emails that the trip happened. There was Epstein giving $50,000, like in 2017 to some award that Howard Lutnick received to, like, get a table or to like, help promote Howard Lutnick's award. I mean, really, $50,000 to a billionaire. It's ridiculous in and of itself. You have messages talking about each other's nannies, you know, and Lutnick's nanny appear. You know, the name of Lutnick's nanny. And so you have Lutnick's name appearing. You have Donald Trump's name appearing over and over again. There was that one document popak that we put out right away in the Midas Touch network that the DOJ removed. And it talked about all of these heinous things that Donald Trump. These allegations, let's be very clear. We're not sure if they're corroborated or uncorroborated, but it's certainly suspicious when the DOJ takes it down right away with all of these allegations about Donald Trump and calendar girl parties with underage girls. And they removed that right away. There's FBI 302 reports that reference Donald Trump and victims of Ghislaine and survivors of Ghislaine, talking about how Elaine would show them off, show these girls off to Trump, you know, at Mar a Lago and elsewhere, as though they were for sale to him. There's a 302report that basically describes. Describes that. And so there was some revealing documents in there. Pop. But what was your overall analysis of these files?

[Michael Popak]

Well, let me do. Yeah, let's. Let's start with it. First of all, let me back up for a minute. Sometimes we get lost in the document production. The document production was never going to be enough. And people constantly talking about the 3 million versus 6 million versus 10 million. That's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what should be happening here to bring justice and dignity to the victims, to the Trump administration. Its Department of Justice. This is all just about documents being produced. And they're willing to have that fight with the American people because they're framing it as a document production. It's a phrase you and I use all the time. In 35 years of my career, I've done and been responsible for thousands of document productions one way or the other. It's not about document production. This is about what is the Trump Department of Justice and FBI going to do next with the information that you and I are covering about the powerful men, almost exclusively men, not women, and their abuse of women. At least get to the bottom of the allegations, whether it's on the FBI tip sheet or whether it's in an email correspondence. Not just the, not just the scandalous headlines of the New York Post or other media outlets about this person and this media mogul and this financier and this royal family member. But what are you going to do about it? And the problem is they're not going to do a darn thing other than exonerate instantly Donald Trump every time Trump's name appears. Donald Trump's captured. FBI and Department of Justice says the exact same thing. We've cleared them. It's all baseless. How do we know that you did an. You were just swamped with doing the document review. How could you have possibly do. And you haven't done a parallel investigation to follow up on any of the information that's in that the documents. So how can you exonerate and clear him? Because they're puppets for Donald Trump to say whatever he wants them to say. And it got so bad that when a reporter asked Todd Blanche during his presser the other day when he was covering everything from Don Lemon to Tulsi Gabbard, and it came to the Epstein files, he looked chagrined and perplexed. I don't understand the premise of your question. What do you mean? Will it be. Will we now know with the 3 million the men who abused women? I, I refute the premise of your question. I had Lisa Phillips, who's a client of mine and also an Epstein survivor who is out in the forefront with her courage, react in real time to that press statement. We have a clip of it right now. Let's play it. When one intrepid reporter asked Blanche the question which was on everybody's mind, which is with what you've released, which is not in its entirety. We'll save that for the last part of this interview and how you feel about the fact that it's likely not in its entirety. And yet they've said done. The reporter asked, well, with what you have released, will we see finally the names of men who sexually abused these girls and women? And he acts like this is a Martian who's speaking in some dialect he does not recognize. Play the clip. You said this is the end of the Epstein of your review of the Epstein files.

[Ben]

So just to clarify, is the public going to learn the identities of the men who abused the girls with the.

[Michael Popak]

Information that you're releasing? And if not, why not?

[Ben]

And then I have a quick follow up.

[Todd Blanche]

I mean, you just baked in an assumption into your question that I have never said and I don't know to be true. Is the public going to learn about men that abused these girls? Like, what does that mean? I mean, I understand what that means.

[Michael Popak]

Well, I mean, the men who abused.

[Ben]

The young women through Epstein's.

[Todd Blanche]

Through Epstein, we said in July and it remains as true today as it was in July. If we had information, we, meaning the Department of Justice, about men who abused women, we would prosecute them.

[Michael Popak]

Right.

[Todd Blanche]

We talked about the work that we're doing. That's why I said that. I said this earlier. There's this built in assumption that somehow there's this hidden tranche of information of men that we know about that we're covering up or that we're choosing not to prosecute. That is not the case. I don't know whether there are men out there that abuse these women. If we learn about information and evidence that allows us to prosecute them, you better believe we will. But I don't think that the public or you all are going to uncover men within the Epstein files that abuse women, unfortunately.

[Michael Popak]

Are you okay with that? That response?

[Ben]

No, I'm sickened by. I'm just sickened by it. I'm so sickened. I'm actually like shaking right now. I want to fucking cry. Like, it makes me so sick. And it has a wedding ring on, like real. How does, how does he go home to his wife and the wife can look at him in his face and actually say something like that. You know, the wife knows. You know, it's like, this is disgusting. I'm looking at the files right now that says names.

[Michael Popak]

Names.

[Ben]

There's no evidence of it. There's a girl who just in, in, in the 90s said that these men were there and there were sex parties. So how is he saying there weren't evidence?

[Michael Popak]

Yeah, so the, this position that we're just going to dump the documents. And we know, we know from, from prior reporting and PR disclosures by the Trump administration. It's probably half of what they should have disclosed. I'll talk about that in a minute. But. But what are they doing to follow up on it? There's not only is there no, is there no promise by the Department of Justice that they'll do anything about it other than just do the data dump, they've actually now affirmatively said they're not going to do anything about it. They're going to shield their eyes and bury their head in the sand about it. And that is a major problem. On terms of the documents, I don't even understand how they go, you and I just reporting last Saturday and during the week or I did it at midweek. About letters sent in by the Department of Justice on Wednesday to Judge Engelmeier and Judge Berman in New York telling those judges that they are still in the process of reviewing the files, going through all of the different safeguards that they obviously did not follow to protect victims, that it's taking longer. 500 people are involved in the review, but they will be produced in the near term. And 48 hours later, the near term was here and all the documents came out. I mean, because why? Because it was a bad news week for Donald Trump because things are going terrible for him in Minnesota. Because, you know, the indictment of Don Lemon, which you and I will talk about later, was not enough to kill the news cycle in his favor. So he said get them all out, even if it has the victims names in it. So you've got a lot of explaining to do at the House and Senate Oversight Committee hearings about how you go Todd Blanch from we're not on Wednesday to done, all done. All done. And we're done and we're not going to do anything else as this obstruction of justice. This is where my earlier comment at the top of the Hot Take podcast come into play is this obstruction of justice. And who will pursue it to bring to justice those like Pam Bonding and Todd Blanch and FBI Director Cash Patel who are responsible for the violation of the act and for failing to provide the documents as required. One comment about Howard Lutnick and full disclosure. People know I worked for Howard Lutnick five, six years ago. I the global head of litigation at his company, I happen to have gone to the dinner in 2017 where he was fed by the ADL that apparently Epstein gave him money for. The the what I said in my analysis of it is and I didn't know anything about it because most of this happened before I got there. But the men who are. Regardless of what you think your connectivity to Epstein is, you know you're in the files, right? You know you were on the island with your children and other people's children in. In 2013. Yeah, in 2013. In 2013 or 2012 with Howard Lutnick on a, on a chartered yacht. You know that. You know you had communication with him about stopping a construction of a museum project near your homes. You know you bought your house, your townhouse from Epstein. You, you know all of that. So how do you get out and head of the story four months ago, Lutnick. I don't know if we have the clip, but Lutnick goes on a right wing podcast controlled by Rupert Murdoch, Miranda Devine called airpod One because of all the information swirling up around about him living next to Epstein. What did you see? What did you know? You bought the house from him. And he comes out and says 2005. I went in with my wife. We saw the massage tables. This guy creeped me out. It's gross. Everybody else is liable, not me. I never had any contact with him again. And that is a lie. And he knows it's a lie. He didn't accidentally charter a boat and end up on the island with his children for lunch. How do you forget that and other context that you. That you identified between his office and Epstein's office. Now I want to play.

[Ben]

Do you have the clip? But first we got to take our first quick break of the show. I want to remind everybody to make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Search Legal AF, subscribe to the Legal AF substack. And also if you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident. If somebody you know has been injured based on the negligence of somebody else, reach out to Michael Popox law firm. It's called the Popo Firm. You go to the popo firm.com or call 877-popocaf 877-POPOCAF. Or go to thepopocfirm.com check it out. We'll be right back after our first quick break.

[Michael Popak]

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[Ben]

Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of our sponsors who make the show possible. The discount codes for those sponsors are in the description below. My younger brother Jordy spends a long time with those sponsors to get you the great discounts there, so check them out. It also supports our show. Popaka let you take it away.

[Michael Popak]

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, you and I all watched it four months ago. The information swirling around about conflicts of interest with Howard Lutnick and buying his townhouse from Epstein or from a group that was controlled by Epstein. He decides to go on on his own. Nobody told him what to say. No one scripted it. And he decides to separate himself from Epstein and say how disgust busted he was grossed out. He was a massage table. Oh, my God. And then throw Democrats under the bus while he's doing it. Knowing he had to have known that. That one day the Epstein files were going to come out. And his email, or, you know, the email exchange about, hey, I'll be in. I'll be in your neighborhood near the island with a bunch of other people and my children, and here's their ages. Let's meet for lunch on, you know, the day before Christmas. You know, great, let's do it. And other things connecting him to Epstein years after he says he no longer had any contact. 1 Comment after we play this, this, this clip, he was reached for comment about him being in the Epstein files by the New York Times or other reporters. And his response was, I've had no. I've had zero contact with them.

[Howard Lutnick]

Click.

[Michael Popak]

As if that magical thinking of hanging up the phone was going to stop the reporting or the story. Let's play it.

[Ben]

He was your neighbor for 10 years. How well did you know him?

[Howard Lutnick]

All right, so we are in number 11, and he lives in number nine.

[Ben]

Right.

[Howard Lutnick]

So we renovate, we buy our house, and our house is pigeons and mice.

[Michael Popak]

Right?

[Howard Lutnick]

Okay. That's. It was derelict. Right. So we build, we rebuild our house. We move in in 2005. Okay. Jeffrey Epstein is arrested in like, 08, I think. Something like that.

[Ben]

Right, Right.

[Howard Lutnick]

So knock on the door. His assistant on like a Saturday, says, Mr. Epstein, your neighbor would like to invite you over for coffee. So my wife and I go next door. You know, we walk the seven steps.

[Michael Popak]

Yes, right.

[Howard Lutnick]

To the next house for. For coffee. We Share a wall. Right, right. So it's in New York City. So he invites us in. We have coffee in this, and he says, do you want a tour? He said, great.

[Ben]

Interesting.

[Howard Lutnick]

Really big house.

[Ben]

Every room you went in, he's got.

[Howard Lutnick]

He's got it. Well, I'll tell you. So his house is, like super big, really wide. And so he gives me a tour in the living room. Big living room. And then across from it is double doors. I assume it's the dining room.

[Michael Popak]

Yeah.

[Howard Lutnick]

And he opens the doors, and there's a massage table in the middle of the room and candles all around and stuff. So I ask very insightful, cutting questions. I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house. How often you have a massage? And he says, every day. And then he, like, gets, like, weirdly close to me. Oh. And he says, and the right kind of massage. Now, my wife is standing here. So she looks at me and I look at her and we say, I'm sorry, we have to go. And we left. And in the six or eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again. So I was never in the room with him socially for business or even philanthropy. If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross.

[Michael Popak]

Except seven years later when he arranged to charter a yacht and go with another family with all of their children, including the two sons that are now in their 30s and run his company to spend the day and lunch on the island and other connectivity. Let me ask you something, Ben.

[Ben]

He knows.

[Michael Popak]

He's in the files. These other men know that they're in the files. Whether it's the media baron out who's running the Olympics out in California, or it's the royals again, or others. Why don't they get ahead of the story and tell the truth? Do they just think it was going to be buried forever?

[Ben]

These are the same guys who hung out with Jeffrey Epstein. So you're asking, why are people who hang out with the leader of a child sex trafficking ring, why do they behave certain ways? These are sick individuals. Like, I can try to give you deeper. I mean, these are sick, sociopathic, deeply disturbed individuals who take the issues that they're dealing with and their own demented and disgusting and vile minds, and then they go back out and they project it on the rest of the world to make everybody suffer. And that's what unites all of these people right here. I mean, to your point, I mean, we're looking at messages from Matthew Lutnick, Howard Lutnick. Subject Jeffrey Epstein. Good morning, Howard. Jeffrey wished me to pass along the below to you. Nice seeing you. Please read number 2.3. And this is December 24, 2012, after they talk about meeting together, where Howard Lutnick is reaching out to Epstein. Hi, Jeff. I just want to read it, even though I know everybody trusts me when I say this is what happened. But like, let me just read the words to you here so I could just explain to you and we could share with you how sociopathic it is.

[Michael Popak]

What you just. Is this with the ages?

[Ben]

Yeah. Go. Hi, Jeff. We are landing in St. Thomas early Saturday afternoon and planning to head over to Saint Barts on Monday at some point. Where are you located? What is the exact location for my captain? Does Sunday evening for dinner sound good? I have another couple, Michael and Marcy Lehrman, with me on my boat. And each of us has four children, two 16s, two 14s, a 13, a 12 and 11, and a 7 year old. And then they go back and forth coordinating that as it relates to Donald Trump. In the files, there was this memo, subject Ray Epstein cellmate interview from FBI officials to each other. Jane Doe stated Epstein introduced her to Trump, who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis, which is subsequent subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out. Jane Doe remembers Epstein introduced her to Trump saying, this is a good one, huh? And Trump responded, yes. I mean, in terms of what people expect to see in these files, you know, Popak, you know, when we go through some of these things. And again, to be clear, those were allegations in a memo from FBI agents to FBI agents, the correspondence from Lutnick to Epstein, those aren't allegations. That's what he wrote. This is Lutnick's message to Jeff. Hi, Jeff. After you saw him say he was disgusting. So to your point, Popak, I could try to get into the mind of a sociopath, but I need not. These are bad people who are part of a cabal together who did bad things and who right now in 2026 are continuing to do bad things because they're bad, evil people, you know, and the question is, what is the point of court system and law and order if bad people are not held accountable? In Brazil, their bad leader who led an insurrection, Bolsonaro, got put in prison basically for the rest of his life. And when he tried to escape, the Brazilian Supreme Court went out and like personally arrested him. Our Supreme Court in the United States, which was supposed to be a more modern democracy or whatever the hell you want to say, gave him absolute immunity, gave Trump absolute immunity and said, you're a king, basically when our whole Constitution was against kings and against absolute immunity. So at some point we have to ask ourselves, there's no logic to it, Popak, other than these are sociopaths. Lutnick gets on. He lies. Elon Musk lies. These are lying liars who lie every day when they breathe. And it's Trump, all these people, I mean you have. Elon Musk appeared 1400 times and his emails are. And when he said, I've never been to the island and you know, he said all these things about other people on the island and I don't know, he or others were like reposting fake lists of other people who weren't actually on the island many months ago. Elon Musk is in emails asking Epstein when's the wildest night to go on the island? When's the wildest night? Well, anyway, let's just talk Todd Blanche for a moment because you showed that, you showed that. Let me share this with you though as well. You showed the Todd Blanche clip before the break. Let me just share with you. This has Todd Blanch right here at the press conference admitting there's. So people can hear it in your own, you know, hear it for yourself. That only 3 million of 6 million collected have been produced here at Planet's Clue.

[Todd Blanche]

We erred on the side of over collection of materials from various sources to best ensure maximum transparency and compliance, which necessarily means that the number of responsive pages is significantly smaller than the total number of pages initially compared to collected. That's why I mentioned a moment ago we're releasing more than 3 million pages today and not the 6 million pages that, that we, that we collected.

[Ben]

That's not what the law says. Now if you want to prepare a report that talks about the de duping that you did, removing duplicates or removing inadvertent collection of files that weren't actually the Epstein files, prepare your report and lay that out. But I don't know what you're talking about. That you ingested 6 million and you're only producing 3 because you erred on the side of over collection. You should err on the side of what the law is. And the law is you go to the sdny, you go to the Southern District of Florida, you go to the Treasury Department and various other people have Epstein files. You take it. All you do is you redact the victims names and the survivors names and their faces and other personal identifying information, you produce it. It's actually a relatively easy task that they're trying to act like it's the most complex thing ever.

[Michael Popak]

There's a bigger problem, though, Ben, bigger problem in the use of the term documents versus pages. You and I report. It's worse. It's worse. You and I reported the back before Christmas, it was 5.2 million documents, not pages. If you look at every report coming out of Blanche, it was documents. A document is multiple pages. The average multiple pages for the Epstein files, based on the first tranche that came out, was 10, meaning it was 50 million pages. They've only, they've only produced 3 million pages. Let's get apples to apples here against 50 million pages. Sometimes even the Congress people confuse it between the pages of the documents. If he's right, if we're doing apples to apples, there is not just half missing. We've only gotten 3 million out of four, 50 million pages. That's just about less than 10%. Okay, that's, that's, that's my other position. That's why the House Oversight Committee, the Judiciary Committee, got to get to the bottom of it and figure out if we're talking about pages or documents and what is the volume that's missing and why.

[Ben]

Normally in a litigation, the way Popak or myself or any litigator would figure out the universe of documents is you would take a deposition of somebody called the PMK or the pmq, a person most knowledgeable or a person most qualified who knows about the document systems, and you would spend seven hours with that person in a deposition just going through the corpus of documents that exist. Where are the documents? Where are they located? Who's involved in the searching? Were key term search used? How is the, how did this happen? And because the DOJ is serving as their own judge of the compliance of the Epstein Transparency act and taking the position of that courts can't enforce it, this is what you're left with. But we're going to stay on the job here at the Midas Touch Network and Legal af, and we're going to keep looking into this and we're going to keep asking questions. The COVID up continues, but also at that Todd Blanche press conference, he was asked a question about Tulsi Gabbard's role when she appeared at the Fulton county election offices where Trump's FBI got a search warrant, by the way, not signed from federal prosecutors in Georgia. Okay, that's a red flag number one. Red flag number Two is why is the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard at the Fulton county election offices grabbing and confiscating 2020 ballots? When Trump lost, there were hand recounts, electronic recounts, the Republican governor of the state, the Republican secretary of state, the Republican, you know, commissioners who were all involved all say the 2020 election was a free and fair election and Trump's continuing down this path. But watch what Todd Blanche says about Tulsi Gabbard's appearance at the Fulton county offices where the election ballots were taken. Here, play this clip to follow up on that.

[Michael Popak]

Regarding Fulton county, can you explain Tulsi Gabbard's role in.

[Ben]

Could you please explain Tulsi Gabbard's role in DOJ activity regarding the Fulton county search?

[Todd Blanche]

What do you mean, her role?

[Ben]

It was reported that she happened to.

[Todd Blanche]

Be present in Atlanta. I mean, yes, I saw the same photos you did. I mean, she's not. She doesn't work for the Department of Justice or the FBI. She's an extraordinarily important part of this administration. This administration coordinates everything we do as a group. And so I think her presence shouldn't be there, shouldn't be questioned. Of course, that's a big part of her job. And so the fact that she was present in Atlanta that day is something that shouldn't surprise anybody.

[Ben]

She just happened to be there. She was just hanging out. That's what they're saying, just hanging out. Bopa.

[Michael Popak]

All right, let's talk about Tulsi Gabbard for a minute. Who's on the hit list for impeachment when Democrats hopefully regain power at the midterms? Tulsi Gabbard is irrelevant. Tulsi Gabbard knows that she's irrelevant because, let's use an example, the capture of Maduro during an attempt to take over the oil fields of Venezuela and take out its leader and send him to New York. Up on the stage, we're all men. No Pam Bondi, even though this was claimed to be a. A law enforcement proceeding or action. No Tulsi Gabbard from the intelligence community. Her underling, John Ratliff, Ratcliffe of the CIA is there. Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State. They're all there, but Tulsi's not there. In fact, honor about the time that they were operating to take out Maduro, which is. Which should have been part of her job. Where is Tulsi Gabbard? She's in Hawaii at a yoga retreat, sending the world a message of peace and love. In fact, we have. We have the Instagram posting when she should have been in Washington during this meeting. Okay? So there she is in some sort of yoga pose instead of doing her job, having and sending out messages of peace during a war effort by Donald Trump. Okay? This is the second time she's, she's been tenured about things that she has said while Donald Trump was about to bomb Iran. She comes out and talks about the horrors of bombing in Hiroshima at the same time. And the reporting was that that Trump called her on the carpet, literally in the White House and said, get on board and stop promoting your own agenda and running for president or you're not going to be in my administration any longer. So she must have got the message. Now she, like Pam Bondi, is like scrambling around for something to do. So they sent her to. She sends herself to Fulton County, Georgia to stand there with a cosplaying baseball cap again, like from the, from the Kristi Noem collection to watch the raid of the Fulton county documents from 2020. Let's talk about Fulton county for a minute. Besides the fact that violates law and senators and Democratic Congress, people are getting to the bottom as to why Tulsi Gabbard, in violation of law, is involved with local law enforcement activities as the director of National Intell. And their comment that the press to the press corps was she's going to continue to make our, our elections safe. Now, look, Donald Trump didn't win Georgia, but he, he was certainly not going to win Fulton county, which is where Atlanta sits, where he lost by over 70%. Even if you thought there were fraud, let's just give a number that's never happened in history. 5%. The most fraud we've ever had, as, as every independent entity has ever looked at it, is in the 0.01 percentile, let's just say 1 percentile. Make it 5%. He still loses by a landslide in Fulton County. His buddy who got some sort of congressional presidential award, Rudy Giuliani, he is on the hook for 158 or $160 million defamation and libel judgment because he went after two election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shea, and claimed that they were switching votes from a box underneath their table. Right now we're back to the Venezuela software and the and, and the Venezuela manipulation through Dominion and smartmatic of votes in Fulton County. Billions of dollars of settlements have been paid or adjudged as a result of these very same allegations. Lawyers have been convicted and lost their law licenses over it. So now is the time for a theater piece for performative theater to go send in somebody to go raid Fulton county about 2020. And then like you said, to send Tulsi Gabbard in and somehow argue that this is a national security issue for which she has responsibility or part of her remit. Donald Trump had a cybersecurity entity that was responsible for ensuring our elections were, were safe. And he immediately fired that person and, and, and killed that office when he got back. You know, he fired that person in 2020. Chris Krebs, who testified that this was, that 2020 was the most safe and secure election in the history of America. Fired. And then when he got around back into office, he, he dismantled the cybersecurity office that he created to help secure elections. Because just to be clear, so people have on our audience true truth, understanding and true facts. When Donald Trump and MAGA talk about voter fraud, just translate that. We can use the legal AF D code, A ring. Just translate that. They're talking about taking away your right to vote. They want to suppress the vote. They want to use the excuse of voter fraud to do it. Because we don't really have voter fraud problem in America. Other countries maybe we don't. We've never had, we never will have. We have too many competent people in 50 states at the state level that are running their elections properly. When we talk about election interference, it's not from the equipment standpoint and the vote counting standpoint. We talk about election interference in, in bad people and bad governments and government agents around the world who troll America and try to brainwash America through social media postings now through AI and other things to try to get them to hate Hillary Clinton or like Donald Trump or think Joe Biden's mentally incapacitated or on both sides, but mainly against the Democrats. And that's what we talk about. We talk about election interference, but Donald Trump wants to continue to rewrite that chapter of history that made him out to be an insurrectionist and impeached. And he. And so he's going after John Brennan, the former head of the CIA in grand juries down in Florida. Not yet, at least. Hasn't happened yet. He's going after the intelligence community. He's going after the Clintons. He's going after Barack Obama. He's going after Fulton county because he wants to use his Department of Justice, FBI and intelligence community while he still has them under his command and control, to help rewrite these chapters of history. The reality is these chapters are not being rewritten. Maybe in the dark red states, you know, their textbooks may Read something differently. But to the historians of the world, to generations of the world, this is the most corrupt and failed presidency that we've ever had, especially in year one. We see it, the public sees it, the polling sees it, the judges see it, everybody sees it. But Donald Trump's going down his list of things he wants to do. He knows his time is running short. I mean, the thing that scares the crap out of Donald Trump, even though he won't admit it, is that he's going to get impeached again at the midterms. So he knows his time and he's going to be the lamest of lame duck presidents in another. It's hard to believe we can finally, the light is at the end of the tunnel, just months away to an election. And when that happens and in 2027, when the, when the impeachment proceedings, I mean, you and I will be. We could make a. We're gonna have to create a channel, the impeachment legal AF impeachment channel, where we're just gonna do articles of impeachment and the impeachment proceedings against all of these people. Justice is coming. And I know we say that a lot here, but it is coming. We're just at that moment now where, right before the ebb, where we're moving towards, you know, we're moving towards that. But. But this Fulton county thing, this is just a performative art piece that should be completely ignored except for violations of law.

[Ben]

You know, I would, though, say it's obvious that what Trump is trying to do is to obstruct the midterms and in a very authoritarian but sloppy way at the same time, which is very Trumpian. Sloppy plus want to be authoritarian equals Trumpian in a very loser way. You know, testing out different things. ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo invading cities. Can I literally take over a blue state? Blue cities, Minneapolis, St. Paul in Minnesota, Can I do that? What's the reaction going to be if I go into Maine and do an invasion there? Use Somalians as pretext. Let me try to blame the Armenian community in California and say that, you know, use that as a pretext to go and attack California. You know, obviously the efforts with trying to gerrymander the country to pick up seats backfired on Donald Trump. Thankfully, California Governor Gavin Newsom, with Prop 50 pushed back, using his formal and moral authority against Trump, Democrats were able to basically neutralize the Texas play. And then Trump went to red states. Democrats, like they're doing in Virginia, are showing you do it, we do it. And then because gerrymandering in general is unpopular, especially the way magas are doing it. By not putting it on a ballot but forcing it through a legislature, you've been able to neutralize that. In fact, Democrats look like that they're going to actually pick up seats as a result of Trump's mid decade redistricting dummy mander play. And so to me, I'm not quite even sure if the Trump regime people know what they're doing with these ballots yet, other than they got an order for Donald Trump. Take it, Come up with something, take it, and then we'll figure it out. But what they want to figure out is a way to overthrow the midterms into a greater pretext for it. So, you know, and my, not that I disagree with you, Popak, but my thought is we need to look at that space very seriously, because it's obvious that this is a play to shut down or to change the results or to rig the midterms, because that's right out of the authoritarian playbook. And all the stuff that Trump's doing is not, he's not inventing these things. These sociopaths, sociopathic authoritarians throughout history have engaged in this type of conduct. And Trump is doing this playbook. And America, our Constitution. And what we used to mean to the world was the opposite of what was really the sad state of human condition, which was sociopathic authoritarians who hoard power and use it to inflict pain and torture on the people and to suck up all the resources for themselves and their oligarchs. And so we just need to be very focused on that space.

[Michael Popak]

All right, before you, before you take your break, I like the connection you're making. Let me make one comment about it. The practice, I agree with you completely. It's been a practice run for this administration. Dress rehearsal. The use of the National Guard on the streets of America freaked out so many people that a federal judge, Judge Breyer, who's the brother of a supreme former Supreme Court justice, gave a scenario in his own order against the National Guard's use, saying, what if a president claims that there has been voter fraud, could he use the National Guard to seize voting machines and stop an election? Now, that sent a chill down everybody's spine. So when we see him practicing on Americans, as he once said during his address of military generals and brass at Quantico, when we see the, the use of the National Guard, when we see the raiding that is going on not just in Fulton County, Georgia, but soon to be in other places, you're Right. This is a dress rehearsal to see what he can get away with because he knows the if, if people are able to vote in their interests based on polling, it's going to be a landslide against MAGA and his legacy in several months from now. You're right. It's a. It's a total dress rehearsal.

[Ben]

So let's take our last quick break of the show. A reminder. If you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident injured based on the negligence of somebody else or a third party, a company injured, you an employment case, sexual assault, assault or harassment case, call 877- POPAK-AF or go to the popoc firm.com caller text 877- POPAK or go to the popo firm.com. that's Michael Popo's law firm. He's got lawyers and staff across the countries who will take your consultation is free. Don't be shy. And, you know, if you know someone who was involved, like in a wrongful death case or some catastrophic injury situation, reach out. I mean, Popo's firm will take the call. And I know you trust Popo. So, you know, bring your case or bring your situation to Popak and he'll. And he'll help you. Also check out Legal AF on YouTube. Go search Legal AF on YouTube, bring that channel to 2 million subscribers. And also check out Legal AF on Substack, one of the most viewed substacks right now. Okay, last break of the show. We'll be right back. We're going to talk about Don Lemon. We'll talk about Georgia Fort, who was also arrested. A great journalist as well. She was the vice president or is the vice president. The national association of Black Journalists and DEA agents, like, swarmed her house. You know, Lemon was arrested, you know, by federal agents in Los Angeles. That's not the way this is supposed to go. First off, this whole thing is ridiculous and, you know, just completely authoritarian. But then even the way they handled the arrest is just. We'll break it all down for you. Let's take our last break of the show.

[Michael Popak]

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[Ben]

Thank you to all of our sponsors, once again, description. The discount codes are in the description below for those sponsors. My younger brother Jordy works hard with Popoc and others to bring you good discount codes. And those sponsors support our show. So support those sponsors and great products, great stuff. So just go and check it out. All right, let's talk about, you know, this, this arrest of Don Lemon, especially in the context of Donald Trump's assault on the First Amendment, his assault on independent media, his assault on reporters who he doesn't like. Full disclosure, Don Lemon's a close personal friend of mine. He was at my wedding when he stepped into the independent journalist space. There was a time where I was speaking with Don Lemon maybe twice a day or three times a day. When he comes out to California, I was probably going to hang out with him, you know, again the next few days. He got arrested. But in the past, when he's come out to California, I meet up with him. You know, Popak was at my wedding. Lemons, these are my friends. You know, Lemon's also someone who I've admired throughout his career. I always thought he was someone who spoke truth to power. I think, you know, he would even be forced to admit, if he's allowed to admit it or not. I don't know that, you know, being in corporate news had its limitations and held back what you can say. But obviously with his independent platform, he's been able to, you know, truly speak his mind. But he was always someone who was able to speak his mind thoughtfully before. But now it's been, you know, certainly at a scale that, that I think certainly meets the moment even more than it did before. And we all know the story. He showed up in Minneapolis, in St. Paul. He was chronicling the protest and what was taking place. He learned of a protest at a St. Paul church. He shows up as a reporter. There are other reporters there, including Georgia Fort. He identifies himself as a member of the press while he's videotaping a protest at this church. And the, the reason why there was a protest at the church is that it was believed that a church official was a ICE leader or was supporting the ICE raids that was terrorizing the communities. And the Trump regime said that it was a violation of something called the Face Act, F A C E, which was originally created to help women, protect women from getting violently assaulted and beaten and attacked when they were getting reproductive health care, go abortion clinics. And, you know, you'd have these right wing extremists attack them physically, intimidate, threaten, hurt, inflict violence and So a law needed to be created to prevent that from happening in order to make the law on a bipartisan basis. There was another provision that said also, you can't physically intimidate and physically harass or threaten or use force against people who are praying at a church. That was lumped together in a bill that became the Face act, basically. And so what we saw happen was protesters started chanting. I didn't even see the protesters engage in any physical force and intimidation. If I'm trying to, you know, see any potential argument out there, could one argue the protest was disorderly conduct? That's not the face Act. You know, being loud and rowdy. I don't even think it meets the definition of a misdemeanor disorderly conduct, state level, you know, charge. Let's be clear. I represented Colin Kaepernick, you know, who took a knee and protest. And everyone's saying, why are you protesting during the games? We don't want to see that. Protests make people feel uncomfortable. That's the point of a protest. You know what's more uncomfortable than seeing a protest? Seeing somebody get shot in the face. You want to know what's more uncomfortable than seeing somebody getting shot in the face? Getting shot in the face. Okay, Alex Pretty and Renee Nicole Goode, the people who have died at detention centers, the Americans and others in this country who have been killed, who have been sprayed with gaseous substances in their face, who have been attacked, who have been shot with pepper spray. That's more uncomfortable, okay, than having people protest to bring attention to the terror and torture that's taking place. But in any event, if you want to say, hey, there's some sort of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. It's a private space, even though I then argue churches should be open to everybody. You know, whatever. But Face act, the federal law says physical threats, physical violence, physical intimidation, not utilizing your first amendment right as protesters, even if your protest is loud, even if your protest is disruptive. There's a difference between disruptive conduct and physical intimidation and physical attacks, which is in there. But Don Lemonade, Lemon wasn't even protesting. So I just want to make that distinction too, because I don't think the protesters engaged in any crimes yet alone. The federal Face act crime. Lemon said, I'm a reporter. I'm here videotaping. That's all I'm doing. When someone at the church touched Lemon, Lemon said, please don't touch me. I'm just here to report. And Lemon repeatedly said on the live stream over, I'm not with them. I'm here to report. Like he said it multiple times out loud. So with all of that Trump and Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dhillon and all of the people in this Trump regime wanted Don Lemon arrested, though, because the right wing base on Twitter now arrest Don Lemon. Arrest Don Lemon. You need to arrest him. And I guess they figured that's a good issue for their base, which is post Constitution, anti Constitution, you know, but they then go, Don Lemon, they try to get a magistrate judge to sign off on a criminal complaint against Don Lemon, that fails. They go to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeal, that fails. Pop in a bit, you'll talk about this Judge Schiltz, who had to even send a letter to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. And this same judge is a George W. Bush appointee who's this past week said that this Trump ICE has violated hundreds of court orders already in January alone, more than agencies have violated in their entire existence. That's what ICE has done. And he's never seen anything like this before. So the getting a magistrate judge to sign a criminal complaint, that fails. Then they go for this indictment. They somehow get an indictment, which we'll learn more about. Remember, they got indictments of Comey and Letitia James. Okay. And yes, you can indict a ham sandwich, but there were grand juries that didn't indict Letitia James after that first indictment succeeded. But then Lindsey Halligan, we learned, did all of this misconduct in the grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia, gave the grand jury incorrect legal rules, didn't show them evidence, brought somebody who stole attorney client information, you know, and engaged in all of this, you know, misconduct. So one of the things we'll see and I'll flag, I'll turn it over to you, Popak, though, is we don't know what went down in the grand jury room. I doubt the Trump regime's lawyers, who they sent in there, who apparently are not Minnesota or not lawyers from Los Angeles. I mean, that these are lawyers they brought in just for this. I doubt those lawyers showed the full video or showed the full evidence. My gut is they brought in a single FBI agent. The FBI agent who's a Trump regime lackey. I'm just giving you my guess because this is what we've seen before. I'm hypothesizing, based on past experience of this Trump regime, gave a hearsay story because you can do that in grand juries. Yes. Did you physically intimidate? Yes, he did. What do you see him do? I Saw him got in front of the door, and the evidence shows he pushed back. Anything else you saw? No. Does that constitute physical intimidation, Mr. FBI officer? Yes, it does. All right, grand jury, physical intimidation. You heard the FBI officer. So if you believe physical intimidation, you have to sign this. That's my gut. When we find the grand jury transcript, what's actually what actually went down. But in any event, they then arrest Don Lemon in Los Angeles with federal agents. Also Georgia Ford, another reporter who was doing the same thing Lemon was doing, who was videotaping it. They sent like DEA dressed as SWAT teams to her house and basically scared her to death and scared her family. And what you're supposed to do in a situations like this is, you know, one, not do this in the first place, but you would get a warrant, you would reach out to the person, like a Don Lemon or a Georgia Ford. You would say, show up. You've been criminally indicted. You would negotiate a surrender, and that's what happens. But. But the Trump regime wanted the theatrics. They wanted perp walks. They wanted to inflict fear and pain, and that's what they're doing. Popak, take it from there and maybe connect Judge Schiltz's order.

[Michael Popak]

Okay, well, let's start with Judge Schiltz. I said on a hot take, and I still believe the Judge Schultz, who is the right wing former Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court clerk, Republican appointee, chief judge of all the judges of the district courts of Minnesota, who was assigned to a number of cases involving the Trump administration. So far, when he wrote his letter and his email, which I rarely see in 35 years, constituting his response to Pam Bondi's attempt to get an arrest warrant against Don Lemon for the very thing that you've. You've at length described, he, the chief judge, effectively vouched for Don Lemon, that he didn't commit any crimes. There's no other way to interpret Judge Schultz's writing to the 8th Circuit, who asked him. We're about to decide whether we should issue an order forcing you to issue an arrest warrant overriding the decision of a magistrate judge, which never in the history of the Eighth Circuit of any federal court has that ever happened. How do I know that? Because Judge Schultz did a survey and told the 8th Circuit that. Tell us what your thoughts are. And the judge wrote an email and a letter and said, I'm at home because it's snowing, and I have a child, adult child who has special needs, but I'm going to write to you about an application that I can't see, that I don't know what it says, that seems to be sealed even against me. And you want me to respond, but I have a pretty good idea how I should respond. And in that letter, in that email, he said that the journalist and the producer, which is Don Lemon and his producer, did not commit a crime. And that's why he's not going to override. He shouldn't be forced to override the magistrate judge, who also found that Don Lemon and the producer were exercising first amendment freedom of the press rights and didn't commit a crime. Anybody that follows Don Lemon's channel the way you and I do, as not even casual observers, as people that know Don, know that Don does live reporting a lot. Okay? If you were bored on New Year's and you were, didn't want to watch the ball drop, you could have tuned in to Don Lemon in New Orleans doing whatever Don was doing at the time and recording it for his live feed, okay? That's what reporters do. You know, we got Katie Fang, who's a friend of ours as well, who's out in Minnesota right now doing live reporting. Just because even if she knew, even if she knew that there was going to be a protest at a certain moment and showed up to get the exclusive, it doesn't make her a co conspirator with the people that did the protests. See what Todd Blanche back to blanch again. What Blanche said is in an interview on Fox a week or so ago is so called journalist Don Lemon embedding himself with agitators is not going to give him any kind of protection. All right, let's stop right there. Wherever you ply your trade. And frankly, hardcore journalists are now plying their trade on YouTube as we are on substack, as we are, and they're not on mainstream media. See? You know, see exhibit a flow of mainstream media onto YouTube platforms like Midas and substacks. Okay? And the fact that they. They think don Lemon, after 17 years on CNN, who's in a fight with Elon Musk over him being deplatformed and violating a contract when Elon Musk was going to put Don Lemon on and the Don Lemon show and don't. And I don't want anybody to think for a minute these things are not. These things are unrelated. The fact that Elon Musk would love to see Don Lemon in handcuffs, okay, you don't think that played into this at calculus? Come on. So just because Don's on YouTube with a channel like I am, like you are, doesn't undermine our First Amendment right. The Constitution's founders and framers didn't say that there's a First Amendment, freedom of the press, except for people that are on a YouTube channel or her and substack. They didn't write that out with the quill pen. Okay, so where he plies his trade, I don't care if he's in an old van riding around with a shortwave radio telling people his opinions. He has a First Amendment right. And I don't care whether, as is alleged in the indictment, they met for coffee before, and he knew that they were going to. Okay. Journalists get tipped off all the time about it. He didn't plan it. You know, and of course, to troll Don and the American people, and us particularly, you know, you got Tulsi, you've got Harvey Dillon, who, full disclosure, you and I know I litigated against her and with her in cases. Harmeet Dhillon, who's busy chloroforming the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice, trolled everybody, including Don Lemon, by putting up retweeting a comment where somebody said something about the KKK act, the Ku Klux Klan act of conspiracy, being used against Don Lemon in a conspiracy to deprive civil liberties and civil rights, which was used when the KKK went after newly freed slaves to deny them their rights. It's also being used against Donald Trump right now in a civil matter still going on by the Metro Police and the Capitol Police in front of Judge Mehta in D.C. so she wrote or they. Somebody wrote and she retweeted Don Lemons. Now a Klansman, like, you know, because the African American, the black journalist is now being. Is under the KKK Act. So in Minnesota, every federal judge, magistrate, and chief judge that looked at the facts said, no arrest warrant because no crime. And so that, as I said in Hot Takes, that doesn't stop them from trying to get a grand jury to indict. Now, there's been a couple of grand juries they either didn't present to or they finally found one based, as you said, on. Let's just talk about grand jury process for a minute, because sometimes we do shorthand, and I don't want to. Who's in the room? The defense is not in the room. The defendant is not in the room. The lawyers for the defendant is not in the room. And you don't even need to bring in actual witnesses. And certainly the other co defendants are not in the room. It's just the prosecutor. And if you're right, I believe you are an FBI, a sort of roadmap witness, you know, somebody we call a composite witness or somebody that. That just testifies about having. I reviewed the evidence and let me tell you what the evidence says. So it's like hearsay, you know, there's nobody to push back and cross examine it. And then they just put that up. The guy saying there was a meeting in a coffee shop. Don Lemon was at the meeting. Then they went to the church and then Don. Then Don Lemon was filming, but he's a fake journalist and therefore conspiracy. Ta da. They put up a board with the elements and they asked the grand jury to vote and return an indictment.

[Ben]

And by the way, it could literally be 10 minutes, just so people.

[Michael Popak]

Oh, yeah, it could literally be just.

[Ben]

That 10 minutes in and out.

[Michael Popak]

We, we know that as a. Go back to an earlier story tonight on Legal af, in the Epstein indictment of Maxwell, Judge Engelmeier revealed that it was one FBI agent who gave us, it's called a summary witness who gave summary testimony of his review of files. And the jury returned an indictment of, like you said, 15 or 20 minutes that eventually got sustained through a conviction. But that's how it can happen. Now. Just because there's an indictment doesn't mean it's going to stick. Or that a federal judge in this case. Case back in Minnesota. It's going to be back in Minnesota, right, Ben? The indictments out of Minnesota.

[Ben]

It is, yeah.

[Michael Popak]

All right. So it's going to be a federal judge assigned to the case. Not sure who, as we're recording, who the federal judge is, but one of them that has been struggling against the Trump administration. Could be Menendez, could be Schultz, could be Tostrup. There's a whole bunch of judges there who are going to handle this case. And immediately Abby Lowell, who, as I've said before, is going to be one of the action figures, you know, superhero action figures coming out of this administration along with Don and maybe, maybe you, Ben, maybe legal AF that kids can. That kids can have on their shelf. Because Abby's representing letitia James, representing Dr. Lisa Cook on the Federal Reserve, representing here Don Lemon. And rushing into the fire that is the Trump Department of Justice and justice system to defend Don Lemon. And now he's gonna. Now, now we're. Now we got it. He got arrested. Got it. Got an arraignment. Now it's going to be motion practice that he's going to argue this is a First Amendment right. That's being Violated. And the evidence doesn't support it. We'll see what's going to happen. You and I will cover it closely with the. And then bond hearings and all of that. But this is nothing more than the Trump administration deciding to scratch Donald Trump's itch to go after media in order to have a chilling effect, not just on Don Lemon, because there's no way to chill Don Lemon, but to make the next reporter, maybe a younger reporter, think twice about following up on that story or asking that question or doing that reporting or. Or a corporate media publishing that, that investigative report. That's why Midas, ProPublica, all these independent entities that don't have corporate parents, that don't have to worry about a billionaire making a phone call to them. You know, we don't have to worry about Jeff Bezos, you know, putting out the Melania, The Melania documentary as a. As an obvious bribe to the Trump administration. Like, don't touch my interest. Don't touch my Washington Post. Don't touch my Amazon. Okay? We don't have to worry about that. So these have to. It's the opposite. Don Lemon is independent journalism that has to survive. And this is the fight that we're going to see. Just like the Washington Post reporter who got raided at her home and had all of her devices initially captured before a federal judge stepped in. This is what they're trying to do. Look at the puppet theater that you and I report on every day. That is the press secretary's daily briefing or the other one we don't cover as much, but we should, which is the Pentagon briefing. It is now just filled with a bunch of right wing social media influencers. Riley Gaines, the swimmer who's against all transgender rights, is now in the White House briefing room throwing softball pieces of birthday cake at Carolyn Levitt. And the two of them. I almost vomited watching the two of them in action. Oh, Riley Gaines, nice to have you here. You get the first question. First they want to say how you're going to be a girl mom. And I'm like, what are we doing? And then the Pentagon's even worse because there they've decredentialed any legitimate reporter. And now you got people like Laura Loomer at the Pentagon briefing because this is what Donald Trump wants. And we have to be leading from the front, not from behind. As independent journalists. I didn't. I didn't get backed off. I didn't get chilled because of what happened to Don Lemon. I know you didn't. I know our networks and Channels didn't. I got it redoubled our efforts to get on the air against all of the weight of the Trump administration.

[Ben]

If anything to your point, it motivated us more and it shows the necessity of independent media right now. And as I've said before on this episode, I hope when you look back at it, there's really nothing that I think I said that was, oh, that should be the Democrats position or that's a Republican position or that's an independent position. To me, this is a law and order show and that means actually enforcing the laws, making sure they're faithfully executed and calling out the facts. Where Howard Lutnick says, I never met with Jeffrey Epstein since 2000 and then he clearly did, that's disqualifying. Where Elon Musk says that that's disqualifying. Where Trump says that, that's disqualifying. I mean, this, anybody involved in that cabal, my view, it's, it's disqualifying. It's a very simple moral question in addition to a legal one. It's a moral question also, who are we as a society when ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo are torturing, terrorizing, killing, we see it. We see it. I know that's not good. I don't have to formulate a political opinion. I could have form a moral opinion as well. And I want the law to reflect our values of a society when crimes are being committed. And if ICE and Border Patrol are engaged in criminality and terrorism, they need to be held accountable. There shouldn't be discussions about funding them or the discussion should be about what could we do to prosecute these criminals. That's what we should be talking about. You know, and I think the frustration we see from Judge Silt Popoc and I'll let you leave this episode on, on this is, here's this George W. Bush judge, the chief judge, I might add, of Minneapolis, who is a major member of the conservative bar. You know, somebody who you would, you know, someone who clerked for Justice Scalia, you know, someone whose life was as conservative as a jurist as you know, you can be. You know, and this would be someone that you and I at law school, Popak used to have good faith debates and discussions with about views about textualism, originalism, states rights, different amendments. But we would ultimately try to reach solutions that were to the benefit of the country, but we would have legitimate good faith arguments. But now the conservative movement is co opted and it is just a MAGA cult. And this Judge Schiltz, this chief Judge in Minneapolis. You know, he's out there basically saying, you know, almost feeling alone and isolated right now, you know, with all these other judges, but he's under attack from MAGA because he's just saying our orders are being violated, that the Trump regime is not using warrants, that they're not giving bond hearings, that they are violating the Constitution every single day. You know, and, and, you know, Judge Silts wrote a letter to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals when the Trump regime tried to do an end run around the district court and file a mandamus petition against Judge Shields and not serve the document on him so he could read it. He's like, I have to send you a letter aid circuit because the Justice Department didn't even serve me with their filing right now. And so I don't even know what they're trying to say other than I want to be clear that this Justice Department is rogue and they're engaged in conduct that I've never seen in my judicial career. That's a George W. Bush as conservative as a judge, you know, saying that Judge Ludig, who appears often on Legal AF and who you and I have become great friends with over the years, I mean, this is someone who was, you know, in line to be on the Supreme Court, and his clerks often became the top judges across the country, you know, and, and he's a right wing, he was a right wing conservative. And now he's like, that doesn't exist anymore. It's co opted by maga. And you know, at some point, Popak, we just have to recognize and call out that we are in, we're not in a constitutional crisis. We're in, we're, we're past that. We are in an authoritarianism era. That's how this will be known in United States history. And the question is, can we get out of it a major part of its independent media, another major part of it's going to be the incredible groups on the ground peacefully protesting the authoritarian tactics, the movement of protesters continuing to grow, people putting pressure on our lawmakers, people showing real people power because our institutions have failed, our politicians have failed. And it's for the people right now to take control and to push back. And that's what's happening right now. I'll give you the final word, though, Popak.

[Michael Popak]

No, I think, look, if any, if anybody, you say, you said people look back, they won't find that I, you, we mean either. I'm not, not. I'm not pushing an agenda here. I am. That's Why I think we've been able to do this for over almost six years is that we're authentic in. I couldn't keep this. This is not like Stephen Colbert acting like, you know, when he had his original show, like, acting like a right wing pundit when he wasn't. Now, this is us. This comes naturally to us because I think people trust that and respect that because we're speaking from the heart, from our own experiences, and we're giving you our objective opinion and commentary based on years of legal experience. And, you know, we have a very good track record, I believe. And yet when people leave our show, they leave it with hopefully, new respect and new knowledge and new facts that they can use to do what, what we need them to do. It's not just about listening to us. It's about empower our audience to go out into the marketplace of ideas, to go into the public square, whether that be social media around your kitchen table on, you know, or, or, or literally on the streets, and express yourself with knowledge and to call out what we've seen and we know is the corrupt instincts of the Trump administration, its Department of Justice, its FBI and things at the intersection of law and politics. We want knowledge is power. And the only way that we're going to overcome the Trump administration and take back our country, you know, forget about making America great again. I'm just, we're all patriots here on the Midas Touch Network and unleashed. We all care deeply, deeply about the United States, even if you're not from the United States or not in the United States. And that this and that, this experiment of our constitutional republic and democracy, that it survive and thrive and that it, it shake off the, it shakes off the yoke of the Trump era. All right? And so in order to do that, though, it takes millions and millions and millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of people join together. We got a fair tranche of that here. Weekly, daily, hourly on the Midas Touch network on illegal AF. Between the two channels, you got two YouTube channels, you got 7, 8 million people. Then you had all the, you got 10, 10, 20 people, 10 or 20 million people there. And then the hundreds of millions that have to vote and not sit out this election the way, unfortunately, because maybe the candidates or the issues or whatever, they sat out the last election, they sat on the sidelines of democracy. And as you've said, and I've said, there's no fence sitting here. This is about people powered movement joining together. Donald Trump recently, I almost gagged. He recently referred to the silent majority having to be heard from. I agree. The silent majority, though, is it would appear to be completely against the criminality and lawlessness of the Trump administration and those around him. And as you said, all the people around him that came into power with him have this streak of larceny and criminality and kleptocracy in depravity that maybe in their prior lives wasn't fully exhibited but once they got here with him, has now burst full blown. Todd Blanche might not have been an a hole, sorry against democracy and criminal justice and constitution when he was in private practice before or when he was at the U.S. attorney's office, as friends of mine have reported, but he is now Howard Lutnick. I mean, you know, last I looked, he was a Democrat. And this thing that he's playing on television is just ruining our country and our society. It just seems like Stephen Miller, I think, has consistently always been Stephen Miller. And one thing you can say about him is he's very consistent. But the rest of them will be judged not just in ratings and views on Midas and legal af, but by courts and oversight committee hearings and impeachment hearings and the Department of Justice when it's taken over by true patriots and Democrats and like minded people, even Republicans. As I, I said, I was at a, was doing a keynote for the national trial lawyers in this last week and a whole bunch of lawyers, hundreds and hundreds of them in the room, and somebody stood up and asked me a question who was a Republican and said what can Republicans do to reclaim the party? And I said that's a very good point because we are one party short of a two party system right now we got a party, it's called the Democratic Party Party. Then we've got this other thing that's like, like a cult, like a populist cult that is not held together with much as we've seen, because we're watching the cannibalization and the implosion of that party. But for a healthy democracy, we need a reformation, a remediation from within of the Republican Party when they have to shake off the yoke of Donald Trump and his MAGA personality, cult of personality and reclaim a party. Because only then, Ben, that's what I know that's what you want too, Ben. We need to have a healthy Republican Party, a healthy Democratic Party and then the two of them can have this, have this fight, you know, a fair fight for democracy. And in the marketplace of ideas, we don't have that right now. We've got a criminal who's running the White House and a party on the other side and Republicans who are moderate struggling to restrain him. And this is where we get together. It's almost like a religion. This is where we get together on a weekly basis, hourly basis, to renew ourselves for the fight ahead. And that's what I think Legal aye does.

[Ben]

Stay in this together. Fight together. We're in this together. Michael Popak, thanks for all you do Legal A effers thanks for all of you do a reminder, make sure you all check out the Legal AF YouTube channel and subscribe. Let's get that channel. 2 million subs subscribers. Also check out Legal AF on Substack. Let's keep growing the Legal AF Substack. Also, if you or someone you know has been injured in an auto accident, a trucking accident, if you've been injured by the negligence of a company or another person, reach out to 877-popak AF or go to the popac firm.com they the consultation is free. They've got lawyers and staff across the countries to answer your question. And if you know someone who's been the victim of negligence of others, wrongful death or sexual assault or harassment, whatever, reach out to the firm, refer their families, refer, refer them over to Popak. You know Popak, you trust him. Let, let him take a look at it and see, you know, if there's a case there. Thanks everybody for watching. We appreciate you stay in the fight. We're going to keep staying in the fight. We're not intimidated at all. We're going to keep on growing. Hit subscribe on our channel. Help Mike Midas get to 6 million subscribers and we'll see you next time on Legal AF. Shout out Legal AFers shout out Midas Mighty.