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Welcome to Legal AF. We've got a lot to discuss on this episode. The United States has invaded Venezuela. It's an unlawful invasion. Donald Trump did not get the authority as required by the Constitution. Congress must authorize war. Donald Trump is claiming that seizing Venezuela was a law enforcement activity and thus congressional authorization was not needed. The Trump regime is utilizing a discredited and kind of laughable memo that Bill Barr created in 1989, basically saying if you just refer to invasions as law enforcement activity, you don't need to follow the Constitution or international law or UN charters. Just go for it. So we'll break down what's taking place in Venezuela. One of the reasons I think that Trump is invading Venezuela, in addition to his professed reason to run it, is and seize the oil. I think it's also a distraction from the fact that Americans are suffering here. People can't afford things and Donald Trump is covering up the Epstein files. And there was additional information about how Donald Trump's spa was utilized in the 1990s to send young girls and to send women and staff workers at this spa to Epstein's place. Epstein didn't go to the Spa Trust. Trump's spa at Mar a Lago went to Epstein. Also. Seems like it was a year ago because I feel like we age in dog ears sometimes in this Trump regime. But the special counsel Jack Smith video deposition was released as well. We'll go through what Jack Smith said that backfired in MAGA Republicans phases. We'll talk about that and more in this episode of Legal. I have Michael Popak it's great to see. I just think we get right into it early because there's a lot to discussed by the way, including the fact that Donald Trump threw the Venezuelan opposition leader Marina Karana Machado under the bus who won the Nobel Peace Prize and she praised Donald Trump and she was everyone expected to be who you would install if you were to do this. But Trump said she's a quote, nice lady but people in Venezuela don't respect her. He wants to run it. They don't respect her. They main Venezuelan opposition leader. So Poock, what do you make of all this?
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A
Well, it's not the only person he on today that happens to be a woman leader. He also in the morning on a Fox News interview attacked our ally Claudia Shinebaum in Mexico and said she's also not running her country, almost threatening regime change there as well. I would, I would actually feel slightly better if, if the vocabulary that we use to kick off this episode was actually accurate. We didn't invade Venezuela. We didn't do proper regime change. We took out Maduro and his wife with a Delta Force extraction team. That's why Donald Trump talked a lot about at his press conference a second wave. This shows you that, you know the guy that just said in the last 24 hours that he successfully passed three cognitive tests, dementia tests in the last 11 months is the guy that gave the go order on this. Taking out and, and Maduro and his wife is not hard. First of all, there is no effective Venezuelan military, I mean armed forces, Navy, air force and the rest that can match against the United States. It's so poor there, so bad there that Maduro was using oil reserves. And they are the, they represent 20% of of the world's oil is underneath or at Venezuela. Okay? They would be the number one oil producing country in the world over Saudi Arabia if, if technology and infrastructure were improved. That's where big oil for the US that's running things here, including our foreign policy and military policy comes in. But it's so bad there that he has to, he has to take crude oil, give it to Cuba for them to send in security forces to guard him. He was effectively guarded by Cuban mercenaries being paid in oil. That's what the Delta Force beat in order to take these two people out. The question is not the liberation. Listen, I'm in Miami. There are, there are cheers in the streets in South Florida, in Weston, in Doral, in Kendall, and of the proud Venezuelan people to be quote, unquote liberated. But this wasn't liberated. Donald Trump Never even used the L word about liberation. This was about an oil company's takeover of a country through a president that they bought last year for half a billion dollars at a Mar A Lago dinner. Signed, sealed and delivered. And this is now the payoff as the Senate now is going to have to struggle and to led by the Democrats to vote on a bill next week that can't be blocked by Senator Thune because it's a privileged bill about reasserting congressional power over war efforts by a president who's trying to call law enforcement activity and disguise it for what it really is, which is an act of war against a sovereign country. And you're so right. His small mindedness. First of all, we'll show clips from the press conference, his slouching, slurring, slumping the podium, holding him up. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was ordering his meal at McDonald's drive thru. He was so on in oh, we had the greatest war operation ever as he's reading from the script. I mean talk about a gassed president. But if you once we get past the press conference issue, we what really happens is what happens on day two. Who is Marco Rubio who's planning the in control transition? He's crapping on the opposition party. He's left in place the rest of the dictatorship. He decapitated the head but he left the rest of the infrastructure in place. So how has that regime change? This is a big oil coup to get back the Citgo assets that were nationalized years ago and to get their hands on that oil field.
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B
Yeah, I mean you still have dies Dado Cabello, the interior minister goes by another name as well in terms of what the title is, who people view as the real enforcer there in Venezuela. All of the governors that were installed by Maduro, at least as of this recording, are still running the regions and they're not showing signs of surrender. At this point you have the vice president not showing signs of surrender, although some this is a rapidly advancing story right here. And again, the main opposition leader, Maria Karina Machado, who won the Nobel Peace Prize. I don't know if Trump's jealous of her for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, if it's that she's a woman, all of the above. Trump wants to run it himself and doesn't want anybody who asserts Venezuelan sovereignty in a new form. But Trump just said about her that, you know, I think that she's weak. The people don't like her in Venezuela. I mean she's the main Venezuelan opposition leader. Now.
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A
This is 90% of the vote for the opposition.
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B
Yeah, right. So this, I mean, this is legal af. So in a little bit, I want to go through the indictment that was brought against Maduro which looks strikingly similar, although less drug references than the one against Juan Orlando Hernandez. And, and when you go through this 25 page indictment, there's no mention of fentanyl or stolen oil at all in the indictment, as Thomas Massie points out. And also, if the pretext is that Maduro was a narco drug trafficker, Donald Trump just pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was actually a narco terrorist, who, who worked with El Chapo in order to, in the words of Hernandez, kill those gringos, get those drugs up the nose of the, of the gringos. And Trump pardoned that guy and said, well, you know, we had to do what we had to do with that guy. Let's just go through some of the clips right here from this disastrous press conference. Let's start with this clip where Donald Trump says we're going to run the country, that we're doing this to run Venezuela. Let's play this clip.
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C
We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. So we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition. And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about.
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B
How are you even talking about? Then he says we're going to have our very large United States oil companies just run in there. And he said this a hundred times during this press conference. He's like, we're doing it for the oil. This is about our oil companies. Here, play this clip.
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C
As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust. For a long period of time. They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place. We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.
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B
And here's what he says about the main opposition leader, Maria Corino Machado. Let's play that clip.
- [11:25]
A
Aware of the location of opposition leader Machado and have you been in Contact with her?
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C
No, we haven't.
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B
On. On Monday.
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C
I think it'd be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support within or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect.
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B
So you didn't coordinate this at all with her. She puts out a statement, venezuelans, the hour of freedom has arrived. You know, which is, you know, and then she says, you know, we will reclaim our mandate and assert our power. So she sends the message to the other covert opposition forces in Venezuela. And Trump's now saying, don't, don't listen to her, Pop. And again, you were in the Miami community. I know that, that people in the Miami community, though, assumed that she as the, she was their leader and she would be the opposition leader. And, and, you know, Trump just told them all, basically, hey, I'm your. I'm the one running Venezuela now for the oil companies in the United States.
- [12:36]
A
I mean, this, the compare. This is Iraq 2.0. For those that are, you know, putting this in historical context, except that Iraq, at least the Bush administration had a prepared plan after they broke it. You know, the Colin Powell doctrine is, if you break it, you bought it. So we just broke Venezuela. So what was the plan? To own it and to fix it in Iraq, you know, you had a provisional government. It was headed by American diplomats. We had a provisional council. We try to figure out who was the good guy and who was the bad guy, put them on the council to kind of transition them, you know, into some sort of stable government. Didn't work that great, but at least we had a plan here. When you have a demented, cognitively impaired president who basically admits that he is just in the last 24 hours to the Washington Post making the decisions. Who I question here, who in the administration, because it's not Donald Trump, got into the fine points about what to do once they got encaptured relatively easily, the former president and the first lady of that country. Now what the problem is there's no now what. Marco Rubio, who I also know from Miami, talk about all hat, no cattle, talk about an empty suit. I mean, he was not respected, but not respected. He was not respected in the Miami community when he was a lawyer and a lobbyist and a legislator at all, kind of made his way up, bootlicking his way up to a secretary of state. If he's in charge of this regime change, we're all in trouble. That's why Donald Trump didn't have anything in the prepared notes coming out 30 minutes late for the press conference about what the shape and contours of the. Of. Of control would look like and transition would look like in Venezuela. Nothing. We're just, we're in control. Are you? In what way? How are you in control? Especially as a. He didn't even have it in his speech, as you said. Focused more on good Big Oil. Big oil's back, everybody. Very little about narco terrorism. That was a throwaway at the end. And nothing about what regime change looks like. It took a reporter in the room. He didn't even want to answer the question. He just, he mumbled his way through it about, about Maria Machado. So when I was doing reporting early this morning before the press conference, as were you, I, I was like, I wonder what this press conference is going to be. Is they going to have her phone in? Are they going to talk about the government in exile and how to reinstall it? Like what is this going to look like? And is Donald Trump going to try to push to have a right, right wing quote, unquote democracy there. Allah, Brazil, sorry, Allah Argentina. Or is he going to do something else? No, there was no. The amount of thought they put into the planning was the thought and energy you saw portrayed at the press conference. As in zero. As in zero. That's why he had. I was like, why is he talking about a second wave so early in the press? I don't know if we have the clip of that so early in the press conference. We're ready. A bigger. A second wave. We don't want to do it. We didn't have to do it. The first one was precise, but maybe a second wave. I'm like, I'm writing in my notes as I listen to the press conference. Why is he talking about a second wave? He's talking about a second wave because they had no plan once they took the guy out to go on. As you said, the infrastructure of the Maduro regime, which is the leftover infrastructure of the Chavez regime, is still in place. So now they think because of the shock and awe of taking this guy out and bringing him to New York on a boat to be, you know, given the full awesome power of the justice system under Pam Bondi, that's gonna get these fiefdom lords to bow down to the American government. If they don't, I guess they're gonna get know missiles fired at them. This was a coup led by Big Oil. I have a video up on Legal AF right now about it. The connectivity between CITGO an original American asset that got nationalized during the socialization of Venezuela and America and its big oil wanting those assets back. An oil field, that rival that is larger than Saudi Arabia, that represents 18 to 20% of us of oil in, in the world is in Venezuel. The problem is it's heavy crude. And to turn heavy crude into light crude, which powers economies and cars, you have to have technology and an infrastructure which has been destroyed over the last 40 years of embargoes and sanctions against the various versions of the Venezuelan government there. So of course US Oil, which just to remind people this is a president who brought big oil to Mar a Lago for a chopstick dinner while he was campaigning, led by the Petroleum Petroleum Institute, a MAGA right wing institute that, that is controlled by the industry in which he told them and has never denied that if they gave him $1 billion to defeat the Democratic Party that energy policy and environmental policy would be theirs. This is, I mean this is what he campaigned on. They gave him half of that. They gave him half a billion. Elon Musk gave 250 million. And we just watched the auctioning off of a president and his values. So is there any question you've got Trump media executives and Canor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick's Commerce Secretary's family office, who have interests in Venezuela, who have investments in Venezuela, who want to get the oil properties. So look, I want to make it clear because I don't want to, I don't want, you know, people slicing and dicing our video to get this wrong. Do I think Maduro needed to leave short? Do I think that democracy was crushed and the hopes and dreams of the Venezuelan people were crushed by Chavez and then Maduro? Absolutely. Should people be celebrating? Not yet. Because there is no plan by America to quote unquote, liberate that country and stall a popular democratically elected government. Not if he's crapping on the Nobel Prize winner at this very point. So it's not like I was like, whoa, look at that, the audacity of taking him out. I'm like, look at the knuckleheadedness of not having a plan in place except for threatening further military action. The Senate and the Congress better get their shit together, start taking back their power under Article 1. And this resolution that's going to hit the floor just needs a simple majority. Just needs a simple majority, just a couple of Republicans to cross over to bring in an out of control president. What's next in the region? Mexico.
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B
Yeah. Donald Trump said Mexico, Donald Trump said Cuba, Donald Trump said Colombia. But it goes back to Donald Trump's view with Putin and Xi Jinping about spheres of influence and the basic structure of the deal that they all made that Trump says the United States controls the Western Hemisphere. Any other country in the Western hemisphere is a vassal state and belongs to the United States. Trump said that during the press conference. He goes the Don Row doctrine. We assert our authority and power over the Western Hemisphere. Donald Trump views Putin as controlling all of Europe. Europe belongs to Putin. Russia, Europe, that's all of Putin's Asia belongs to China. So the permission structure also created by this allows Xi Jinping and Putin, they love this because Xi Jinping, Bingo's got it. I can do whatever I want with Taiwan. It's just the rule of the strong. The United States can't say that what we're doing is not okay. We're going to let them do what they do in Venezuela and we're going to take our interest here in Taiwan or Japan or South Korea. And that's how the United States views the Canada and Mexico, and that's how Russia will view Eastern Europe and France and Germany. And that's the world that institutions and structures post World War II were created to avoid. If it wasn't for nuclear deterrence right now, we would be in a world war, a world war, because we're in a cold world war right now. Whether it's India attacking Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia. You look in Africa and Rwanda and Congo. You look at the United States attacks on invasion or whatever label you want to give it.
- [21:20]
A
Well, stay in Venezuela.
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B
You take a look at the Middle east. You take a look at the strikes that are taking place in Yemen. Take a look at the United States strikes in Iran. You talk about Russia's unlawful invasion of Ukraine. You take a look at just everything that's going on globally right now. And it has all of the attributes of a cold world war or semi hot world war. And but for nuclear deterrence, that's where we would be. And all of these structures and safeguards and institutions that were created Post World War II, I mean, those are gone. Pop. What I want to talk about though, when we come back from our first quick break, though, is the congressional authorization aspect of this. So I want to hit that because you have Donald Trump and Rubio saying that you did not need congressional authorization. This was law enforcement. Then let's talk about what this was also subterfuge or cover up for, which is the Epstein files. And what we learned this week there as well. Then we have a lot of a lot else to discuss. So let's take our first quick break. When we come back, let's talk about all of that and more. Reminder Check out Michael Popo Substack Legal af one of the fastest rising. Not only the fast, the number one fastest rising substack right now. Number one. So search Legal AF on substack and subscribe. Also make sure you check out the Legal AF YouTube channel, which passed a million subscribers on its way to 2 million subscribers. And if you or anyone you know has been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident, any injury as a result of the negligence of a company or a third party, if you know someone who's the victim of wrongful death or anything like that, or who's a wrongful death thing, call 877- POPAKAF or go to the popoc firm.com that's 877- POPAK AF or go to the popoc firm dot com Michael Popak has lawyers all across the United States who will give you a free consultation to let you know if you've got a case. Don't be shy. Call the Popoc firm today or go to the website thepopoc firm.com first quick break. We will be right back.
- [23:22]
A
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B
Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of our sponsors. I want to just share this before going on to the next topic. Michael Popak, is Marco Rubio and Donald Trump saying that they did not need congressional authorization. What they're basing that on is frankly, nothing. They're violating the law. I suppose one of the things they'll try to grasp onto is a 1989 memorandum by Bill Barr just basically saying if you call what you're doing law enforcement operations, the DOJ has an obligation to go and arrest people who are hiding in foreign countries. So you're not in any way infringing upon international law or America's law or the Constitution that requires congressional authorization. Just say you're doing law enforcement. I saw an Obama United States attorney point out that interesting that they say it's a law enforcement operation. But Pam Bondi, the Attorney General's not at the press conference for the law enforcement operation, nor is anybody at the doj. And also interesting law enforcement operation where you say you're going to run the country and take their oil. Very interesting law enforcement operation right there. But here's again, like this is like Marco Rubio and Trump from the press conference just so ridiculous. What? They're so offensive and ridiculous. Here, play this clip.
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A
Did you Notify any members of Congress in advance.
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C
Marco, do you want to talk about that? Because you were involved? Sure.
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A
We called members of Congress immediately after. This was not the kind of mission that you can do Congressional notification on. It was a trigger based mission in which conditions had to be met night after night. We watched and monitored that for a number of days. So it's just simply not the kind of mission you can call people and say, hey, we may do this at some point in the next 15 days. But it's largely a law enforcement function.
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C
Remember, at the end of the day.
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A
At its core, this was an arrest of two indicted fugitives of American justice. And the Department of War supported the Department of Justice in that job. Now, there are broader policy implications here, but it's just not the kind of mission that you can pre notify because it endangers the mission.
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C
Gloucester, if I could add one thing to that, watch this line. Congress has a tendency to leak. This would not be good if they leaked, General. I think it would have been maybe a very different result. But I have to say they knew we were coming at some point. You know, a lot of ships out there, they sort of knew we were coming. We were, but, but Congress, Congress will leak and we don't want leakers.
- [28:33]
A
He said, wait, wait. He said earlier in the press conference that Venezuela was in a ready position because they knew we were coming. And now he's shitting on Congress for leaking. And to your point, I love, I love how short Marco Rubio is. He's got the microphone at his forehead. Where is Pam Bondi of this. Where is Jay Clayton, who is the indicting prosecutor in the Southern District of New York at this press conference? It's not, it is a war effort that needed congressional approval and we're going to have to see what happens with this resolution that's going to come out and can't be stopped by Thune and can't be filibustered away as the Democrats take the lead here to fight back against Donald Trump's flexing of his, of his war powers without having any.
- [29:18]
B
What I said on the live stream last night, Midas Touch was the first to go live with the news about the invasion. It was interesting. I saw like a lot of comments like, you're being irresponsible. Why are you saying that the United States is attacking? I'm like, because who. I'm showing you the video footage right now. People were surprised that Independent News was getting the video footage first and posting it. Like, I'm just showing you what's actually happening. But, but Popak, as you, one of the things I said was this must be what it feels like on the live stream. I said this must be what it feels like to live in Russia. Because the justification that you just saw Rubio give, actually this was a law enforcement effort. So we didn't need to go through Congress. Why would I tell them? We just, we just, we told them after. Like, this is like the Russian Duma, right? And this is what MAGA Mike Johnson and Senator Thune each turned Congress into like, like this pathetic. You know, Congress is a co equal branch. They should be strongly asserting their powers. Frankly, they should be meeting right now. We shouldn't have to wait until Monday, right? Like, if I was the speaker of the House or if I was the Senate leader, I'd convene immediately right now, summon everybody there, show up and make a point. You're a co equal branch and there was just an act of war that took place while Donald Trump is giving you the middle figure. And again, this has, even if Popac assume, you know, a leader gets into Venezuela, it's operating well, America's making money off of this. Like, just assume all those things happen, that the, that the current regime leaders that are there, they all surrender. There's not a second wave. Like, let's just assume all of that. As I said before the break, what it still does. And this is why you need congressional authorization on these types of things. Because something like this now creates justifications. If, if they, you know, they are, they already are utilizing other justifications. But for Putin to say, look, America's doing it, I'm doing it. Ging bing, America's doing it, I'm doing it. This is just the way the world is. And if that's the way the world is going to be, Congress, our elected representatives should have to respond and they have, they should have to say something about it versus an end run around them in this unlawful invasion. But Popak, one of the things that I think everybody realizes what this is also about is Donald Trump's cover up of the Epstein files, right? They're still violating the Epstein transparency law there. The Department of Justice at this point is itself a criminal, a criminal RICO enterprise. The same way in sex trafficking rings, they're often charged as RICO violation, racketeering, sex trafficking organizations and enterprises. That's basically what the DOJ is at all different levels covering up. This sex trafficking ring, it went from 1.2 million missing records to 5 million missing records that they claim they're now reviewing that they didn't have when Pam Bondi said back in February that she had all the documents on her desk. And you know, for those who are watching Legal AF last week as well, what do we say? Or even the week before that, what were we saying? 5 million to 10 million records are likely outstanding. And Popak and I went through with you on the last episode, why we don't just come up with numbers. Michael Popak and I have litigated together. Believe it or not, the way Popak and I know each other is we litigated against each other on the case where we first met. Then we litigated on the same side, but in our respective careers. And Popak's career is a bit longer than my career. But we both dealt with cases involving large terabyte document productions where we dealt with these types of things. And Popak's career was starting when there was an electronic discovery. I don't mean to try to date you there or give people your age, but when you went through quite literally mountains of paper documents and you would show up to court with trucks full of documents. When I started practicing, we used earlier versions of these electronic software tools, which were still kind of elementary. I mean, you could do keyword searches, but none of the stuff that AI allows you to do today. And now there are pretty sophisticated electronic discovery tools. But on a case where you know that there's a billion dollar money laundering alongside a child sex trafficking ring, you know, a billion dollars in financial transactions, setting aside the emails and the photos and the transcriptions of the audience, you put all that aside. Just the financial records would likely be millions of pages, plus they're done daily, weekly, monthly. Then There are different LLCs and shell companies. Then there's the co conspirator bank accounts, and you have to do forensic audits of these, where we would sit with teams of lawyers when we would do these, and you would look through transactions and you would say, March 12, 2007, there's a transaction for $9,999. What could that be? You highlight it and you literally just go through millions of documents and you go through page by page by page by page. It's a tedious task. But that's why sometimes these big firms have an advantage over solo practitioners being able to just go through the quantity in Bastrope. So it never made sense when they said hundreds of thousands of records. So now we know the quantity of records is in the 5 to 10, 15 million range. They're now saying, oh, well, I Bet you they use the Venezuelan invasion as pretext for why they have to delay the Epstein file release even more. We're in a war now, and we're doing this, the special operation that we're doing. So we're going to need more time as well. And then we learned from this Wall Street Journal article, we've been actually report reporting on it for years about this Mar a Lago spa. But I think the Wall Street Journal's new tactic is they do headlines that seem favorable to Donald Trump, but inside the reporting, it's actually scathing. So the headline is the incident that led Donald Trump to ban Epstein. So Donald Trump said, oh, I guess it's a good article right there. I banned him in 2003. But then you actually look at the article and go, well, he wasn't banned from Mar a Lago. He was banned from the spa. And he never went to the spa. The spa went to him throughout the 90s. And the article cites numerous staffers, masseuses, manicurists, and all these people who worked at the Mar A Lago spa. They would go to Epstein's home two miles away in Palm beach, and he would, the way they refer to it in the Wall Street Journal articles, engage in sexually suggestive conduct with them. Yeah, he sexually assaulted them. That's what he would do. He would expose himself to them. He would sexually harass them, and he would sexually assault them. He developed a reputation for that. He a girl who's in the article that as someone who's described, and I think a New York Post article, as a girl from 2007, as a girl who was near the age of 18, or approximately 18, which is a weird way to describe someone who's 18. Sounds like they're saying she was 17, but she went there. Epstein engaged in either sexually harassing or sexual assault of conduct with her. Her dad was going to go after Trump. So Trump said, I'm banning you from the spa. But he was like a fake ban because he was never going to the spa. And in this New York post article from 2007 that we've talked about a lot on the Midas Touch Network, Epstein's quoted in the article Page Six as saying, I'm not banned from Mar a Lago. I just attended a party there. Page Six was as big as it got in gossip circles and in this community of people back in 2007. So the fact that Epstein was comfortable then to say, I'm not banned, what are you talking about? I go there all the time still. And There was no rebuttal. Epstein denies he's banned from Mar a Lago. In fact, he said he was recently invited to an event there. To me, that says it all, that that was page six, Epstein, 2007. So Popak talked to us about where we stand with Epstein right now. But to me, this is also part of a big, you can't look at any of these things as being just isolated.
- [37:39]
A
Yeah. Let's start with the Wall Street Journal. Wall street why Donald Trump decided the Wall Street Journal is a favorable platform for him when he sued them. Maybe he forgot. Maybe part of the cognitive test that he also forgot he took because he's bragged about passing a cognitive test, the same brag he did on December 1st. What, what, what level of mental decline are you in when you can't remember which cognitive test you took? And when he decides to call into the Wall Street Journal that he's currently suing in Miami in a defamation case involving his obscene entry in the two volume Jeffrey Epstein birthday scrapbook, which we all have a copy of now, I don't know how you can continue to sue over that. It's got released by the Oversight Committee. You have it up on your substack, I have it up on mine. We've all read it. Everybody has admitted, effectively, either conceded by silence or otherwise that all of their entries are true. And yet this defamation case continues, although probably not much longer. Judge Gales is sitting on a motion to dismiss after all argument. It's going to come sometime the next week or two. I think we're going to get that ruling by Judge Gales and I think it's going to be favorable to the Wall Street Journal. But Rupert Murdoch, having handled the family transition, who has more money than Donald Trump and some of his other cronies combined, is not scared of him. And he is continuing to run stories against Donald Trump on his health, mental and physical, which led Donald Trump to an impromptu phone call to reporters that were like, hold on. Where he admitted to a whole series of health issues from overdosing on aspirin on a daily basis. And he said, I take 325 milligrams of aspirin every day. He wants thin blood. That means he's a bleeder and he's a bruiser wearing compression socks, putting makeup on his hands to cover when he gets whacked by somebody that he bled from his hands, when Pam Bondi high fived him at an event, when a ring nicked his hands. You've done plenty of videos about his Strange gait and walking, inability to. He falls up the stairs on Marine One and US and Air Force One and down the stairs. We just saw him during the press conference, barely able to keep his eyes open during something you think would be really, really exciting and energizing, which is he just took over a country for oil. And yet it looked like, as I said, like he was ordering from the McDonald's drive thru. So on the same week the Wall Street Journal runs the article, which I've made a big deal out of SFU because this is. He can deny everything, but they have the reporting and I'm sure we're going to see the facts next. Of a 2003 fax that put Donald Trump on notice if he didn't know before, which we know he knew before, that Epstein was propositioning and worse, spa attendants who were 18 or younger being sent to his house because Donald Trump wanted him to be treated like a member and to have people sent to his house. As you said, the spa would come to him two miles away at his mansion in Palm beach. We have a spa manager who faxes and the Wall Street Journal seen it, a memo to Trump telling him that this guy's gotta be, we can't keep sending girls there. Here's what happened and what did Donald Trump do with it? Did he report it? Was he a first responder? Did he report it to the authorities? No, he just said, well, don't send him any more girls. That was it. So for me, that's liability and exposure for Donald Trump and at least a he's on notice. Think of all the girls and women who were abused by, by Jeffrey EPSTEIN Just from 2003 until about 2005 when the parents of a 14 year old came out and said that their daughter had been raped by Jeffrey Epstein. Think of the women that Donald Trump could have saved had he not tried to protect his pedophilia, his ped, his pedophile friend and people in high places. As he told Marjorie Taylor Green recently, don't, don't release the files. It'll hurt my friends. Right. If his natural instinct wasn't to cover up for his friends who were participating in a child sex trafficking ring and he done the right thing and called the Palm beach county, the Palm beach police or the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office or the FBI the way the Maria Farmer did in 1996, that was ignored then, then it may have cut off some victims. We all think it was earlier than that. You know, we know the comments of him being an enigma in the birthday book and he likes young girls, you know and he's a great guy. And, and he, and he palled around with him and partied with him. It was his wingman for years in the 90s they ran beauty pageants together, they ran modeling agencies together. They were chasing after young women believe the ages to another time together and trading them as currency. And the fact that in 2003 his only reaction to an 18 year old spa attendant saying she was sexually assaulted and propositioned by Jeffrey Epstein is don't send any more girls there. Seriously. In any other world where Donald Trump, as the New York Times just outlined in one of their articles was in dominating except for Midas touch and Legal AF the daily news with social media posts, appearances, rallies, speeches, meetings to try to have every day, every day be something about Donald Trump. If it wasn't for that, any other, any other president would be running on a rail already. This would bring down a presidency. A simple facts like that. But you know there's a, there's a fatigue that you and I fight here with our audience together about Donald Trump where you, oh that's just Donald Trump. You know, that's just, you know, we can't allow that normal, normality to take hold. And I think the polling is showing that it's not that, that I mean we'll have to see the post takeover of Venezuela polling. I don't think this is ultimately going to help him and certainly as he's defeated hopefully in the courts and or in Congress on these issues, I think, you know we are, we'll be in a much better place electorally. Last comment on the Epstein files. So yeah, I mean I, a lot of us see it as a wag the dog moment where Donald Trump is using this takeout of Maduro and in order to cover up for the 5 million, 10 million, 20 million Epstein files that still remain missing and then they have to will never get the entirety of the Epstein files. And what I've said, and I'll end it on this, what I've said is all of the states like California and some other states that have opened up their windows to allow the filing of lawsuits by victims and survivors against their predators that opened like in California in your home state on January 1st and in other states they should be adding on to the back end of that two year window every day and every week and every month that that Trump delays and drags his feet on the production of the Epstein files, which would give these people the evidence they need to go into court. Some of it, anyway. They should delay. They should expand the window in equal amount of time because you can see what he's doing. He's trying to. He's trying to slow foot this thing in order to get, you know, get beyond the midterms and whatever. And now, as you said, say, oh, we're too tied up with more important matters, you know, doing regime change in every state in the western. In every country in the western hemisphere.
- [45:31]
B
Yeah, you know, it's just a wild concept to me, you know, to articulate wilds the wrong word. Sad. Distressing to say that the United States government at the highest level is currently a racketeering enterprise covering up a child sex trafficking ring. And they've made themselves complicit in the largest child sex trafficking ring out there. I mean, when we talk about who's invading Venezuela, when we talk about who is engaging in all of these plans that are harming the American people's ability to live and the psychological torture being inflicted on people who, if they're lucky enough to get a paycheck, live paycheck to paycheck right now under this disastrous Trump economy. And these are people covering up for a child sex trafficking. The Epstein Transparency act wasn't ambiguous. Turn over all of the records by, as required by law by December 19. It was not a difficult task. It really wasn't for them to do it. I mean, they put thousands of thousands of doj, FBI people, staff lawyers, working tens of thousands, potentially in the aggregate, hundreds of thousands of hours to do redactions or whatever the hell they were doing, dating back to February and March. I mean, there are public records requests showing what taxpayers paid these document reviewers millions and millions of dollars. And this is where they're at. And so cavalierly, there's 5 million records that we just identified. There's 1 million records. Go back to the last legal AF we did, where Michael Popach and I talked about how you would deal with the document production like this. You would say, who are my custodians? That's the term for who holds the documents. Sdny. What are my cases? Epstein, Delane, Southern District of Florida, Treasury Department. The banks, the civil lawyers, the estate international cases, the coconspirator cases, those investigations, Right. Take a look at that. You then gather, ingest all of those documents you have. You give your document reviewers the protocols. And it's a simple protocol under the law. Under the law, the only thing that would be redacted were victims names. So you would list the names of all of the victims, survivors, potential victims and survivors. And that's what you would look through. Otherwise, everything gets produced.
- [48:14]
A
That's it.
- [48:15]
B
It's actually a simple. It's a simple document production. And there's an ongoing violation of the law. There's a violation of international law now taking place and the Constitution with the unlawful invasion. When we go back, though, I want to show you someone who's not afraid to testify publicly, Special Counsel Jack Smith. He wanted to do it in public MAGA Republicans wanted it to be private, but the deposition video was still released anyway by the Midas Touch Network. We got our hands on it. After the House tried to dump it on New Year's, we got our hands on it. We released it. It's been viewed millions of times right now so people can see for themselves and form their own opinions. Isn't it interesting that when it came to the Hunter Biden depos and the Jack Smith deposition, two people the MAGA Republicans attack over and over again on state regime media, they did not want to do public hearings. Shouldn't that tell you a lot? These are, these are tough guys. Why wouldn't you want to do public hearings?
- [49:11]
A
Hmm.
- [49:12]
B
We'll be right back after our last quick break of the show. A reminder, make sure you subscribe to Michael Popo substack, the Legal AF sub stack, the number one fastest growing substack in the country right now. Pretty good number one. Also check out legal AF on YouTube, wherever you know, just search, just search legal AF on YouTube whenever, do it right now, do it after. But make sure you hit subscribe. And then if you or somebody knows been injured in a car accident, an auto accident, you're the victim of sexual assault, sexual harassment. If you know someone who's been the victim of somebody else or a party's negligence or got injured by a company, reach out to 877 popocaf or call thepopocfirm.com or the opposite. Go to thepopocfirm.com or call 877-popocaf or text. The consultation is free. And see if you got a case. POPOC has lawyers across the country who are there to help you determine if you got a case or not. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.
- [50:12]
A
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- [53:15]
B
F welcome back to Legal AF. It seems like it was a year ago, but it was just this week that Special Counsel Jack Smith's video deposition was released The MAGA Republicans also tried to set a perjury trap for Jack Smith. Are a perjury trap or just like a ethical trap or a trap to try to prosecute him. So, first off, Jack Smith wanted to do this in public. He didn't want it to be private. And actually, a lot of the House Judiciary Committee and oversight members were warning Trump, we don't actually want to take his deposition because he's smart, he's competent, he's going to look great, and he's going to dime you out on everything. But Trump's like, no, no, you got to do. You got to do it.
- [53:56]
C
It.
- [53:56]
B
So Jack Smith's like, let's do it in public. Unlimited time. I'll go in front of the Senate, I'll go in front of the House. No limitations. Ask me anything. In fact, Jack Smith says, I just want to make sure I could speak about everything because I don't want the DOJ to take some position that because Judge Eileen Cannon hasn't allowed volume two of my report to be released yet on the Mar A Lago document case, that you're going to ask me questions I'm not going to be able to answer, then it's going to seem like I'm not transparent. I want to answer everything. So I'm ready to go. Let's be clear. In public takes 50 hours. Great. 100 hours. Great. 10 hours. Great. No time limits. Let's go. MAGA Republicans go, oh, no, no, no. Jack Smith, we're doing this in private. Why you do it in private? Y' all go on Fox every day. In state regime media Newsmax, you talk crap about Jack Smith. You act like tough guys. You can't do it in public. So that should be a red flag. Number one. Then Jack Smith shows up. Right, Bock? And as Jack Smith shows up, he gets a letter an hour before he shows up from the DOJ saying, we are ordering you. You can't talk about the Mar A Lago document case unless it's already been made public. But if it's in your report, which Judge Cannon is not allowing to be released public for now, which he's been delaying now for over a year, you can't talk about it. So Jack Smith's like, well, that's kind of an odd instruction because y' all subpoenaed me, not the doj, but the House of Representatives, and you're going to ask me questions. So what if I get asked a question about these things? I'm supposed to determine if it's already been Public or if you're going to take the position that it's private, then what, you're going to prosecute me for it? So Jack Smith's like, well, why don't we do this doj? Do you want to send a lawyer? You know, you send lawyers to be with Ghislaine Maxwell and move her to minimum security facilities after she was supposed to be rotting in a maximum security facility in Tallahassee. Not only any lawyers, you send your number to the Deputy ag. So why don't you just send a lawyer to be here at my deposition and if you're concerned at all, we can ask the lawyer. So we don't, we don't do anything that you might worry about. And so there's no confusion here. The DOJ says, nope, we're not going to do that. Good luck. We wish you the best. Do it on your own. We'll make the determination later. Later. So do you see how that's a setup right there? So let me just show you right now. This is when Jack Smith's lawyer during the hearing says, we just got a letter from the DOJ an hour ago. Watch this. According to the Justice Department discussion of Volume 2 of the Special Counsel's report, Courts and any information or conclusions in volume two or in drafts thereof is specifically prohibited by Judge Canyon Cannon's January 21, 2025 order. This morning, just, just over an hour ago, the Department of Justice sent us an email affirming its view that Judge Cannon's order applies to Mr. Smith and that it precludes him from disclosing any non public information that may be contained in volume two, including but not limited to interview transcripts, search warrant materials, business records, toll records, video footage, records obtained by grand jury subpoenas, attorney client communications, and potential 4 Rule 404B evidence. This restriction significantly limits Mr. Smith's ability to discuss the classified documents case. Nevertheless, Mr. Smith is committed to doing his best to answering questions consistent with the Department's guidance. And I asked that that email from the Department of Justice that was sent earlier this morning being made part of the record. Let's bring in Michael Popak. There's a lot more I want to share there, but like, I mean, it's the most juvenile, obvious setup. And here's my pushback to anybody here who's a Trump supporter or Republican or you don't like Jack Smith. If you don't like Jack Smith, shouldn't you have confidence in your ability to cross examine him and not play those, you know, those games over There that are so obviously intended to set up. Like, shouldn't that just tell you the infantile behavior on your side of things, regardless of your view? Like why, why do that if you are confident that you've got great lawyers who can cross examine Jack.
- [58:37]
A
Although Jack Smith wiped the floor with Congress that day, despite all of these last minute monkey wrenches thrown his way by the Department of Justice, which is completely out of gas, you know, that morning they, they, they sent him the, the email about Mar a Lago. It's just, it's just mind boggling. But this was their worst nightmare, that it would be Jim Jordan and the, and his little Jordanettes versus Jack Smith about anything related to the law. I mean, Jim Jordan, I think went to law school but never took the bar. And he came in, although talk about projection. Accusing Jack Smith of having a predetermined outcome when he took the assignment of special counsel, that of prosecuting and indicting Donald Trump, where, where it's obvious that Jim Jordan had a pre, predetermined outcome. He wanted to prove, using the, the, the billing records, the phone billing records issue, that, you know, there was something nefarious or underhanded about the prosecution. That's all he had. And then he got schooled by Jack Smith on that. Look, Jack Smith's opening was quite clear. I had enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt doubt, not just probable cause to bring an indictment, the lower level, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Donald Trump committed crimes in the D.C. election interference matter. And that is even knowing that about the immunity decision at the United States Supreme Court. He said, I was not rogue, I was tethered to the Department of Justice. I spoke frequently to senior leadership in the Department of Justice, which I assume goes up to Merrick Garland. I spoke to the Solicitor General at every turn and to the end to the criticism that he took about quote, unquote, the timing. He said it had to do with evidence, not politics. If we're going to make the decision to indict a outgoing president, former president running for president, we're going to make sure that the evidence is properly lined up and accumulated. And at that tipping point, or as Marco Rubio said today about Venezuela, that trigger, that trigger moment, that's when you indict, not before, not later. An indictment is ready when it's ready, or the ability to bring your evidence in to obtain your indictment. So he had nothing to do with that. If anybody wants to blame timing, it's on Merrick garland for wasting nine or 10 months and only focusing for most of it on the lower level, actual Jan6 insurrectionist, instead of at the top level. He did not want to go after the top level, but the evidence was overwhelming. And finally his prosecution team finally got Merrick Garland to see the light and to say that Jack Smith had a predetermined outcome. There's a reason why Jack Smith was chosen besides his, his unimpeachable credentials and body of work, including in the Public Integrity Unit. But he wasn't even in America during Donald Trump's presidency or John Six. He was at the Hague doing war crimes. There's a reason they chose him so, because he was not in the ecosystem of politics here. You know, he was busy chasing after war criminals. And so they brought him in to handle the case. And he said quite clearly, if, if this was a Republican or Democrat, it wouldn't matter. The evidence controlled not the politics. He also said, I'm here under great, great personal sacrifice also because the. This president who occupies the highest position in the land, has said he wants to see me sued for treason, whatever that means. And they soon arrested. So despite the parameters, the attempts to do a gotcha with Jack Smith in nine hours almost of testimony and you have it up, and I have it up on legal AF under lives in two separate video clips segments, Jack Smith, nobody could watch that and come away. If you're objective with any other thought than that this was a apolitical, professional, mature adult prosecutor who made hard decisions using prosecutorial discretion consistent with the Department of Justice manual and the principles of federal prosecution, to bring two cases through a grand jury against a person who's been, is, was and is now a president under, under great, great attacks led by Donald Trump and MAGA on everybody in his world at the time. You and I used to, when we did our daily Jack Smith videos, we said he was just the subway guy. I don't mean the guy that went to jail. I mean he was just the guy that just put the subway sandwich under his arm, his thermos, black, dark suit, walking to court every day, taking no questions, just chopping wood every day making his case, making his case. You can't fault him. He got his indictments up 10 months or so after the cases were handed to him. And they were complicated cases. Some of them were complicated cases. But, you know, the, the attempt to dump this, as you said, on New Year's Eve. You caught it? I caught it. I did a video within moments. So did you put the video up? Everybody sees it, history sees it. And you know, Donald Trump I think the reason it got released is because the Jamie Raskins of the world and the House Democrats were going to be like, if you don't release this, we will. There's a gap between him giving the testimony and the videos. It takes a while for the videographer to get the video done and then match it with the transcript. And then the transcript. It takes a minute. You and I, they weren't. They didn't. They didn't order it, Rush, the way you and I would do in a trial. Like, Jim Jordan didn't say, need it tomorrow night or tomorrow afternoon. It took a while and they got it delivered. And they were like, somebody's going to release this. Who's it going to be? Like, we're going to release it. So. And I know that Alison Gill's doing a nice video up on. On Midas, on her curated Best of Jack Smith. And it is the Best of Jack Smith, because even when they tried to get him for the. The phone records issue and try to turn it into something that it's not to confuse the American people. Jack Smith did not wiretap members of Congress or the Senate. He got through a court process overseen by a federal judge, Search warrants that were limited in time and scope to January 5 to January 7 of a handful of elected officials who they had other evidence that suggested was working with Donald Trump to delay the certification of the election to buy Donald Trump more time to cling to power and do something else criminal. And that's fair game. That's not speech and debate, privileged activity by members of Congress or the Senate. That is fair game. Now, they didn't wiretap them, meaning they didn't sit in a van with headphones listening to the conversation. They got effectively their phone records, their phone bill. Last time you looked at your phone bill electronically or in paper, it says, phone number called, duration of call. That's it. You don't know what was discussed. It just says, you called grandma, doesn't say you talked about her brownies. That's the difference between wiretapping and pen register and this type of toll data that they pulled. But that gave, you know, the clutching of the pearls moment for Jim Jordan. Oh, my. My phone record. I was under investigation and I didn't know it. Yeah, you're under investigation and you didn't know it. And there was no Department of Justice protocol that would have notified you that were pulling your phone records because you could have been a target of the criminal investigation. This is evidence. This is not. You know, if they didn't like it, then they shouldn't have participated in the phone calls or, or, or the rest. So it, nine hours of Jack Smith is just a breath of fresh air force for the rule of law. And I, I don't think we've heard the last of him. You know, we're going to see what happens with the Mar A Lago file release. Judge Cannon, you know, Donald Trump's judge of choice who apparently is currently sitting over the investigations of other political critics of Donald Trump like John Brennan, the CIA director in the grand jury proceedings up there. I just had Mark Zaid on the national security lawyer, whistleblower, lawyer extraordinaire for an interview and he's working on a number of the matters down in Miami. You notice that Donald Trump during his press conference said, well, you know, it's going to be a case that's going to be prosecuted in the Southern District of New York or maybe Miami. See, They've got a MAGA guy that's running the Southern District of Florida U.S. attorney's office and Jason Reading Quinones, who's a buddy of Pam Bondi's who is a maga. MAGA works closely or had worked closely with people like Mike Davis, the right wing influencer who runs the Article 3 project, whatever that's supposed to be. And the, they use Miami to go after their political critics like this. So we'll have to see what happens. So I think Jack Smith gets prosecuted by this Department of Justice. I mean, I think he's prepared if they try to, if they try to do it the way they did James Comey, I mean, to hear Pam Bondi, maybe one of the reasons they didn't bring her to Washington is even the inner circle and sanctum of Donald Trump thinks she's a moron and she's a fool. I mean she even in her own press conference about Venezuela said the, this, these are, these are concepts that are not supposed to go together. You know, she said she's going to bring the full wrath of the Justice Department against Maduro. Now listen, I like to see the guy convicted for a long, long time too and not pardoned. But that doesn't mean that he's not presumed innocent until he is convicted. And I don't think you talk about justice and wrath in the same sentence unless you're a moron like Pam Bondi who wants to like, you know, act like the big boys who's doing the war effort and act like, you know, she's got something, something up her sleeve there. So at the End of the day, it was important for history that, that Jack Smith speak to us. He's the only. He's the only special counsel that never got the opportunity to present his findings to the American people. Watergate did. John Durham did. Robert Mueller did, you know, the guy that investigated Joe Biden, Bob her did everybody, except they gagged Jack Smith because of the way this thing timed out towards the end of the election and then into the new administration. So we haven't heard the last of Jack Smith. And I'd like to find out what Jack Smith's gonna do. He's not done. He's not retired. You know, he's gonna join a public interest group or a law firm. And I think we're gonna be pleased with what Jack Smith does in his future, and we'll certainly are supportive of it. Here on Legal AF and Midas Touch.
- [70:18]
B
There are so many people who told me that they watched the full Jack Smith deposition on the Midas Touch YouTube channel, and they watched it in various parts because it was actually therapeutic, right? To see a smart, understated prosecutor have a command of facts, to discuss them in a calm and confident manner, to, you know, not go into hyperbole and just to explain why he made the decisions that he made and, you know, answer every question, yes, no, or where it called for more than that. You know, answer. Answer the question. I know that the MAGA Republicans were hoping that that video would get buried in New Year's. And I guess in the old days, when you were doing document review with paper and I was doing them with keyword searches before a lot of the software, today you may be able to drop that and bury something like that on New Year's and dump it and no one watches it. But, you know, right now, with the growth of independent news and shows like this, a legal AF channel purely devoted to law, and all of these developments and going through the nuances of the cases and the footnotes, you know, I think the media landscape has changed, and it is an honor to be a part of that with each one of you watching this. So, you know, when the war broke out, we were there, the first to start covering it. When the indictments are there, we're the first to cover it. When the guilty verdict is there, we're the first to cover it. And we're going to do our best to keep leading the way each and every day of this year and for many years and hopefully generations to come, as we rebuild this news landscape and make it about you and we, the people, everybody make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. They're on their way to 2 million subscribers. Let's get them 3 million subscribers by the end of 2026. I think it's a doable goal, so let's start getting there now. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel here. You may think you're subscribed to the Midas Touch channel because you get all of our videos, but double check and turn your notifications on. Turn your notifications on on the Legal AF channel. Subscribe to Michael Popo Substack Legal AF substack the number one fastest growing substack in the United States right now. Big honor for Legal af. A testament to the great work of Michael Popot and his entire team. Terps and other people there are doing a great job as well. Shout out to all of them. And a reminder everybody, if you or somebody knows been injured in an auto accident, trucking accident, victim of sexual harassment or assault, if you know someone who died in an accident, that's called the Wrongful Death Case, call 877- POPAK AF or go to the popoc firm.com 877- POPAK AF or go to the popocfirm.com Get a free consultation from Michael Popo's team. Determine if you got a case. Michael Popak is representing a lot of Legal A viewers and listeners. Don't be shy. Call POPOC today. Thanks everybody for watching. We appreciate a lot of developments, a lot of breaking news. We'll be covering it all here on the Midas Touch YouTube channel on the legal AF YouTube channel. Thanks everybody. Have a great rest of the weekend. Perhaps less restful than we thought it would be. But you know what? We rested up already and now it's time we meet the moment of history and fight for democracy. We'll see you next time on Legal. A shout out Midas Mighty shout out Legal A effort.