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- [00:01]
A
Here on the midweek edition of Legal AF with Karen Friedman, Agniphalo and Michael Popak here on the Midas Touch Network. It's very difficult in this time to set our docket for what we're going to talk about because in with this rogue, out of control and lawless presidency, things happen at the minute, at the moment, even while we're on the air. Sometimes court orders are dropped or new issues happen. But we'll do our best to curate for you the things on this Wednesday that we think are important for you to know. Of course, we're going to start off with talking about the tragedy in Minnesota with Renee Nicole Good being shot in the face multiple times by ICE agents. They say there's two sides to a story, but I don't really see it. Although Donald Trump has quickly sided with ice, it sounds like this was an observer activist who was trying to get out of harm's way. And as, and as she tried to back out and back up the police as she was moving away from them, shot her in the face and killed her. And she was there to observe ice. And this is what happens when you put ICE and National Guard and law enforcement and hyped up emotions all in the same place at the same time. Tragedies will result. It looks like we just had one in Minnesota as we came on the air. Donald Trump filed a motion in Georgia a day after Jan.6 asking for $6.2 million be awarded to him from the Fulton County DA office's budget to reimburse him for attorney's fees for a case that was ultimately dismissed, not because he was found innocent, but because the Supreme Court in Georgia didn't like the fact that the prosecutor had a relationship with someone in her office. Lindsey Halligan in the news again for all the wrong reasons. We now have our sixth judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, this time a Trump appointed one Judge Novak, who is not happy that Lindsey Halligan continues to have a badge that says U.S. attorney, signs pleadings that says U.S. attorney and is impersonating and masquerading as a U.S. attorney. Five other judges, including the chief judge in Eastern District, have, have questioned members of the Department of Justice as to why this still happens and have expressed their displeasure with the fact that having been found to be illegally and illicitly appointed back in November 24 by a senior federal judge, Lindsey Halligan is still signing pleadings, appearing in cases and running the office as the U.S. attorney. And we have a new order we'll go over in detail that sets a trap for Lindsey Halligan. I think she needs to resign rather than comply directly with this order. But we'll talk about that in a moment. And then we've got what else missing Epstein files all over again. The shape shifting number. First it was, well, we found a million extra documents after Midas Touch and our podcast partner Ben Mesalis pointed out one of the documents of the 12,000 that have been produced and said, what about this million that this guy, this yahoo is talking about in the Maxwell case that hasn't been reviewed? So we thought, oh, shit, it's a million. It's probably 10 million. And when we're talking about the numbers, just to keep apples to apples here, this is documents, not pages. And it looks like the average document is about 10 pages. So if we say they produced 12,000 documents, that's about 120,000 pages. That's just 0.06% of the 5 million that they admitted have have not been reviewed. A week later, during the holidays, Todd Blanche said 5.2 million. But then in a new filing just a couple of days ago, they lowered the number by almost half. Why? How? Who trusts the Department of Justice? Where'd the missing documents go? We'll talk about all of that and a lot more here on the first issue of midweek after the New year. Hi, Karen.
- [04:24]
B
Hi. Michael Popak. How are you?
- [04:26]
A
I'm Karen. I'm doing fantastic. Let's dive in. So as we came on the air, we have this tragedy that's been unfolding late in the day in Minnesota. And now you've got the political battle that Donald Trump wanted. You've got Tim Walls, who because of his own personal decision making, probably related to some sort of fraud issues going on in Minnesota, has said he's not going to run for a third term in Minnesota, which is not that unusual. Like very few governors get a third term period, let alone a third term in Minnesota. But I thought that was going to be the story coming onto the air, coming on the air. But then it became ICE in operations in Minnesota, and we know that's one of Donald Trump's favorite targets. You know, there's a congresswoman who's from Minnesota that's Muslim and a tragedy occurred. And instantly Donald Trump, Kristi Noem and others took sides and sided with ICE and said it was an attack on ice. And the state representatives who have seen the video and have researched what happened on the ground immediately said ICE was at fault and that this was a tragedy that should not have unfolded. What have you picked up about It. And where do you think things should go in terms of the investigation about what happened? Now, you got all the social media postings, but, but there's a person who's dead. There's the state looking into crimes. There's civil cases related to her loss. Lay it out for our audience.
- [06:00]
B
First of all, it's so tragic and so horrific that this poor woman who's a mother of a young child who was at school at the time, was killed because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And luckily, there's video. And I think the video is what is going to be illustrative of what exactly happened. And you know, Asha Rangapa, who's a former FBI agent, Yale law professor, and somebody who's a frequent commentator, she posted something on Bluesky that says law enforcement officers cannot use deadly force against a fleeing person unless they have a reasonable belief that the individual poses a danger to others. For example, they know the person is armed. If in a vehicle, the person must be threatening to use deadly force with the vehicle or other, other means. So that's from the DOJ policy. But dhs, the Department of Homeland Security, which is what ICE is under, has also she posted, it says fleeing subjects, deadly force shall not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing subject. So I think that this is going to be a really, really interesting, to say the least, for the Trump administration to justify this. This is a woman in a car. It looks like she was, frankly, from the videos that I've seen, it looks like she was trying to get out of the way, you know, that she was blocking and they were telling her to get out of the way, and she was trying. And then they started telling her to get out of the car and she was just trying to get out of the way, and they shot and killed her. So from what it looks like right now, it looks pretty bad. And I think there's going to be an investigation into what happened here. And I mean, in normal times, the agents would frankly be worried that they could be prosecuted for something like this. I don't know what this. I think we can all predict what this administration would do, but this doesn't even seem to be remotely within the bounds of legal justification or what law enforcement is permitted to do while they are or ICE or Department of Homeland Security or any federal agent is permitted to do. You really can't do that. I mean, obviously, if the facts come out that she was trying to run them over with the car, that's different because that's. You're using your vehicle as a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument. But it doesn't appear that that's at all what happened. And frankly, from what's coming out so far about the victim, again, she's just a mom like anybody else with the kid in school and who is happens to be in Minnesota and potentially going to see what's going on at the, you know, where ICE is there. And look, this is one of the dangers with having federal law enforcement come in and do these unnecessary, hostile, aggressive actions in cities and locations that frankly don't want them. And Minnesota is one of the places that does not want them enforcing there and does not want this because this is the kind of thing that can happen.
- [09:20]
A
Absolutely. Her mother, her mother is quoted as saying that Renee was one of the kindest people I've ever known. She was extremely compassionate. She's taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being. And it is a tragedy of, of the Trump administration's amped up ICE officers is what it looks like that has taken the life. And it's just that the depravity and the lack of heart and caring by the Trump administration on full display. Again, to immediately side with ICE as some sort of attack on ICE rather than on the death of this person. It's going to be up to the lawyers and there are many fine lawyers in Minnesota that handle cases like this, cases of government and police brutality who are going to have to bring the truth out through their own forensics, through their own testimony and the like and get whatever justice is possible. I mean, there's no real justice for the killing of this, this 37 year old mother. But it's going to be up to the civil law enforcement, I'm sure the State of Minnesota's Bureau of Investigation, the mbi, I guess or yeah, the, yeah, mbmbi. Yeah, we'll have to get involved, you know, and then Donald Trump will do everything he can to make it political because they'll never admit defeat, they'll never admit they did anything wrong. You know, they're constantly going after Tim Walls. They're constantly going after the attorney General there. I'm going to try to get Keith Ellison on who has we've interviewed before, to talk about these issues soon. But you're exactly right. The perfect storm of to have a terrible event like this happen is when you put ill trained ICE and other personnel who are not used to working with the public, don't do crowd control, don't know how to de escalate, you know, whether it's law enforcement, ice, National Guard, army or whatever. And you put them with the public, then you add to it, amped up emotions over certain things and in this case, perhaps somebody driving the wrong way. You could easily drive into one of these stops the way that they're set up in these states. And then your adrenaline takes over. Your heart is racing. You can hear the blood rushing in your brain and your head. You're not thinking clearly. You're being barked out by people who have weapons pointed at you. And bad things happen as they just did. And so we're going to have to make sure that justice is done for Renee Nicole Goode and that this and this administration is brought to heel as well. They're out of control around the world and they're certainly taking it out on Americans. May I remind them that she is an American citizen. She's not a migrant. She's not trend Aragua. She's just a nice lady that lived in Minnesota. Okay. And you, you owe her and are, and you owe the rest of America something for her. I mean, she didn't intend her death to be a cause celeb, but it is now. And so we have to get behind it and great things have to come in her name. And we'll, we'll, we'll do our part here on Legal AF as well. And then you got the depravity of it all. I want to talk about the Jan6 hearing too. We ran it on legal AF. There actually is Kwame Raul from Illinois and he along with dozens of other people testified at the Jan6 oversight committee hearing yesterday. Was really getting the old gang back together again. Of the Jan6 committee got Betty Thompson, you got Jamie Raskin, Kinzinger. Kinzinger all together. But then a lot of witnesses who testified as well. And some people might be thinking, well, what's the purpose? The purpose is we can't just let Donald Trump kind of get away with insurrection and rewrite the history books and try to distract America from his scandalous administration and criminal administration because he's busy trying to take over Venezuela for its oil fields or Greenland for its strategic purposes. And he just gets to put Jan6 in his rearview mirror. No, no. And if he's going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the, of the army or of the Declaration of Independence, we get to commemorate things that are demonstrative of how rogue and illegal and immoral Donald Trump is. So January six committee hearings. We'll talk about now, Jack Smith, last week, eight hours, nine hours of testimony. This all matters. What was your takeaway from the Jan.6 hearing? What did you find to be moving? And again, we had that split screen, proud boys marching at the exact same time, mobilized by Donald Trump and maga, the Trump administration changing the website as the hearings were going on to kind of rewrite history. We know he's already been erasing history at the Smithsonian as it relates to the January 6, the insurrection. What was your takeaway from the power of the hearings?
- [14:54]
B
I think first of all, it was so important that on January 6th, this moment is commemorated, that it's not forgotten that we do not allow Trump to whitewash and gloss over the events of that day. What I did to commemorate the day was I actually watched. There's an amazing, I think it's like 40 minute video that Midas posted that's never been seen video before of an individual who had a camera and somehow for more than 30 minutes filmed this moment of the mob trying to get into the Capitol. And it was so chilling, bone chilling, and in a way that the hearings can never quite do because it's a hearing. But you watch that video and you realize how violent, how lawless, how terrifying that must have been. You see people in full riot gear, law enforcement, capital law enforcement, screaming, bloody crying. It was terrifying. And you see the crowd in unison, just using the full force of this crowd moving together backward and forward, backward and forward to try and push, use the momentum of the giant crowd to push their way into the Capitol. And what these true heroes from the Capitol Police and law enforcement were doing to protect the Capitol. And just seeing those videos, watching the hearing, hearing the stories, Trump can do whatever he wants. He can call this a beautiful day. I don't even know the terms he uses to, you know, calls these people patriots, peaceful protests. You watch these videos and it will remind people and remind you exactly what it was. And it was, it's literally the embodiment of what Trump is doing to the world right now. He's using brute force to basically take over countries, depose countries, leaders steal oil from Venezuela, he's going to try to steal Greenland, he's going to basically alienate us from all of NATO. And he just, you know, the people, when they say, when they protest and say no kings, and there are people who say, oh, that's an exaggeration, we don't have kings. He is certainly acting as if he's a king and a dictator all at once. And so it's just Jan6 was a window into what we're living in on a bigger global scale today that people just want to, by brute force, take what they want, whether the, you know, whether. Whether it belongs to them or not. And it was just disgusting and disgraceful. And I think we can't forget about it. We have to remember it, and we have to have it color exactly how we view everything that is happening right now in the world, because this is literally a fight for our democracy is what we're in right now. I am just appalled every single day when I see what Trump is doing as a continuation of trying to steal that election through force and brute force, and then through lies and trying to completely gaslight the American people who can see the videos for themselves of what was happening. And that's what he's doing with every other move that he's doing right now all across the world, whether it's. You can dislike Maduro, you can think he's a terrible person, and at the same time also see that basically saying this is part of a war on drugs, that this is a complete lie. This is nothing more than a grab for oil. And I am worried about Cuba, I'm worried about Greenland, and I'm worried about all the other places that Trump is essentially saying the quiet part out loud. And, you know, we are just. We are in a precarious place. And as bad as January 6th was, frankly, that was nothing compared to what's happening at the moment.
- [19:32]
A
Yeah, I agree. I mean, the whole. You have to continue to speak to history and to speak to today's voter about what happened on January 6th. It's important, especially when you have. I mean, would there be a January 6th commemorative oversight hearing if Donald Trump had not been reelected? Maybe. Probably not. It really is a counterweight to Donald Trump. I mean, many things right now are. Exist because they are a counterweight to. To Donald Trump. I have a working theory that Pope Leo, the first American pope from Chicago, who is a leftist, a Marxist, a man of the cloth, was chosen by the conclave on purpose because of the existence of Donald Trump. Yeah, there are many things that exist that would not exist but for Donald Trump. So it's important that while he's in the White House and continues to be as lawless and rogue and out of control as he is, with nothing really other than the public, the crowds, and the courts, except for the Supreme Court at this juncture to hold him back, that we hold events like that, that people come and testify again, like day nine, effectively, of the Gen 6 committee they did eight full days. This was like the ninth day, but, but very, very important. And then, you know, of course, you know, I didn't want to, I didn't want to under. Sell, you know, the Venezuela attack, we all see it for what it is. It is, has nothing to do with freedom. Being on the march has nothing to do with installing a democracy where there once was a dictatorship. It has everything to do with kicking a dictatorship in the nuts, decapitating its immediate leader, and then having the remnants of that dictatorship, which is illegal and illicit and not for the will of the people, play ball with Big Oil, which is controlling Donald Trump and Marco Rubio about their interests. You see Big Oil popping up today with we're owed billions of dollars from Venezuela, from having our assets nationalized 20 years ago. So now we're using the weight of the US Military, putting military people in harm's way in order to do the bidding of Big Oil. Now, I know some people are going to write, Popak, you're naive. We've always had business and the industrial military complex dominating our foreign and military policy. And that is true. But this is so transparently on display right now. And, and Marco Rubio, you know, took a lot of umbrage with that. There is no plan to control or run while they're busy trying to chase after two, two of 14 tankers. They made a big deal out. We caught the two, you know, one with a Russian escort, with a sub. What about the other 14 that made it out? But again, we are just trying to take a straw and suck the oil out of Venezuela and then turn our sights while he's got momentum, which is what he did in the first two days of his original term with his executive orders to now turn his sights to Greenland. He's an idiot when it comes to Greenland. There's plenty of reporting out there now that since a 1952 agreement that was signed by Truman or Eisenhower, we have a lot of say militarily over Greenland, even though it's independent and a protectorate of our NATO ally, Denmark. So we didn't have to do all of this. We could have gotten effectively what we wanted by way of this agreement, which Donald Trump probably doesn't even know about and learned about it like we did today, but it's been on the books for, you know, since 1952. No, he's got to do the let's attack, let's put NATO over my knee and break it in half. Let's attack an ally, let's threaten them, let's spend taxpayer dollars to buy them. You don't have to do any of that. Just go read the 1952 agreement, figure out what you want strategically, and that's it, you're done. We don't want to own Greenland and the people there and pay them. They're getting paid from Denmark. We don't want that to happen. But this is what when a dictator is on the march and his own congress is unwilling to stop him for their own political gain, this is what you got. And now we got to see what the United States Supreme Court's going to do about it. And just a little bit of a headline or a heads up before the break here Friday. One or two major Supreme Court decisions are about to be dropped. We've been waiting on the tariff decision. It's about ready. You know, my timer, my oven timer has gone off. It's about ready. I think it could be on Friday. And we've been waiting on the Voting Rights act, the Calais case out of Louisiana, which is also due, which is also overdue there. They've announced they're dropping their opinions on Friday. Could be both.
- [24:57]
B
Could birthright citizenship could.
- [25:01]
A
Well, they haven't. They haven't. That's, that has to be briefed and argued. That hasn't been, that hasn't been briefed and argued. In other words, they've said they're going to take it, but it's not done yet. It's not out of the can yet. So, no, that we would have covered it on Legal Legal AF had we had an oral argument on birthright citizenship. So, but there are major hearings this month. Lisa Cook fighting for her life and for hours on the Federal Reserve to stop Donald Trump's takeover of the Federal Reserve. And the Open Markets Committee that sets, that sets interest rates. That's this month. Transgender athletes in schools is this month, starting next week. So we have a lot to cover. And so Legal AF is the place to do it. We have a great announcement for Legal af. As people may know, the American Civil Liberties Union is joining to give regular commentary and videos by their lawyers about the cases that they're fighting. The 130, 140 cases at the American Civil Liberties Union is fighting every day for democracy. They're joining, I think, next week with their first video. And between the ACLU and Democracy Forward, led by Sky Perryman, who I had the pleasure of interviewing. It's going up now, or it went up a little bit earlier on Legal AF YouTube channel and the Democratic attorneys general, hopefully we'll one day include your buddy Michael Dougherty. That whole group represents 3/4 of of the major lawsuits against the Trump administration and they're all going to be on Legal af, continuing to brief our audience. So now's the time. Become a member of the legal AF community. You can become a paid member of the YouTube channel. We have a new group of work related to that and things that our paid members will be entitled to, like bonus interviews and bonus videos that are up now. We've got the Legalif substack. Almost 3,000 people became paid members from the holiday times till now. We're running a sale, 20% off in honor of Jan 6 and the people that tried to hold the line and trying to reign in Donald Trump. So 20% off annual membership on legal AF substack as well. And then of course we've got our pro democracy sponsors, some of which have been with us, oh, I don't know, five, six years and some that are new. But the great thing about them is they know what our audience is all about. We vibrate on the same frequency and they want to be here. They know what we're saying and generally and they want to be here with it. So let's take our first break. New year, New chew for your dog or the dog you love. Like family. If you're upgrading what goes into your body in 2026, why are so many dogs still eating mystery kibble meat? Sundays for Dogs Sundaes was founded by veterinarian and mom, Dr. Tori Waxman. Tired of premium dog food full of fillers and synthetics, so she created sundaes. 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Starting early matters most people cover graze, but you can actually slow their progression. For a limited time, our listeners get 15% off by using code legalafray.com just head to a R E-Y dot com and use code legalaf and you're all set. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Welcome back and thank you for being such fervent supporters of independent media and independent commentary by your support of Legal AF and this podcast and the Legal AF ecosystem that we've described. So Georgia, to help Donald Trump, several months ago passed a statute that allows people who were, I don't know, prosecuted unfairly to try to get attorneys fees. It was made for Donald Trump, obviously by, you know, it's a red state. You know, even though we try to make it purple and blue, it's a red state. The legislature is red, the governor's red. And so they passed it and it kind of slipped under the radar. We were like, well, that's interesting. But now we know why. Right on, right on time. Steve Sadow, the local lawyer in Georgia for Donald Trump, filed an application or a motion to be supported, I guess by an affidavit showing that the lawyers there and I find this to be hard to believe. The lawyers in Steve Sadow and a couple of other their lawyers spent $6.2 million to defend that case that never went to trial. Seems a little high. And again, if they're entitled to fees, it's generally reasonable fees, if they're entitled to fees at all. But, you know, leave it to Donald Trump doesn't care about the optics. Basically, the day of January 6, he wants to remind everybody and step on the news cycle by filing a fee application on purpose for $6.2 million in fee recovery. He's also doing the same thing in the United States government where he's suing his own government and us as taxpayers for many multiples of that for the Jack Smith prosecutions that is wending its way through the federal Tort Claims act process and then will eventually become a lawsuit where it'll be Donald Trump versus the United States of America while he's the president of the United States of America. What you make about all that, you may want to remind people, Karen, because you were very, very passionate, as you, as we all should be, about the Fawney Willis takedown by the Supreme Court in Georgia and by even the trial judge there for her doing nothing more than maybe a human resource violation of dating in the workplace certainly didn't impact the evidence against Donald Trump, the RICO conspiracy or the facts. And just to remind our audience, many people pled guilty to that same indictment. Ken Chest, lawyers representing Donald Trump. Ken Chesbrough, pled guilty. Jenna Ellis, guilty. Sidney Powell, guilty. Why don't you take it from there?
- [33:18]
B
It's disgusting. It's one more example of Donald Trump trying to steal money from taxpayers or from average people, because that's where it's coming from, whether it's in his DOJ case where he's suing the federal government, who will of course, settle with him. Right, because he controls the federal government. He controls the doj. So they're going to settle with him. And as you said, this statute in Georgia, I'm sure, was passed specifically for him because normally you can't do that in criminal cases. Normally, prosecutors enjoy prosecutorial immunity. And you can't sue them and you can't sue them civilly for just doing their job. And so this is very much another way that Donald Trump is going to get rich off the backs of average Americans and the people of Georgia, the of the United States of America. And when he goes in with his chainsaw and Doge, whatever happened to Doge, I don't even know if it exists anymore, trying to save all this money that is just all fake and just not true. He is going to steal money from your and my pockets every way that he can, just like he's going to steal oil from Venezuela and he's going to steal minerals from Greenland. Which is why, for example, I think, is why he wants to take Greenland. In addition to. It's not about the military, because as you said, Popak, he could just, because of that 1951 agreement, he could put more military there just by asking. I think he wants to steal the natural resources of Greenland as well. And I think you're gonna see not just his friends and family getting rich, but himself getting rich off of that, just like he's doing. And he shows you every single day what he's doing and by getting these attorneys fees. So, I mean, it's just, it's appall and it's disgraceful. And, you know, the Georgia prosecution was a legitimate prosecution. I think there was something like, what was it, 20 something defendants that she brought. The sweeping RICO indictment, if you remember, it was the phone call to the Secretary of State for Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, that Trump called and said, find me 11,780 votes. And you know, there was no doubt with the fake elector scheme and everything else that went on there that that was a sweeping RICO indictment. And I think if that case ever went to trial, it would have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt. As you said, several people already pled guilty. And frankly, that was not dismissed on the merits. That was not dismissed because he was not guilty. And frankly, there was never even an opportunity to do a presidential immunity analysis because some of that was clearly a campaign. Donald Trump as a candidate, not him as acting in any way as president. And there was no way that they could even get to that point because of this complete distraction over a workplace relationship, which is all this was. This was not a relationship. This is not a conflict of interest with Fani Willis having a relationship with, say, defense attorney or a witness or a judge. So those things could be conflicts of interest. This was two very senior people, not a subordinate type of relationship. These were two very senior people having a consensual adult relationship and somehow that became unmarried. This was not an affair. This was not in any way scandalous and certainly nothing compared to what Donald Trump has been found liable for doing and has been accused of doing by many, many, many, many women. So the double and triple standard here for a woman prosecutor, a woman prosecutor, it's just that was a whole disgrace. And that watching that, watching that, that, you know, pearl clutching takedown that everyone did of her, oh, my God, you know, she had an affair. She didn't have an affair. She had a relationship with a colleague, which is, frankly, that's where I met my husband at work. It happens. Nothing wrong with it. And we've been married almost 30 years. So I think it's just disgraceful what happened to her. And the description, the fact that now he's going to get attorneys fees or try to get attorneys fees, which is literally taking money from the people of Georgia is, is just really appalling to me and I hope somebody fights that and I hope he doesn't get a dime.
- [37:40]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think we'll have to fight it in the streets in Georgia and hopefully these are things that are wake up calls.
- [37:49]
B
Yeah, the midterms can't come soon enough.
- [37:51]
A
No, I mean, as people, as people, these are all badges. In our business we call it badges of fraud. These are like all badges of dishonesty. The stink of dishonesty, lawlessness, immorality. That is, I mean, he's just, if he was a military general and these were just medals and badges and ribbons related to his campaigns, that he would just be, he'd be a 12 star general for how corrupt he is. But people have to remember this, which the polls say they are. I mean, I'm fascinated. I can't wait to see the polls following Venezuela and Greenland, which I don't think, first of all, Mag is like, what the f. We voted you in for America first to cut back on spending and to put the money into America. Spending is up 8% over Biden's last year, not down. That's a problem. He didn't. He might have. He hasn't wrapped up wars. He's started them. Bombing Iran. Right. What he's doing to foment the war and keep it prolonged in Russia, Ukraine, same thing. Gaza, Israel now attacking Venezuela, which is now a nightmare. You know, there's that weird split screen unfortunately about what happened in Venezuela. You know, I live in Miami where there's a large Venezuelan population and Venezuelan American population. And there was immediate celebration, you know, viva Trump and hooray and down with Maduro. I get it. But then they woke up the next morning literally to realize that freedom was not being on the march, that their chosen leaders in Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corino Machado were being sidelined intentionally by the Trump administration because they obviously wouldn't play ball, play ball on the oil deal and the oil play here for Donald Trump. And then it was like this deflation when they got, when they talked to people in Venezuela who were in country and they're like, we sleep with one eye open. We have a suppression in the streets by the existing Regime against protests and First Amendment expression. And all you have is little Marco Rubio saying, we're in control, we have a plan. I don't know why people think we don't have a plan. Yeah, I get the plan. The plan is destabilize Venezuela, cut off its oil supply to Cuba so that Marco Rubio can be a hero because he's always wanted to solve the Cuban problem, which is his ancestral home of his family, and then use that as a springboard at the same time. Apparently, the Dunro Doctrine just consists of we control everything in the Western Hemisphere and whatever happens out there. Europe, you're on Europe. Asia, you're on your own. We'll fight here. We'll go after our allies here. We'll do things that are illegal and against international law and conventions. And you do you, Putin, you do you, China, in your spheres of influence. So now we've established spheres of influence. Rather than being the policeman of the world and the leader of the free world, we are no longer. That's not even a phrase you hear people use about Donald Trump, doesn't even use it about himself. It was, until Trump became president, a common sobriquet or title for the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, but he doesn't want that. He's not making Venezuela free. He's making the corrupt regime be more responsive to his corrupt instincts and let big Oil have their way on taxpayer dollars to benefit Donald Trump and his family ultimately, as we always know.
- [41:50]
B
What's ironic, Popak, is that by what you just said about how he arrested Maduro and his wife, but then left the vice president in place to take over everybody. That. Right. Let the whole administration take over. What that's going to do is that's going to undermine the prosecution here in New York because if he was a legitimate ruler, he will have sovereign immunity. And by not putting in. If he had put in the Democratic elected team and basically said this was never a legitimate administration and, you know, but he's basically anointing them and anointing the Maduro regime. And by doing it that way, he is. Trump doesn't realize he. I think he's hurting the prosecution of Maduro, who could go free under sovereign immunity.
- [42:52]
A
I agree. I mean, I did a hot take about, about the head of state immunity, which is similar to the immunity that Trump enjoys. And the more they talk about oil, oil and oil and less about drug trafficking and machine guns, the more Maduro's team can. And I'm not trying to get Maduro out. I'm just, I'm just laying out what, what could happen different than Manuel NORIEGA and Panama 36 years ago here. This, it's not regime change. And the more you don't talk about the indictment, which they almost never do now, that's Pam Bondi's not there, FBI is not there. This is a CIA, Department of Defense operation along with big oil. And so Maduro can say, this isn't about my criminality. I didn't. This is about, they wanted to align Venezuela's political interests with the United States. And then they just play, clip, clip, clip, clip, clip. Rubio, Rubio, Rubio, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. That's all they do. And they go, this is about, this is about me being the head of the state. This is not about me. And now if the government is then going to have to come forward with its proof, and it's evidence that he lined his pockets and used narco terrorism to put money in his pockets, and maybe they have the goods on Maduro in terms of the money trail of the sale of cocaine and ending up in the pockets of Maduro and all of that. But, you know, Trump should be careful about what he says. They can't stop talking. I mean, they just have logaria of the mouth, right? They can't stop talking about the mission, the accomplishment. But then it always slips out on Sunday morning talk shows or in press conferences when it's not about freedom, it's not about that, it's about oil. And as you said, I think that helps Maduro in his defense. When we come back, I want to talk to you, Karen, about something that's near and dear to your heart. Somebody who's a prosecutor or is acting like they're one. We have the continued impersonation of a US Attorney by Lindsey Halligan, and judges in the Eastern District of Virginia are tired of it and they are pissed off. And now we got a Trump judge, Judge Novak, who's done something about it. So we'll tell people how we got in this mess and what judges are doing to try to get us out of it. And then I want to touch on the Epstein files and the fact that. See, leave that headline up for a minute. See if that headline's wrong. If the denominator is 2 million, then it's 1%. If the denominator is 5.2 million documents is what they said a week ago, then it's zero point, oh 5% or less. And that's our issue here. Where are the missing documents? Because Last week during the holidays, Todd Blanche posted on social media and let it be known that they found not 1 million. They found 5.2 million documents, which represents about 50 million pages that they needed to review with 400 lawyers around the clock. Right. But then when they made a filing in front of Judge Engelmeier in New York, the numbers shrunk in a week. Why? How, where did they go? We're going to talk about all that when we come back from our break. In the meantime, if you like, what's happening on Legal af, you want to be here for, you know, you see these developing stories. It's, it's, it's that we can't, we could barely keep up. We got 12 hours of programming a day on legal AF, another half a dozen on Midas. Touch on the loss side and sub I do two substacks lives a day at 12:00pm and 7:45pm and, and there. We're barely able to keep up. But we want to bring this to you. We need you in our audience. Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Think about becoming a paid member there or a member or subscriber there. Legal AF the substack where I'm doing two lives a day. We get a couple of thousand people just joining at 12 and 7:45pm Eastern Time for updates in the law on Substack Live. And I'm running that 20% sale on annual membership Substack Live. This is People say how can we support you? How can we quote, unquote, invested you in Legal af? This is the way to do it. And then of course, we've got our sponsors. And here's another word from our pro democracy sponsors. This episode, it's brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack, hydration and coffee sponsor. IQ Bar Protein Bars, IQ Mix, Hydration mixes and IQ Joe Mushroom coffees are the delicious low sugar brain and body fuel you need to win your day. As someone who's constantly switching between research, recording my family and long work days, I rely on snacks that keep me sharp without spiking my blood sugar. An IQ Bar has genuinely delivered. The ultimate sampler pack is the easiest way to try it all. Nine IQ Bars, eight IQ Mix sticks and four IQ Joe Coffee sticks. Every product is clean, label, certified and entirely free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs and artificial ingredients packed with brain friendly ingredients like magnesium and lion's mane. The new year gives us all a chance to reset. Maximize your brain and body's potential with IQ Bars, protein bars, hydration mixes and mushroom coffees. Their Ultimate Sampler Pack includes all three. And right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ Bar products, including the Ultimate Sampler Pack, plus free shipping. To get your 20% off, text legal AF to 64,000. Text legal AF to 64,000. That's legal AF to 64. Message and data rates may apply seat terms for details. Welcome Back to Legal AF at the midweek with Karen Freeman McNifolo and Michael Popak. So, Karen, you've dealt with large productions of documents in your career at the Manhattan district attorney's office. You know, having to diligently turn over files and documents and other things as part of your responsibility to give the defense what they need or what they don't need for their case. So what, what do you make of this constantly shape shifting number of Epstein files yet to be reviewed? 1 million two weeks ago, 5.2 million documents during the holidays, and now they tell Judge Engelmeier in a new filing that it's down to 2 million. What are you, what do you make of this?
- [49:37]
B
Well, first of all, anything I say about this would be pure speculation because they aren't explaining and they really should be the ones to be explaining to the court exactly how many documents there are, what their process is, what they're going through and how they're going through this and why the numbers keep changing and why they are finding more and more documents. I think part of it is people, because the prosecutors who worked on the case, in particular Maureen Comey, who worked on the Ghislaine Maxwell case, they fired her because of her last name, certainly not because of her talent and her abilities. She's widely regarded as a phenomenal prosecutor who everybody respects except Donald Trump. And again, it's because of who her father is. So I'm sure if she were there and you, she could be a part of this. I'm sure we would have a much clearer, better idea of what's happening. But now they're trying to recreate and figure out what exactly they have. And look, these materials are everything from the FBI and other investigative reports, including local law enforcement who would have investigated crimes, say in Florida or other places that were reported where these victims reported crimes, things like grand jury materials, interview transcripts. There's going to be lots of photographs and other other types of video and photo evidence that would have been gathered and collected, electronic records and communications like emails. There's probably thousands and thousands of emails or text messages, flight information and logs, people being flown not Just on Epstein's private plane, but people who took commercial jets, whether they be the victims or people traveling to be with Epstein. And of course, there's financial record that people, they're going to be looking at, whether it's receipts or credit cards or bank statements, because you want to corroborate everything someone is saying. And so there's going to be lots of that kind of material, and it's going to be all over the place. If they're investigating other people who were protecting Donald Trump, then there could be. There could be accountants records and tax records and that kind of financial records that you're going to look for to see who profited off of this, whether there was any sort of profit motive or, again, financial transactions that took place. So whatever is not classified material, and I can't really imagine why anything would be classified in this investigation. And things that don't reveal what, who the victims are, unless, of course, they consent to that. That's really the thing that has to be that they have to do is they have to protect the victim's identities, whether it's their faces or other addresses, phone numbers, other personal identifying information that has to be redacted. But they know who the victims are. You could do a quick word search through these documents, and it'll pull up every single instance where that particular name is located, and then you redact it, and then you look there and see, is there a phone number, is there an address, is there an email address, is there social media account? You know, all the other things that you would write down when you're talking to somebody. So this isn't. It's not like they're going to go through 10 million documents page by page and, you know, turn the page. They can do this through a lot of it through word searches. And that's. That's one way that you do it. You can. You can do it through all sorts of ways. You could put in people's phone numbers, email addresses. You can search any way you want and then redact that information out. But I think part of it is, I don't know that they know what they have. And I think part of it's incompetence. Part of it's because, like I said, they fired the people who know what it is. And I think part of it, because it's Donald Trump, and frankly, I think I wouldn't put anything past. And part of it's going to be to try to protect people that he wants to protect. And maybe they're trying to figure out ways to do that. So, you know, look, one of, one of the big exceptions to the Epstein Transparency act, which is you could drive a truck through this exception, is that anything that they identify as part of an ongoing investigation, they don't have to turn over. Well, of course, you're going to see that with any Republicans potentially. Right. And only turn over the Democrats, which is what they've already done so far. So let's see if they do the right thing. They asked for, I think it was seven more days to get back to the court, but they better start explaining and start explaining in detail what their process is and why there is these conflicting numbers and why it is that sometimes they think they have 5.2 million records and then somewhere else they have 1 million and somewhere else they have 2 million. They better start. If I was, if I was the judge here, I'd want somebody with information and knowledge to come in and talk about exactly what their process is, what they're doing, what they have and what they're determining is going to be kept out because they either don't think they have to turn it over or they're choosing not to turn it over, or are they redacting things. I'd like to know in detail if I was the judge, what their process is and really hold their feet. So the fire, because this just seems a little, a little disorganized and frankly, clown carish for even the Trump administration.
- [55:24]
A
I don't know why. It's, you know, they just feel like they can just insult the intelligence of federal judges and the American people. We can read. We know the difference between a $5.2 million, a 5.2 million document number by Todd Blanche and then 2 million ending up in a federal court filing without a footnote. That even explains the delta. And if I'm the judge, I certainly, as you, as you laid out, I'd want to get to the bottom of what appears to be 3.2 million missing Epstein files. No one trusts the Trump administration. We know they didn't review 3.2 million in a week and decide they were redundant or copies or weren't relevant, you know, at all. So that didn't happen. So either they had their number wrong before based on what that would be the questioning that I would do if I were the judge. How'd you come up with your original 5.2 million? What was that based on? You know, and then they just blithe list in their filing with Judge Engelmeier. Well, we've looked in these various places we Won't tell you where. And there's mismatch in record keeping systems. So it's been difficult. It's going to take us a little bit longer. But this GLARING, you know, 2 million number just sitting on the page and we're all, who's close to the issues like us on Legal AF and Midas Touch. We look at it, we're like, where's the, where's the 3.2 million more documents? And you know, you just can't, you just can't take them. Even, even a Department of justice that wasn't, didn't have its reputation and credibility and shreds, you would still be like you just said, 5.2. How is it, how is it too. And you know, we had a funny. I'll play the clip here in a minute. We had a funny moment when James Carville joined Legal AF in the Court of History yesterday to talk about Venezuela and other things. And he, I think tongue slightly in cheek, but he gave credit to Legal AF and Court of History for keeping the reporting so trained on Donald Trump about Epstein and the scandal and not letting it die. He thinks that's one of the reasons that Donald Trump in a wag the dog moment went into Venezuela was to change the conversation because, you see, nobody's talking about Epstein this week. In fact, let me play that clip, which I thought was sort of a backhanded compliment for the work that we're doing on Legal AF and Court of History. Let's play that clip.
- [58:01]
C
Thank you, Sidney. Thank you, Sean. Love the show. Just before we get started, I think this show bears some responsibility for the Venezuelan incursion because I think that this is done in response to Epstein and no show has brought more Epstein facts alike in a court of history. And if you just do a word search for the five days before this, how many Epstein references there were and then five days after that, how many Epstein references they were. This is pretty clear. And in his mind this worked brilliantly.
- [58:38]
A
Yeah.
- [58:43]
C
Mission accomplished, as he might say. He's completely rung the story away from Epstein. You have the usual 15% of Democrats saying, well, this is actually a good move. This is really going to help the United States. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Maduro's a bad guy, Sherry's a bad guy. What about the other 15 bad guys around the world?
- [59:09]
A
I have a friend in Hollywood who's a famous screenwriter, won an Oscar and.
- [59:15]
B
His view is this is going to.
- [59:16]
A
Go so bad that Trump is going to switch to promoting the Epstein files.
- [59:24]
C
I'M going to steal that.
- [59:27]
A
And I got good news for those that follow the Court of History and all the hard work that Sidney Blumenthal and Professor Sean Willenz do every week, we are making them into officially today a audio podcast. So they will be on. You can now find them on Apple and Spotify under Court of History, another Legal AF podcast and Unprecedented, a podcast that I do every week with Dina Dahl about the United States Supreme Court. Also now as of today, a Legal AF podcast up on wherever you get your podcast from on audio for those that, that you know, listen to us in the car or on their phones or whatever. So Unprecedented and Court of History both now up on the on the audio podcast. And that's the way for you to support what we do and our contributors and people that spend a lot of time briefing our audience and it's supporting the podcast like this one. Legal af, the grand pappy, grand mammy of them all when it comes to law and politics. Been sitting here for almost six years doing this work with Karen and Ben Mai Sellis and that's why we're at the top of the charts because of our fervent, the fervent support of our audience and the community that we've built. So audio podcast, plug in legal af leave a 5 star review and comments. We do read the comments as we do on a night like tonight and come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel support us there. We now have a new paid membership level for people that want to quote, unquote, invest in Legal af. You know, we don't have outside investors. We really are crowded, funded people funded, if you will, people supported. And the size that we got a million subscribers already has helped us onboard the American Civil Liberties Union Democracy Forward. Get the interviews with senators and congress people and bring in the contributors that we have because we're legit and we're legit because you made us legit at the intersection of law and politics. And then of course we've got the Legalif substack that's only been around 10 months. We're already we're bopping around between number one and number seven in rising US politics number 40 or so overall on all substacks and there are tens of thousands of them and we're doing some really creative and interesting things there. Like I'm doing a live twice a day sometimes with guests, sometimes they bring in guests. Like I'll give you an example. Adam Klassfeld, All Rise News was in the the arraignment for Maduro and As soon as he popped out, literally within moments of him listening to the proceedings, watching things and giving us color about it, he came out, joined me on a substack live and we had 2,100 people kind of at that moment. We then used it as a video, but 2100 people asking questions. And that's the kind of stuff you can do on substack you can't do in YouTube. We love YouTube and it's great for kind of magazine style, deeper thought, deeper analysis with assets and things. But like in the, in the real, in real life, you know, something just happened and we got one of our people out in the field who can talk to us or get Sky Perryman on or get the ACLU on or get a Rob Bonta or the attorneys General on. That's where we live. And so we've got paid membership there that's now on sale for 20% off for annual membership. And becoming a regular member is great as well. So, Karen, first show of the new year. We always love giving you the last words. What are you, what are you going to pull together for our audience?
- [62:54]
B
I'm going to say two things. Number one, I have a new second favorite podcast that I want to make a plug for. It's called the Intersection with Michael Popak and it's phenomenal and I really think.
- [63:07]
A
I forgot that one.
- [63:09]
B
But really, really, it's worth, I think, for I want everyone who watches Legal af. It's something that you should really watch the Intersection or listen to it. It's worth phenomenal podcast. As I said, it's my second favorite with Legal AF being my first. But I want to end tonight with really thinking about just again that video that I watched that Ben posted on January 6 about just what those officers went through. I just can't get that image out of my head and how terrible. Yeah, exactly. There it is. It is so unbelievable. And what they were going through, through that whole insurrection, I just think is something I just really want to think about and send my thoughts out to all the law enforcement and others, members of Congress, et cetera, who were traumatized, frankly, and who were heroes and who stood up for democracy and, and were there that day. And I also can't stop thinking about that little six year old girl in Minnesota who came home from school today only to be told that she no longer has a mother. And I'm just brokenhearted over that. So, you know, I don't mean to end not on a positive note, but I just, that's where my heart is right now and I'm sending thoughts and prayers to all of those people. Happy New Year. And we're in this all together because we are a community and we're going to keep keep fighting together.
- [64:47]
A
Thank you. Thank you for doing that. Yeah, sometimes we have to end a little bit on a dour note, but we are together as a community and we appreciate you. Thanks for being here Saturday with Ben Meiselas and me. And thanks for all you do to support what we do. Without it, we would be literally nothing, just people mumbling to ourselves on the subway or on the street over a cup of coffee. But you give us purpose and we really do appreciate you. Shout out to the mightiest Mighty in the legal AF.
- [65:21]
B
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- [65:36]
A
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