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- [00:01]
Ben Meiselas
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- [00:35]
Michael Popak
Friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve.
- [00:37]
Ben Meiselas
And it does without me lifting a finger so I can get in more.
- [00:40]
Legal Analyst
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- [01:01]
Ben Meiselas
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- [02:02]
Legal Analyst
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliate. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Federal courts, Attorney Generals, we the people are standing up to Donald Trump. A lot of momentum this week. Let me tell you what went down. Donald Trump and his Department of Justice made that corrupt bargain with corrupt New York City Mayor Eric Adams to try to have his case dismissed A federal judge by the name of Federal Judge O said, no, I am not going to dismiss this right away. We need to explore the circumstances surrounding this dismissal. And he appointed an independent amicus curi. We'll talk about who that was to submit a report to the court. Lots of rhyming in that intro. Also, temporary restraining order tsunamis. We'll talk about what's going on there with all the tr. And a federal judge named Judge Ali, again, keeping that rhyme theme right there, is saying you are awfully close to being held in contempt Trump administration for violating the temporary restraining order, saying that you can't stop funding USAID. We'll talk about some of the other TROs as well, including one that found its way to the United States Supreme Court. Yep, we got the Supreme Court's first major ruling during this. Trump administration will tell you what went down. Also, as I said before the media starting to stand up, you had Ann Selzer, the Iowa pollster, she struck back after Donald Trump filed some frivolous, bogus lawsuit against her, saying that her polling caused him damages even though he ended up winning the election, and that she had every right to submit her poll. She issued a very powerful motion trying to get Donald Trump's case dismissed. We'll talk about that. Also, the Associated Press, as urged by Mr. Acosta when he joined me in an interview here on the Midas Touch Network, they kind of took his advice and they filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump for Trump banning them from the press room because they refused to call the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. That's how petty and weak and silly and ridiculous and dangerous, frankly, Donald Trump is. And even CBS seems to be fighting back. We weren't sure if CBS was going to literally sell out and try to settle this bogus case that Donald Trump filed against 60 Minutes because Donald Trump didn't like the way they edited their interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, even though Donald Trump was too afraid himself to do the interview with 60 Minutes and even though the editing was not even of any substance at all and they had every right to edit however they want to. But Donald Trump said he and get this, MAGA Republican Congress member Ronnie Jackson were consumers and that having to watch that injured them to the tune of $20 billion. Why Ronnie Jackson? Because Ronnie Jackson's the congressmember from Amarillo, Texas. And Donald Trump wanted to get the case filed in Amarillo, Texas, before a federal judge named Matthew Kaz, who's previously ruled in favor of MAGA on just about everything so they were forum shopping the case there. But CBS is like, bet you're saying $20 billion of damages. Okay, show me your crypto wallet, Donald. Let's do discovery. Let's take your deposition, let's get all of your financials, because you're saying $20 billion. Let's go. Now, who knows if they're eventually going to settle or not, but at least that was a good indication right there. Also, you had Donald Trump calling himself a king this week, and he posted photos of himself with a crown on his head that said, long live the king, from his account in the official White House account. This, I guess, was related to Donald Trump trying to block congestion pricing in New York, a plan that was already successful in New York City and that New York had every prerogative to pursue on its own. But Donald Trump's now calling himself a king and. And what he's having. Ed Martin, his United States attorney, threatened members of Congress for calling for protests and saying that he's going to go after them and he's criminally investigating them. That and more on the legal A of podcast Popak. How are you? Busy week.
- [06:45]
Michael Popak
Wow. Busy week, indeed. You and I are drinking from a fire hose just to keep up with it all at the intersection of law and politics. And, you know, listen, let's just take the take a long view here. Things are working about the way that you and I and Karen had predicted they would. When the election didn't go our way, it didn't end up with democracy being reinforced, but instead a tremendous challenge to our democracy and our rule of law. With the election of our first felon president, we said the federal courts were gonna serve a historic role in a way, maybe certainly already in a way they've never had to before. Even during the civil rights movement, there were, of course, dozens and even hundreds of cases that were filed that made their way to the United States Supreme Court. But we're only four weeks and a couple of days into this administration. We already have 83 cases that have been filed in federal courts against Donald Trump's administration and his acts. And we already have, you know, almost three dozen injunctions. Whether you call it a temporary restraining order, you call it an administrative stay, you call it a preliminary, you know, you know, any of those things have already been issued against the more than 50 executive orders. Because Donald Trump, of course, is ruling by fiat in the form of an executive order, which is the weakest way for a president to operate. It's the reason why the recent Gallup IPSO poll came out and put Donald Trump at the bottom of his forget first hundred days, first four weeks. He's ten points under Joe Biden to start his administration. Two thirds of Americans think he's on the wrong track with the, with the policies that he's implementing and that he's not doing enough to help them in their daily lives. And they feel that way because he's not doing enough to help them in their daily lives at all. He's on his, as you've referred to it, he's on his retribution tour, he's on his handout money to his oligarch and tech bro buddies tour. And he hasn't gotten around to helping the American people. Federal judges are so far holding the line is holding. The firewall that we envisioned with the right federal judges in the right locations and the right appellate courts are holding. And we already have out of this cauldron of all of these lawsuits and all of these TROs bubbled up already, is the first appeal, emergency appeal by the Trump administration on an issue to the United States Supreme Court, which you and I are going to talk about. And it was a rejection for now, although I want to talk about that. We also woke up at the end of this week with the maybe, maybe, I don't know yet. I'm cautiously optimistic. The return of a robust mainstream media that has found its balls, its voice and its First Amendment freedom of press instincts. I only half joked that it's the same week that America outside of the Midas mighty and the legal afers, woke up to find that Midas touch is the number one podcast and network in the country. And that led mainstream media to have actual clips where they said, yeah, we've been, I love it, jumping on the van wagon. Yeah, we follow those guys. We love those guys. They're great. And everyone's like, who?
- [10:17]
Ben Meiselas
Who?
- [10:17]
Michael Popak
Those that aren't in our world. You know, the Joe Rogan people were all upset with it. But right on cue, right on cue, cbs, who's trying to cut a deal to to allow its parent company Paramount, to merge with Skydance, filed a very aggressive request for all of Donald Trump's finances and financials, including his meme coin in Texas. That we'll talk about that Texas case and why it's in front of Judge Kaczmarek. And then you've got Associated Press a little bit late on the draw, although I'm not sure that's going to hurt them. When we get to that segment, I'll talk about that unreparable harm. But finally waking up and saying, yeah, no, it's not okay that one of the major foundational news organizations that thousands of news entities, news media, rely on for their reporting in order to do their work, and billions of viewers, it's not okay to say you can't come into the Oval Office for press conferences. You can't come onto Air Force One. Because Donald Trump, as I joked on one of my hot takes, is like an incontinent puppy. He drops shit bombs all over the place. And you gotta be there that moment when he's really tired after 36 holes of golf on Air Force One. You gotta be on that plane for him to say something and the crazy crap that he says. And you gotta be in there in the Oval Office when he's got his co president, Elon Musk, fielding questions and you can't hear about it later. And so AP finally, after a week, finally got around to filing their motion. And we'll talk about what we think will be the results in that particular case.
- [11:50]
Legal Analyst
Look, that's why our coverage here on the Midas Touch Network has to be ruthless, relentless, and also very smart. And what's so important that we do here on Legal AF is, is to make this legal knowledge accessible. So when Stephen Miller holds a press conference, for example, and says, the role of the government is you elect a president, the President gets to tell you whatever he wants to do. He's democratically elected. And he says, you do this, you do this, and then you go, actually, let's be clear. We have multiple branches of government, three co equal branches of government. We have the executive, we have Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, and we have the judiciary. They're supposed to be co equal. Congress passes the law, and the President is supposed to faithfully execute the laws. The President is not allowed to say, I am the law. Once the law is signed, he can execute it. An executive order is not a law. An executive order is. I've described as like, if you're the captain of the ship and Congress tells you, hey, this is a cruise from New York to the Bahamas. You have to go to New York to the Bahamas because Congress tells you to go to the New York Bahamas, you can't go from New York to Greenland. That's not what the law said. An executive order sometimes says, am I going to use this type of fuel to get there? Or that type of fuel, am I going to have this amount of life rafts or that amount of life rafts to enforce the underlying law to the extent there's ambiguity. But executive orders don't come in and fundamentally change the law. When Congress appropriates money and says it's going to places, you don't get to say, no, I'm not putting it there. That's what dictators do. That's not the system that we have here.
- [13:41]
Michael Popak
You can do, sorry, you get to do means and methods to execute the law set by Congress.
- [13:48]
Legal Analyst
Exactly. As the captain, you can execute the laws, but you can't fundamentally change them. So let's go through all of the legal news, for example, and let's show you what's going on here. There are three clips, I think, that summarize it best. And then I want to get to Judge Ho's ruling. Then I want to talk about some of these TROs. And then I want to talk about the media standing up. So right here, this was from Friday. Donald Trump was hosting, because this happens, you know, every year, the governor's conference at the White House. An awkward thing when Donald Trump's attacking all of these Democratic governors every day in general. And this is, but this event's supposed to be collegial, cordial. The governors show up to the White House. There's a lunch before that. There's, you know, one that Donald Trump held with the Republican governors. But this session's the bipartisan one. It's not supposed to be controversial. But of course, Donald Trump uses it to literally call out the Democratic governor from Maine to try to bully her in public. I want you to watch what went down. Let's play the clip.
- [14:52]
Donald Trump
And is the Maine here, the governor of Maine? Are you not going to comply with it?
- [14:59]
Legal Analyst
I'm complying with state and federal laws.
- [15:01]
Donald Trump
Well, we are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't. And by the way, you pop population, even though it's somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports. So you better come, you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any, any federal funding. Every state. Good. I'll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after, governor, because I don't think you'll be in elected politics. Every state.
- [15:34]
Legal Analyst
Enjoy your life after being an elected governor. I don't think you'll enjoy it. I will not give your state federal funding. I mean, that right there, that's no longer a democracy. What you just witnessed was a dictatorship. Good For Governor Mills and standing up to Donald Trump, I do want to say one thing too. Lost in all of these executive orders that Donald Trump's given. So Donald Trump gave an interpretation of Title 9, which says that men in female sports are supposed to get equal resources. There's a major ruling that has occurred that basically says that college athletes and athletes of all forms are allowed to get paid endorsement money now for their name, image and likeness. Former President Biden said that under Title 9, which says that men and female sports get equal access to facilities and get equal access to resources, former President Biden said men and female sports in college and other entities that get funding from federal government should be equal. Just to be clear, Donald Trump's executive order, no one's really talking about this, says that that's not the case. So now all of the male sports are going to get all of the name, image and likeness revenue, which, based on the settlement that's taking place, is in the $20 million range. So women are per team. So women are literally going to lose out on hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in funding for female sports because of what Donald Trump did while attacking nine transgender athletes in the ncaa. He literally gutted female sports. It was the most anti female sports move you could possibly do. While distracting that by saying he was going after transgender people. There was nine NCAA athletes. I just wanted to make that point. Then Cash Patel sworn in as FBI director. And in his speech, again, Cash Patel, wholly unqualified, dangerous. He's now the FBI director, thanks to the spineless Republicans. Let's show you what he said when he was sworn in. Let's play it.
- [17:33]
Michael Popak
Thank you for entrusting me. Oh, man, this is effing crazy.
- [17:50]
Legal Analyst
So this is effing crazy. That's how we. That's where we are. This is effing crazy. What is effing crazy is that you have people like Cash PATEL Running the FBI. And you have Elon Musk and his brigade of 19 and 25 year olds who now have access to your Social Security information, your private information, your medical records, your tax information, access to the payment systems in the treasury, access to do anything that they want with your private information while they are firing hardworking federal employees, gutting them. Also a lot of disabled veterans destroying their lives and then mocking the individuals when they fire them. And they have like 19 year old kids who call themselves Mr. Big Balls going around. Let me just show you this right here. Here's Jamie Raskin calling himself, talking about who's running Doge Even because now they're trying to say that Elon Musk isn't running Doge. Like, what's going on here? Play this clip.
- [18:55]
Ann Selzer
The administration took the position in court this week that Elon Musk is not the head of Doge and is not leading Doge. So who is leading Doge? Is it the young man who calls himself Big Balls? Is it the racist on the night.
- [19:12]
Michael Popak
Crew who's proud of the fact that he was a racist before all of.
- [19:16]
Ann Selzer
His friends were racist and says that we should legitimize Indian hate? Who is Doge?
- [19:22]
Legal Analyst
And the reason they're saying Elon Musk now is not running Doge is because they don't want Elon Musk to get subpoenaed. They don't want him to have to go through discovery. They want to say he's a special advisor to Donald Trump so they can claim executive privilege, Presidential, Presidential Records act immunity and avoid Freedom of Information act requests and not have to be transparent while they go on social media platforms and lie about it. But yes, you have cash Patel.
- [19:50]
Michael Popak
This is crazy, man.
- [19:51]
Legal Analyst
It's that crazy. I'm the FBI director, man. I guess I'm the FBI director. You've got Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, firing four star generals, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CQ Brown, getting fired by social media posts by Donald Trump and bringing in someone who was not qualified, who had to get an exemption because they're not qualified, having people like Mr. Big Balls getting your private information and Popo. People are pissed in this moment, huh? People are angry. Right now. We're seeing it in the town halls. There's an awakening where I think every American now has been negatively impacted, whether it's the markets crashing, whether it's surging prices, whether it's getting directly fired, whether it's all of our privacy being invaded. And the, and the key here, though, Popak, is the intersection of law and politics because this is trampling over our legal rights.
- [20:51]
Michael Popak
Yeah, I mean, look, we had hoped in a perverse way, silver lining way, that Donald Trump would really be delusional and believe his own, get high on his own supply, so to speak, of his barely a bear win over Kamala Harris. I've said it before, you cannot interpret, if you're reasonable and logical, you cannot interpret what happened in November as any type of landslide or mandate or the magnification of America. Not if you look at the polling, the exit polling and the electoral data closely. We know what happened. I mean, you and I can spend shows talking about what happened. Donald Trump interpreted what the fact that he was able to overcome felony convictions and indictments to win an election, meaning he'd have a free hand to destroy the all of the parts of the government that we actually thought were working pretty well and has failed to improve. Those that aren't working very well. Like 75% of the people think the post office is just fine. It's actually the one thing that, that, that all stripes, political stripes can agree on. And that's the thing that Donald Trump has decided to completely destroy, including the $3 trillion worth of, of commerce and try to take it under his thumb in violation of federal law and turn it over to the Commerce Department. You know, if for those that were worried about their Treasury Department refunds, IRS food stamps, Social Security and other things, maybe some people still receiving them by mail and you're worried about Elon Musk interfering with it on the back end, you should worry about the failure of the Postal Service under Donald Trump who's sucking in all of the administrative agencies and all of the cabinet level positions and putting them under his greasy thumb. And he's doing it for two reasons. One, he wants to completely immobilize and undermine and hollow out these agencies. And these are the very agencies that people, blue and red state people rely on. If you're not like a business owner and you don't have a high net worth, your interaction with the government is much greater than the Republicans give it credit for. People that rely on Social Security, disability, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, student loans, veterans benefits, children, health care benefits, Obamacare, you know, it touches those tentacles, touch everyone. And Donald Trump wants to bring it all in one to slow it down and stop the funding thinking if he gives us a $2,500 doge dividend that that will replace everything that he's destroyed. And then he had this thing, I don't know if we talked, I don't think we talked about it last Saturday where he came up with an executive order where only Donald Trump and Pam Bondi, of all people who can barely put a sentence together, let alone clear thought, they're going to be the only people in America that can interpret for the executive branch and administrative agencies the law like they only they can give the opinion. Well, how is an administrator in a department or cabinet level who has to make a decision about an interpretation of a regulation? They're going to go back to Donald Trump and Pam Bondi. We're talking hundreds of agencies. Thousands of decisions every day get made because he wants to bottleneck it all in his office, because he doesn't want those agencies and departments to fulfill their missions. And if he can't cut them down to size by firing all of their staff or turning off all their funding, he's going to make them have analysis paralysis where they can't make a decision without Donald Trump's approval. You know, so you got that going on. And then on top of that, the impact on the American people, as you've laid out, the silver lining is he has swung so far to the right and tried to implement this wet dream of the Heritage foundation and Project 2025 and people on the Supreme Court like Gorsuch and Alito and Thomas, which is the unitary president, all powerful, infallible, omniscient president that floats above the other branches of government because you don't have co equal branches of government any longer under that theory. And he's taken it literally. He thinks his, his claim to fame, his legacy that he's trying to establish in front of the American people is that when he gets shot down in the midterms in two years when he loses, and I believe he'll lose badly and we'll get the House and the Senate back, that he will have at least implemented his view of the presidency. Here's the problem with it, and this is why I'm surprised even the senators are going along with it. Today it's Donald Trump tomorrow, and in three years plus, it could likely be a Democratic president. And so they're going to want all of these powers and all of the destruction of the independent regulatory agencies and the destruction of the independent FBI and the Department of Justice. They want that. If it's a president Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or J.B. pritzker or Pete Buttigieg or whoever, people we haven't even thought about yet, that would be president on the Democratic side, they're okay with that. See, that's the reason you generally don't destroy the institutions or the traditions that have kept our economy, government, civics, national security, domestic policy humming. You don't do that because you have to worry about when you lose. He is the shortest. I know it seems interminable, but he is the shortest of short term, short track presidents going because, not only because of his age, but because of the amount of time he's got left in office with only one term, doing maximum destruction as best he can. And that's why we have to tie him up and tie him down in the federal courts with injunction after injunction after injunction and just shoot that to the Supreme Court and try to win as many of those as we can to make him as lame duck as possible. The good news, as you said earlier, the good news is that he's ruling by executive order, which even the Supreme Court believes is the weakest way for a president to operate because he can't get anything passed with the maga, Congress, Senate hearing. Right? So that's good for us, because executive orders sometimes aren't worth the paper they're written on because they almost always violate, at least in the hands of Donald Trump, the Administrative procedures act, the first amendment, the 15th. You know, you name the amendment and it violates it.
- [27:54]
Legal Analyst
Look, the problem, though, is, and this is why people are letting their voices be heard as well, is because Pete Buttigieg is not going to be a dictator. Gavin Newsom's not going to be a dictator. Democrats won't rule like a dictator. Democrats will preserve an order that relied upon rules and respect. And where people are really getting pissed, though, right now is, hey, one side is breaking all of the freaking rules, and the other side is playing by the rules. And when you don't play by the rules, it's easier if you just go and threaten and extort and kill and maim and torture. That's. That's easier, but creates crisis and problems and a powder keg that we're seeing right now in the country. And it often doesn't end well for authoritarians, historically, which is why America created the system that was a beacon on the Hill for lots of other countries. And now we're reverting back. It's why people are getting pissed, because it's like, you knew that all these other people are not going to be abusive. And, you know, when a Democratic administration goes back into power, they'll be like, hey, let's bring people together. Let's unify after dealing with all of this crap. And that's the anger. Not just amongst Democrats, though, but we're seeing it in red districts as well, with all of these town halls where people like y'all are just, what are you doing? Why are you giving a kid named Big Balls my private data? What the hell are you doing? This is. This is crazy. Why are you firing disabled veterans? Why are you firing these workers? When we come back, let's get into some of these cases. I want to remind everybody about Michael Popo's new law firm. I'm so proud of him for starting the law firm. They're handling big catastrophic injury cases almost exclusively. Those types of cases. So really big car accident cases, big trucking cases, sexual assault cases. Michael Popak is representing a family who tragically lost loved ones on the crash above Washington, D.C. and he's filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration there with his new firm already. So if you have big cases like those, I'm sure Popak wants to handle all of the cases, but the reality is is that it's cases just like those. So we want to prioritize those for his firm. So Popak just quickly, what's the number?
- [30:17]
Michael Popak
Yeah, it's go to the website first. Popoc. It's the popoc firm.com thepopoc firm.com There's a form there for the free consultation and the case analysis. It's a contingency fee firm so we don't get paid unless you do. And then finally you can also call a number. It's 1-877-POPAK AF. I tried to keep it simple.
- [30:41]
Legal Analyst
Very simple. Let's take our first quick break of the show. We'll be right back.
- [30:45]
Ann Selzer
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- [32:24]
Michael Popak
If there's a sure fire way to.
- [32:26]
Ann Selzer
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- [33:53]
Michael Popak
Did you know I have a secret weapon?
- [33:55]
Ann Selzer
I know the mascot of every D1.
- [33:57]
Michael Popak
College basketball team by heart and that.
- [34:00]
Ann Selzer
Usually proves to be a great way to break the ice. Oh, so you're a Blue Hen or.
- [34:05]
Michael Popak
A Violet or a Tar Heel, right?
- [34:07]
Ann Selzer
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Michael Popak
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Ann Selzer
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Michael Popak
The fit is superb and it's classic.
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Ann Selzer
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- [35:41]
Michael Popak
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- [35:45]
Legal Analyst
Welcome back to legal af. Thank you to our pro democracy sponsors, Michael Popak. Let's get right into it. Let's talk about what the federal judge Dale Ho did in New York with respect to the attempt by the Trump administration and their very, very corrupt Department of Justice to dism prejudice the criminal bribery charges against the corrupt New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Everybody will recall that Mayor Adams was charged with engaging in various forms of bribery with foreign governments like Turkey. There was a treasure trove of evidence, but Adam started sucking up to Donald Trump. He went to Mar a Lago. He did the walk of shame Mar a Lago thing that we saw so many do at the beginning of the Trump administration. They seem to have had some quid pro quo that they talked about on Fox News thereafter about how you had Tom Holman, the borders are sitting next to Adams right there and basically saying if you don't do what I we told you to do, things are going to get a little, you know, we could come back and we could bring those charges again. You know, he made words to those effect. It was so concerning that all of these people at the Justice Department quit, including lots of right wing lawyers as well, prosecutors at the sdny, all the way to their top acting United States Attorney. There a lot of their United States assistant United States attorneys, people in Washington, D.C. and the main Justice Department, they resigned. They finally got somebody to file this dismissal. But Michael Popo, tell us, what did Judge Ho ultimately do?
- [37:23]
Michael Popak
Yeah, Judge Ho and any federal judge has what we call inherent authority. And there's also federal rules that allow him not to accept the government, which is the prosecutor we all, you know, again, again, the tutorial on how our co, equal branches of government works, the executive branches, the prosecutor, FBI, executive branch, prison system, executive branch judiciary is the keeper of the flame of the rules and the law and the interpretation. And when the prosecutor wants to generally dismiss a case, it gets dismissed and the judge has very little ability to do anything about it except in certain circumstances, unique circumstances. And that's all we talk about with Donald Trump. It's always unique operational circumstances because that's, that's his M.O. he, we saw him test the limits and go beyond it of the firewalls and guardrails around him in the criminal justice system, when he was a defendant in the criminal justice system and of course his presidency in the Department of Justice, led by the people that were his lawyers in the criminal justice system is of course they're going to follow that playbook and, and they ran into a Judge Ho and let me just talk about Dale Ho for a minute, then I'll get to his inherent authority and then we'll talk about what he did and why. I'm not entirely thrilled with what he did, but we'll talk about it. Dale Ho barely squeaked by a very staunch opposition by the Republicans to be confirmed. Great. For the Democrats and moderates, he's just the person you'd want to pick. Constitutional scholar, voting rights expert and lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP clerked in that particular courthouse. If, you know, if you weren't playing politics. Dale ho, you know, 30 years ago he would have gotten confirmed without, without really a problem with the president that picked him and Joe Biden. But here he squeaked by with one vote. But he is, it doesn't matter how many votes you get. You know, it's like the old joke about, what do you call the, the person that graduates last in his medical, medical school class. Doctor. He's, he's a federal judge for life. And I had a lot of hope. I was like, oh, this is a terrible pick for Donald Trump. Let's see what happens next. And what happened as, as you outlined or started to outline is that we got a nine page letter from Danielle Sassoon, who the New Yorkers among us know, shining star among the Federalist Society. A 38 year old Orthodox Jewish woman attorney in that office was a rock star. In fact, I was surprised she wasn't picked to be the U.S. attorney by Donald Trump. But she issued a scathing nine page resignation letter off of the quid pro quo of the exchange of the Trump administration Telling out loud, Eric Adams, you an elected official, you play ball on policy related to immigration status with us. And you know that indictment that happened under the Biden administration will sort of make it go away, but we'll hang it over your head as a sword. And if you don't play ball with us, we'll drop the guillotine and drop your head off. I mean, that's basically the deal. You know, he sat on the lap of Tom Holman almost literally during Fox and Friends. The borders are chuckling it up. And I've met Mayor Adams. I was a moron. And I donated to Mayor Adams campaign after a fundraiser when he was running. I had high hopes for Mayor Adams, as most people did. But that is the unholy corrupt deal at the center. We know it because an outgoing interim acting U.S. attorney for Manhattan said it out loud. And she also declared that not only didn't do none of the career prosecutors support the dismissal of the indictment, but they actually asked Department of Justice Pam Bondi slash Emil Bove. Who's, who's I call him the grim reaper for the Department of Justice. Until Todd Blanche gets into his, gets into the chair as the number two in the Department of Justice. He'll drop down to number three. He, he, she went to them in main justice in Washington. Danielle says soon and said we want to re indict. We want a superseding indictment because we think he lied to the FBI and he tried to destroy evidence. That's pretty damning stuff. So they said no, don't do that because we're going to be doing this deal with him. So nobody in the office wanted to sign it until Ed Sullivan, a senior member, said I'll sign the motion to dismiss or what we call Noel Pross the indictment. But he even he didn't show up in court. So all that Dale Ho had in court was Emil Bove and Alex Spiro, the lawyer for Eric Adams, who's also the lawyer for Elon Musk. Just to show you the incestuousness here of the Trump administration knows no boundaries. And what we would hope is what happened is that Dale Ho looked around the courtroom and said, I got a problem. I got nobody in opposition here because of the nature of the deal that you've struck. And I need somebody to argue the other side and get to the bottom of the facts that are set forth in Danielle Sassoon's letter. And he also knows if he didn't acknowledge it in his hearing, he knows that five or six other major prosecutors, the heads of the Public Integrity Unit in Washington resigned over this very thing because of this corrupt, potentially corrupt deal. I pushed for something else in my hot take. I thought under my interpretation of a law Supreme Court ruling that he actually has the inherent authority to go one step further. And he may still do this, which is to assign a special prosecutor to continue to prosecute the case, finding that the Department of Justice is ethically conflicted. But he's not there yet. So what he said is, I need a fact finder. I need somebody to evaluate the facts for me because Emil Bove is not going to do it. And I was like, okay, here we go. Great. You're going to use your powers to do the special counsel. Great. Who is it? And then he announced Paul Clement. And I said, are you, this is back to what you said at the top of the podcast. Are you effing kidding me? Paul Clement, the rightest of right wing former solicitor generals who was on the hump or wrong side of every major issue that matters to Democrats and fair thinking people. The guy that was on the wrong side of same sex marriage, the wrong side of gun control, the wrong side of the second amendment, the wrong side of Obamacare. That's the only guy you could who had to leave his major law firm because they told him, you can't keep taking these second amendment cases while school shootings are going on. That's the guy. This is like when Merrick Garland appointed Robert Her, a right wing Republican, to go investigate Joe Biden because they all want to bend over backwards to act impartial. You know, there are plenty of former Democratic solicitor generals if that's the road you wanted to go down, Judge Ho, that you could have selected and I would have been fine with it. I had a perfect one that I actually played up, I think right before he did it. Judge Ludig, who's been on our show, who is a Federalist Society, the founder of the Rule of Law Society, a.
- [44:26]
Ann Selzer
Former appellate court judge, he saved our democracy.
- [44:29]
Michael Popak
Let him look into it. Right? Not Paul Clement. So this is my fear and I want to get it from you, Ben. Is that Paul Clement, this, this right wing, not maga, but real right wing conservative, is not going to make himself Persona non gratis in the Republican Party. He is not going to make himself radioactive against getting other cases. Hello. He's not going to make himself radioactive against other cases and take a position that is, is an anathema or opposed to the, to, to Donald Trump and Emil Beauvais. It's almost like the Fixes in.
- [45:04]
Legal Analyst
I'd be shocked.
- [45:06]
Michael Popak
Let me finish. I'd be shocked if Clement finds. Maybe he does. Maybe he does. I mean, I'm just saying, why, why does it have to be Paul Clement? Exactly.
- [45:16]
Legal Analyst
I took a class by Paul Clement in Georgetown University Law Center. When I say I took a class, I dropped it after three classes because he was too right wing for me. And that's what if you've heard me tell the try to recruit me into the Federalist Society. And then I said, this is not for me. That's my Paul Clement story. It was a course being taught at Georgetown Law center by Paul Clement in Viet Din Viadin had written the Patriot act at that time. And Vin went on to become the general counsel of Fox during all of the election lies. And so he was all over that decision, fired with, with, with, with Rupert money. I probably got a nice payout, but. But I dropped that course and I said, I can't do that. And then I pursued a path in civil rights. Now let me give you this perspective though, which is Harry Lippman, former top federal prosecutor, literally one of the top three positions in all of the DOJ when he was in Washington D.C. he was also the top federal prosecutor in the Western District of Pennsylvania. He thought that the appointment of Paul Clement was a good thing in the hot take because he thought that, look, Paul Clements, you know, and this could just be, you know, prosecutor to prosecutor. But he thought that Paul Clement was a, was a serious guy. He thought Paul Clement would come out with a report that would likely be scathing of the decision to dismiss the case against Eric Adams. But ultimately the issue and the problem is, is that who will prosecute the case against Eric Adams if the Department of Justice refuses to because it is now a mafia organization and we have this constitutional crisis taking place. So I think the point was he doesn't expect Paul Clement to look favorably. What the outcome of all of this, you know, is that this is a corrupt deal. And maybe, you know, that one of the things I suggested is, you know, maybe what the judge can try to do is force some sort of tolling agreement amongst the parties to extend the statute of limitations, you know, you know, later on. But ultimately this is a very corrupt DOJ doing corrupt mafia style things. And I'll just give you an example. And I just want to pivot to this other incident, this other instance as well, because we'll keep track of what's going on there. But you have Ed Martin, for example, the United States attorney in Washington D.C. he's sending members of Congress letters right now saying that he's criminally investigating them. You had Congressmember Garcia got a letter, Democrat here from California, Long beach, former Long beach mayor who's on the show a lot. I think he does. He's a great Congress member. Chuck Schumer got a letter, Democratic senator from New York. And what they say they're criminally investigating them for is their speech. And they say you're encouraging violent protests against Donald Trump by telling people to take to the streets in a way that indicates violence. And you're being criminally investigated. So you have that taking place as well. And this is just who they are. I mean, the DOJ right now, it's not that it's not independent. It's that it's 100% lawless. And I want to put a lot of this blame, if not all of it also on dicta, a line that was even said in the absolute immunity ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts, who now is Woe is me, cry me a river in his annual report about we have to protect against people not following judicial orders and, and overreach by, by executive branch and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He literally said one of the categories for absolute immunity is what the president says to their attorney general, which it's like, hey, Chief Justice John Roberts, do you have no indication of the law as well that the DOJ and the main executive, even though the DOJ is part of the executive branch, but the White House and the DOJ always had a history of being independent and now you want to immunize. If the president gives directives to the attorney general, that was never the way it's supposed to be. So, Popak, I just wanted to flag that. I want to turn, though, to the tros, the one that went up to the Supreme Court. You see how I transition there, talking about the Supreme Court to the Supreme Court ruling on a TRO involving a special counsel. We'll talk about that. I also want to talk about the media finally standing up. I want to take our last quick break of the show. I want to remind everybody about Michael Popak's new law firm, the Popak Firm that he started. I'm so proud of you, Popak. I know this was something you've always wanted to do in your life to have your own firm. You started it and you took a lot of risks to start your own firm. And you've already picked up some pretty big cases. And I just want to remind everybody, just so you don't feel that Popo's like ignoring your calls or whatever. The types of cases that he's handling and the firm's handling are like the most catastrophic of cases. You know, And I'm sure everything's, you know, it's hard to value a crisis versus another crisis. So I don't want to diminish anything. But what I mean is Popox handling a trucking accident involving someone getting killed by the truck. Popox handling the case involving people on the airplane who lost their lives. And he's representing the family over D.C. in the case against the Trump administration. You know, there are other vehicles for other types of cases, but that those are just not the types of cases that Popak's going to be on the Popoc. What's the phone number for the firm?
- [50:56]
Michael Popak
Yeah, it's 1-877-popak af. The popoc firm.com is where you would go for that. And just one last thing on that. You know, we're honored to represent the family of a victim on the flight over D.C. a couple of days after the Trump administration took over. And that one, that, that's in the way. It should work in the way the way I envisioned it. I got a phone call directly from a member of the Midas Mighty and the legal aers who was a close relative of the deceased. And I, we jumped on it and I jumped on it and, and now representing them and, and, you know, not our. You might. People might have heard there was a $250 million filing for somebody, a husband that lost her life. We're not representing that particular person, but, but I am representing others, another person that was in that particular flight. And so it has been humbling that it is that I'm able to work so closely with the Midas money and the Legal AF for some things that matter.
- [51:54]
Legal Analyst
So reach out to Popak on that if you have any cases that are like that. Let's take our last quick break of the show reminder at the the Legal AF YouTube channel. Crushing it. Subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel as well. Let's get them to a million subscribers. I want to see them hit a million subscribers by the time we hit 5 million subscribers. So let's get there together. Let's take our last quick break of the show, everyone. Thank you.
- [52:17]
Ann Selzer
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Michael Popak
But here's the deal.
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Ann Selzer
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Michael Popak
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Ann Selzer
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- [57:28]
Legal Analyst
AF welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of those pro democracy sponsors. I'm feeling energized. I'm feeling pumped up on this episode of Legal AF Popoc. Let's talk about some of the various TROs. You have Judge Ali in Washington D.C. saying that Elon Musk Donald Trump could be held in contempt in the future for usaid. And hey, I I issued a temporary restraining or temporary restraining order saying that you can't stop funding these organizations. They need to stay funded based on what Congress appropriated fund them and there's evidence to suggest that you're not complying with the order. The judge didn't hold them in contempt on this hearing, but indicated that the judge would be looking into that as well. So I think we're going to be seeing a wave of those types of cases as well. You also had some of these states, state AGs, by the way, I did an interview earlier today with the Arizona attorney general, Chris Mays. She didn't mince words. Go back and watch that interview that dropped earlier today where she called what Musk and Trump was doing. She called it a coup. And I want you to know and I like that you have attorney generals out there so strong with their language and actually calling what it is because that is what it is in my opinion. So then she and other bunch of other attorney generals also again reinforcing that Elon Musk can't have access to this treasury data that he was trying to get. Who knows if he's already gotten it is the reality is that he and Big Balls and all of his people probably already have that information anyway that will come out during discovery. And we're hearing all these people saying can we subpoena Elon Musk already? And that's one of the things I asked Chris Mays, which was like, let's, let's get why don't you just depose Elon, get Elon under oath so he can answer these questions. That's the way our system should work. But Popak, tell us about the one that went down in the Supreme Court.
- [59:32]
Michael Popak
Yeah, that one is interesting because of what it means for the future and the lineup here. On its face, it was really just the first of you know, we've outlined there's 20 or 30 preliminary injunctions. Generally, appellate courts stay away from the first level of injunctions, which we call temporary restraining orders or or administrative stays, because it's not ripe yet and they don't really have their jurisdiction until there's at least the next level up, which is a preliminary injunction. They sound the same. They're based on the same factors. It's just the way it's just the way the record is prepared and it's and kind of the whether it's a final order or a certain type of what we call a writ. And so appellate courts don't generally deal with temporary restraining orders. However, there's one involving the Office of Special Counsel, which sounds like what Jack Smith was, but it's not the prosecutors. It's another sort of misnamed department within the America the our US Government that deals with federal workers and laws that apply to them. It's an important position. And Biden appointed somebody that I know, Hampton Dellinger, to be the special, the special counsel in the Office of Special Counsel with a five year term. And he can only be removed under the, the way that office was created by law. He can only be removed for, for some wrongdoing, you know, for some cause, not because he's the wrong party. That's why we've always had like Postmaster Generals that end up being the Postmaster General for the next incoming president or the FBI director on a 10 year term or the federal reserv chairman on a 10 year term, overlapping administrations on purpose. Because Congress didn't want to make these positions to play things of politics and make them political. So that Donald Trump can say, I don't want postal. I'll take that postal service, I'll take this. Well, that's why laws were put in place not to do this. So Hampton Dellinger ran to D.C. circuit Court, D.C. trial court level, federal court, and got a temporary restraining order because there's no grounds to remove him. You, you did a little bit of disclosure. I'll do the same thing. Hampton is the son of my constitutional law professor, the late Walter Dellinger, who was a Solicitor General of the United States, was the White House counsel. His mother, Ann Dellinger, a titan in the world of government government School of government at the University of North Carolina. Law and politics at the intersection is how he was created and it's in his blood. You couldn't ask for a finer, more upstanding, more eth than Hampton Dellinger for the position. So all of this is just BS in politics. A he took there was an appeal of the TRO, which is already unusual, to the D.C. circuit Court. In a 2 to 1 decision, a Trumper Katzis voted against. Two of the judges of the D.C. circuit said we don't have jurisdiction. This is a temporary restraining order. And the judge is holding a preliminary hearing on the preliminary injunction in like eight days. Why are you here? Go away. Well, that wasn't good enough for Donald Trump. I don't know why they thought this was the best first case to, to bring up and run up the flagpole with the United States Supreme Court. But they did. And so they filed an emergency application, emergency writ with the United States Supreme Court, which usually ends up on what, what we used to disparagingly call the shadow docket and handled by the first judge that's responsible for that particular circuit, which in Washington is Chief Justice Roberts. Roberts sort of turned it over to the rest of the nine. You know, of the panel, rather than make the decision himself, he could have made it himself and just said, we got five, eight days now, five days until the hearing about whether he should be reinstated or not. Why are we here? But he didn't. He just did an administrative stay effectively and held it in abeyance with the support of everybody. Well, we don't know if it was everybody. I'll tell you who dissented until the hearing on Thursday or Friday. And so it's a loss on, on paper at the Supreme Court. But let's get down, let's get to the molecular level. Gorsuch wrote a dissent that was joined by Alito. That is, sends a chill down my spine the way it was written because they are, they drank the Kool Aid when it comes to the unitary president theory, as has Kavanaugh, about the president can do no wrong, can commit no crime, and therefore, if he doesn't want to have the person occupying the office, he shouldn't be forced even for five days or five minutes to have the person that's not of his choice. Regardless of what the statute says, regardless of what the life, the five year appointment says. He shouldn't, he should, he shouldn't. It shouldn't be allowed at all. And he took great umbrage, Gorsuch, that he, that President Trump or any president would be forced to work with somebody he doesn't want to work with for even five days. I was like, are you effing kidding me? Completely ignoring the substance of anything. And so he would have reversed this thing and done it now, as would Alito. What it means for me in the future is that if, if we're looking to the Supreme Court to be the firewall against Donald Trump and his rogue behavior from a power, an exercise of power or abusive power standpoint, we got some problems because Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas, who have formed this unholy trinity, this triumvirate, there's no doubt now where Gorsuch is. He's always on the hump side. He's always on that side. And that leaves in the middle, even though it's center, right, middle, center or center, right, right, middle. Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, because the Democrats, the democratically appointed wing of the Supreme Court, are going to find that Donald Trump is out of his mind and out of control time and time again. Question is, how do we get from three votes to five votes to count to five in order to stop Donald Trump? And it's going to come down. Kavanaugh, you know, I used to call Him a free radical. He's not. He is more likely than not to get pulled over in the tug of war over to Gorsuch aside, which means we gotta fight, fight, fight. When we, when whoever's the Supreme Court advocate who's ever doing the briefing, the amicus briefs, we gotta aim for Amy Coney Barrett and hope that Roberts comes along more often than not to form a 5 to 5 to 4 on things that matter about reshaping this relationship between the presidency, Congress, Senate, you know, Congress, including the Senate and the House and the American people, because that's what we're watching before our very eyes. Donald Trump's, his intended legacy is to completely disconnect. He says he's making it more accountable. He's not. He's disconnecting the White House and the presidency from the accountability to the American people. Certainly no check or balance is, is, is in the works with his legacy. And the question is, is this John Roberts already, you know, listen, when they write the books about the worst Supreme Court justices, you know, and you and I studied, you know, this heavily in, in law school, you know, I can name two or three that were pretty terrible. I mean, John Roberts, I mean, the things that have happened on his watch between reproductive rights, abortion rights, voting rights, the immunity decision, insurrectionists, empowering this leviathan, this Frankenstein monster that's ravaging the countryside in the form of Donald Trump's presidency, he's going to go down in history. The question is, in the remaining time he has left until he resigns or retires, is he going or dies, is he going to start fixing what he broke with the immunity decision that you outlined? I don't know. What do you think?
- [67:44]
Legal Analyst
No, I think that he's horrible. I think they're all horrible. And I think that a lot of these cases, at the most extreme level of kind of Trump abuse birthright citizenship. I think the Supreme Court will uphold birthright citizenship when it comes to, you know, some of the kind of outright, expressly authoritarian. Maybe you'll get a 5, 4 decision stopping Donald Trump there. I think on a lot of the other stuff, when it comes to taking away people's Medicaid and Social Security and the kind of the pain they're inflicting on everyday Americans through a lot of these, the dismantling of the government. I think ultimately the Supreme Court, you know, I think, I think at some point you have to come to the realization that the right wing measures their wealth not in their own monetary gain, because how many yachts and planes do you need, but in the. In the suffering of others. And I think you just have to come to the conclusion sometimes that these are just horrible human beings and they're evil and they're bad people and they want bad outcomes because they like to see people hurt. And I think that the litigation strategies we discuss and the fighting back is essential. If you cede the legal fights, then they'll bulldoze all of this. But to me, the legal is a major weapon. But it's not the only one. It's a major. It's so needed. But you can't rely on the Supreme Court to ever do anything good. They've demonstrated that when they call themselves conservative, they mean conserving the monarchy and conserving what was before the Declaration of Independence. That's my view of what they've meant this whole time. But I don't want to be like, oh, so we know we need this. The same way in a war, you need different types of tools. This is an important one. It's important to stop what the unlawful acts. It's important that people see when the Supreme Court doesn't do the right thing over and over again. But again, we. We are. You are listening to this. You are the person you've been waiting for. Yes, it would have been great if it was Jack Smith or this prosecutor or that leader, but it's you watching at home. It's you fighting for your rights and defending your freedoms. That's what it's going to come down to, in my view. Finally, Popak, I want to talk about, though, the media fighting back. You have Ann Selzer's incredible opposition, basically saying that this is to Trump's lawsuit. This is the stupidest lawsuit that's ever been filed ever. She basically says, you're suing me because you didn't like my poll. Is this the dumbest piece of tr. I mean, she doesn't use these exact words, but is this the dumbest piece of trash lawsuit that ever exists? And what are your damages? What are. What are you even talking about? It's axiomatic that polling of politics is First Amendment protected speech. Get the hell out of here. Judge. Federal judge in Iowa. Dismiss this piece of trash right now. Or. Or do you want to be the first judge ever that makes a ruling that will go down in history as even maybe one of the stupidest rulings ever? That's basically. If you paraphrase what they argued, that's what they argued there. Then you had cbs, as I said at the outset of the show, saying, hey, we haven't reached any settlements yet. We want discovery. It's in their case. Management order was filed in that case. And they basically said, look, Donald Trump joined Ronnie Jackson, the Congress member from Amarillo, Texas. The hell? And they're both claiming that their injury. What is their cause of action? Consumer damages. They're saying that they were hurt as consumers in Texas for $20 billion. For $20 billion. Even Judge Kazmark, this is, you know, and, and I think the approach by cbs, they won't say it. They'll be like, look, Judge Kazumeric, we know you're, we know you're a MAGA judge, but if you go this far, you're just going to look like the stupidest. And it's gonna hurt your ability to actually be the MAGA judge because people will view you as the biggest clown ever if you're gonna say that this is a, that this is a viable case. Like, what are we even talking about? But they said, look, let's take, let's take some discovery of Donald Trump. As I said in another hot take, I was like, look what Cohen did. Cohen said, I want Trump's deposition. And then Trump had to dismiss the case because Trump was too chicken shit to show up for his own deposition. So just take discovery of this idiot, this vexatious piece of crap, whiny, bratty, golden spoon, oligarchical, freaking moron. Just ask for his deposition. Oh, yeah. I'll tell you how I really feel about that pathetic, weak idiot who's running the country right now. Into the ground, I should say. And then you had the Associated Press file a lawsuit. We talked about it at the outset, so we don't need to go into it in that much detail. But Popak, I do think it's just worthwhile to give a little bit of gloss over it. In addition to what I said, what do you think about those lawsuits?
- [73:05]
Michael Popak
I was not. I'm going to tie it together the way you. You won't. I think that means I, I gave up on mainstream media a long time ago. That's why I joined independent media and helped you and your brothers with this, this network and with, and forming Legal af because I, I, as a consumer, was disheartened by. And I've been a consumer of mainstream media my entire life. My mother used to joke that I read the New York Times cover to cover when I was 8. You know, we live close to New York. And so that, you know, I shared people's disappointment. And we knew that the legal and political issues were Giving were being given short shrift by mainstream media that who couldn't figure out a way to make a buck with it or couldn't figure out that their audience craved it or needed it, especially in the era of Trump or the time of Trump. And so I kind of, you know, and then you see, you know, how, how people consume news. You know, Most people before YouTube, before even Midas Touch were getting their news from like Facebook depending upon what era you grew up in or what generation you are, you know, Facebook and Instagram and Tick Tock and everything else and had been cut in the cord a long time ago leading to, you know, sort of this explosion on YouTube. Now a real estate piece that's now occupied and, and conquered by Midas Touch and its audience. Can't do it without the audience. And so we, we're always humbled by those that support us. So the tech guys, tech bros that were running the Facebooks and the Amazons and the Bezos who were all worried about shareholder value and the size of their yacht is lining the Trump pockets with hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm not making that number up. It's not hyperbolic. Since the election like Melania gets $40 million from Jeff Bezos for what reason? The next highest. He could have just bid 12 million and $1 and beat Disney. Why did he pay 40 million? And we'll put that aside for a minute. So you had all them bending over and everybody donating for the, the Trump, the Trump library, whatever that I think they should donate to a Jan6 museum like the 911 museum. That's what I think America really needs for that era. Now you've got cbs, which is in a weird spot because they're dealing with the deal maker in chief who thinks everything's transactional and everything's a deal. Cuts the legs out from under, under Ukraine in order to bring them to the table about rare earth mineral mining, in order to cut the deal with Russia and not give back and not obtain any of the territory that was, that was violently taken away from them. You got, he's got that guy going on. And so CBS is owned by Paramount. Paramount wants to do a merger and with Skydance and that has to be approved by the fcc, the Trump fcc. And so I thought, well, they're just going to of cave on this $20 billion number because they don't like the way Bill. Bill Whitaker's interview with, with Kamala Harris was clipped and edited for Face the Nation. I'm like, are you effing kidding me? First of all, like this is like an seltzer. You won the election. Okay? So whatever, whatever you know, promo clip they were using for with on 60 Minutes, this didn't work. And when you see the transcripts by the way, side by side of what the full paragraph was of Kamala Harris's response about Israel and the clip, I mean it's a legitimate edit. They always say in 60 minutes for the full interview, go to when they give you the website and go look at the full interview if that's what you're interested in. But they get to make editorial decisions as part of editing, as part of the First Amendment and freedom of the press. The 20 billion is bigger than the amount Paramount is worth. And how is, how was possibly Donald Trump injured $20 billion. So they filed a joint report where they told Judge Kacmarek who was hand picked to because he's that single venue Amarillo Texas guy, right wing, anti woman, anti abortion, former lawyer, now judge. They picked him on purpose. They slid Ronnie Jackson, the personal doctor for Donald Trump election Denier vaccine Denier Covid Denier. They slid him in there just to have a Texas nexus, you know. And how is he damaged under a consumer fraud statute? Because they didn't like that one extra line because they wanted to argue that she's, she, she, she says word salad out loud. I don't even understand the pr. This case should be thrown out of federal court quickly. But at least they did it. Maybe it's just a buy time to cut the deal, but at least they did something saying we want all your financial information about your meme coin and your finances, all that. Then you had ap, Associated Press finally got around. I don't know it took him so long. Finally got around after being banned and barred from the Oval Office and Air Force One for Donald Trump but not having their press credentials taken away because they're trying to, they're trying to thread the needle of Jim Acosta. What happened to him in 2018 with CNN where he was just, CNN was just barred from the press conferences. Like sorry, you're not, you're not allowed in here. They're letting AP in, but not in the places where they want to be and they need to be. And that impacts billions of viewers of AP, Associated Press related things. So they have finally gotten around to file a temporary restraining order alleging first Amendment and fifth Amendment, which is the property interest has been taken away from them. Their ability to do their job without due process. That's the exact same foundational attack that CNN successfully used. And the Trump administration backed down with Jim Acosta, eventually got his full credentials back. I think the same thing's going to happen here very, very quickly, and they're going to have to relent and let AP back in. The only reason I said it's a little bit late is that I would have filed this within 48 hours. There is this concept that you and I have talked more about than we care to called irreparable harm. Everybody's becoming an injunction expert on legal AF and irreparable harm. One aspect of it is the thing is so bad that's happening to you and can't be fixed with money damages at some later time. You can't unscramble the egg or put the toothpaste back in the tube. And one way you demonstrate that is you're the velocity at which you enter the courtroom. And sometimes, depending upon the type of injury, the judge will say, well, you've undermined your own argument for irreparable harm, which is a threshold issue for tro, because where have you been? It's eight days later. That's what hung up Judge Chuck did, among other things, with, with the New Mexico and the Chris Mays lawsuit about the funding and the Elon Musk issue. She's like, why'd you wait so long? And. And what is your irreparable harm? So I think the nature of the harm, it's not going to matter a few days now that it's been filed, because it can't be fixed and it can't be resolved with money damages. It is by its very nature the definition of irreparable harm. So I think they're okay. I would have liked to have seen that suit a long time ago, but maybe they were waiting to see if he would relent. We'll see what they say in their papers once we fully digest them. So you have all of that going on and then you got Ann Seltzer, which I don't even understand. She was the leading Iowa pollster for, for like five or six different elections, and she got it wrong. This time. Most of mainstream media and pollsters got it wrong, although it's still within the margin of error for his. For Donald Trump's win. She had her final poll of polls. She had Kamala Harris winning Iowa. I guess his argument is he had to put more money into Iowa because the pollster said something about her potentially being able to win. He ended up winning by a lot in Iowa and he ended up winning the election. So what are as she said, what are the damages? So I agree. I think. And she, she retired from being a pollster after, after this mess. You know, she's like, I'm, I'm out. I'm done. That was, I'm, I'm out. So I, again, it's just Donald Trump using his personal vendettas that he developed a taste for during, when he wasn't president, going after Michael Cohen, going after the Pulitzer Prize board, going after the New York Times, going after this one, another one, trying to get money here, there and everywhere. Now that he's president, he figured out, oh, I can line my own pocket with. Because this is like, personal to him, you know, this money. He's probably effectively prosecuting a case, a civil case, to line his own pocket using, using the presidency. It's a, it is a violation of the emoluments clause. He's not using private lawyers for this. And wait till the taxpayers.
- [82:03]
Ann Selzer
And will you.
- [82:03]
Michael Popak
And I'll try to figure it out with Freedom of Information act request. If we can figure it out. Wait till the taxpayers see the amount of tax dollars spent by the Department of Justice and the lawyers they're going to have to hire to go off these follies. These. We're up. We're at, at three. Sorry. We're at almost three cases a day being filed against the Trump administration. Well, on them. Well on my way. Well on their way to the three or four thousand before the end of the term that I predicted. But we're paying for it because they're playing with house money. The Department of Justice is going to hire more lawyers, going to have more budget. He got all hot and bothered about Jack Smith spending $15 million, half of which was for security to keep people from getting murdered on his, in his group for the prosecution. This is going to pay.
- [82:51]
Ann Selzer
This is going to be hundreds of.
- [82:52]
Michael Popak
Millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars defending these ridiculous lawsuits filed. Three at three a day.
- [82:59]
Legal Analyst
Let me give you this perspective, too. With these lawsuits over Trump doing patently unlawful things, and also Donald Trump using the Department of Justice to pursue his own personal petty grievances. And also good, qualified prosecutors leaving having people like Cash Patel running the FBI, what that's going to lead to is just making us all less safe. The same way we can't really trust the FAA anymore or any of these agencies, because the goal of them is to destroy the agencies, whether it's air travel, the quality of food that we're eating, medicine as they got the CDC putting unqualified people like Pete Hegseth in charge of the Defense Department. When you bring this to the area of law, when you're prosecute, when you're losing your top talent and they're focused on doing Trump stuff for Trump and not carrying out law and order, think about the cost that that's going to have. People defrauding Social Security, people defrauding Medicaid and Medicare. Like actual fraud that takes place of people who set up Medicaid and Medicare fraud, for example, in these systems that would normally be prosecuted. Enforcement divisions are going to go away there. When you remove the kleptocracy division that would investigate the Russian oligarchs from bribing people, ultimately this stuff has a devastating effect as well on the economy and on safety. And are these people even prosecuting crimes or are they going to be focused more on just fudging numbers, lying about things while crime increases as well? I want people to pay attention to that. And that's something that is not getting enough attention, is they're focused on all of these issues that are like Trump personal crap and they're not focusing on we the people and doing what their job is in government. They have this real horrific, oligarchical, Putinesque view of government and they're trying to impose that on Americans. And there's this tension right now where finally it feels that Americans who were kind of frozen, hoping the institutions help world Americans are like, nah. And it's not just a Democrat thing. It's. It's not just an independent thing. You know, I'm watching Republicans in Oklahoma's first congressional district. I'm watching Republicans in plus 18 congressional districts in purple states. I'm watching people saying, what the hell are you talking about? And then these politicians are speaking like they're on X. Like literally, you know, the social media platform, not. Not the drug, but it is a drug in its own way of like, hey. And people like, what, What? What? What are you talking. You're a meme. What the hell are you. Just get Mr. Big Balls out of my private documents and stop. Stop allowing Elon Musk to do these things and hey, you coward. You freaking Republican coward. Then get the guy to testify in Congress and say what he's doing. You're going to knock. You're too spineless to allow him to require him to testify. You've created a DOGE subcommittee, but you're not having him testify. Well, that doesn't seem pretty transparent to me. It sounds like a bunch of bullshit and people are angry. You're so. You saw people in Nebraska, 2500 watching Bernie Sanders and, and John Fain, the head of the auto workers union, you know, talking about we got to stand up for the workers. People are realizing the massive rug pull of this Trump administration and rising up. And I hope that we here at the Midas Touch network played a part in that. And we hope we're educating you with the arsenal of the law, the full panoply of it so you understand what's really going here, what's B.S. what's real, and then. And then utilize it and you could form your own opinions. But I want to go down at a very granular level what's taking place. That's why we have this show. I want to thank everybody for watching. I want to remind you right now also about Michael. I'm so proud of Popak for starting his law firm. I know it was a lot of risk. I know there was a lot of pressure. When you start a new law firm and you're starting a whole new thing, it's always very risky. So it's. I'm glad to see that, you know, because we've always had people here who, you know, whether they were in a car accident, a trucking accident, and a case of, like, really bad employment discrimination, they were sexually assaulted by, you know, law enforcement or a boss or, you know, received horrific, harassing text messages where they have, where they have lots of evidence or just, you know, the plane crash, you know, things like that.
- [87:37]
Michael Popak
Medical malpractice. Yeah, people were up.
- [87:40]
Legal Analyst
Medical malpractice. You know, people were always saying, hey, Popa, can you do this? And you couldn't. So you're like, all right, Ben. It's just so overwhelming with the amount of requests I'm getting. I'm starting my own thing. And sure enough, already you've taken on a number of cases from our audience. And, and these are you know, really, you know, really tragic, really important cases. And the people feel so comfortable, you know, knowing that, you know, that, that, that, that they've reached out to the Popoc firm. So, Michael, where can they reach you?
- [88:12]
Michael Popak
Yeah, I made it easy. So you don't have to guess. It's the Popak Firm. P O, P O K. Of course, the Popak Firm is the website. And you'll. Within seconds, you'll end up in the right place there. And then a 1-800number that I thought was catchy and people would remember. 1-877-popak- AF.
- [88:33]
Legal Analyst
There you have it, everybody. Thank you for watching this episode of Legal af. Look, the fact that Midas is beating Joe Rogan out, that's great. But what's more important to me is that we get our message out to the biggest audiences out there. And this is all a testament to you, our audience. So, from those bottom of our hearts, thank you for sharing this with other people, telling people to subscribe, being a member of the Midas, mighty, being legal AERs. Thank you. Thank you. None of this is possible without you, and we're just so grateful for you. So shout out to the legal aers and shout out to the Midas. Might.