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- [00:00]
Karen Freeman
Moms deserve our very best, especially on Mother's Day. There's only one place I trust to deliver high quality mom approved rose bouquets.
- [00:08]
Michael Popak
1-800-Flowers.Com this year, 1-800-Flowers wants to make.
- [00:12]
Karen Freeman
Sure all the mothers in your life get the best with double the roses for free. When you buy one dozen, they'll double your bouquet to two dozen roses. To claim the double roses offer, go to 1-800-flowers.com Spotify. That's 1-800-flowers. Com Spotify.
- [00:28]
Michael Popak
Thank the official florist of Mother's Day.
- [00:31]
Karen Freeman
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Michael Popak
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Karen Freeman
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Michael Popak
Or your money back.
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Karen Freeman
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Michael Popak
It's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95 including prescription lenses plus scratch resistant, smudge resistant and anti reflective coatings and UV protection and free adjustments for life. To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses or contact lenses, or to find.
- [01:24]
Karen Freeman
The Warby Parker store nearest you, head.
- [01:26]
Michael Popak
Over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker.com 10 years from today, Lisa Schneider will trade in.
- [01:34]
Karen Freeman
Her office job to become the leader.
- [01:35]
Michael Popak
Of a pack of dogs as the owner of her own dog rescue. That is a second act made possible.
- [01:41]
Karen Freeman
By the reskilling courses Lisa's taking now with AARP to help make sure her income lives as long as she does. And she can finally run with the.
- [01:49]
Michael Popak
Big dogs and the small dogs who.
- [01:51]
Karen Freeman
Just think they're big dogs. That's why the younger you are, the.
- [01:54]
Michael Popak
More you need AARP.
- [01:56]
Karen Freeman
Learn more at aarp.org skills Imagine you're a business owner relying on a dozen different software programs, each one disconnected. More expensive and more complicated than the last, it can be incredibly stressful right now. Picture Odoo Odoo brings all the tools your business needs into one simple CRM Accounting, Inventory, manufacturing, marketing, HR and more. All seamlessly connected. Everything works together, giving you the peace of mind that your business is running smoothly from every angle. Odoo's open source applications are user friendly and designed to scale with your business, saving you time and money. Say goodbye to juggling multiple platforms and hello to efficient integrated management. Stop wasting resources on complicated systems and make the switch to odoo today. Visit odoo.com o d o o.com and discover how Odoo can simplify and streamline your business operations. Odoo Modern Management Made Simple. Well, it's the midweek. It feels like it's longer. We've got Karen Freeman, Nickniffalo and Michael Popak on Legal af. We got to talk about a number of things, Karen, of course we got the Armando Abrego Garcia update. Judge Zinnis threw the book at the Trump administration and reminded the lawyers there that they are also under her under her jurisdiction in a new discovery order on the way to contempt. The clock is at about 11:50pm before it strikes midnight for another contempt finding by another federal judge against the Trump administration related to how they're handling the return of or not handling the return of our Armando Abrego Garcia. We had a 1am and this is sort of rock the world of the Trump administration. This was a terrible week for them. No matter what you see in their social media postings or with Carolyn Levette, their press secretary or with Donald Trump, you know, wherever he is, this was a terrible rock their world week for them in courts. 1:00am Supreme Court, they don't issue orders unless they're trying to save somebody from the death penalty for being like lethally injected at 1am that was a miscalculation by the Trump administration because 7 to 2 the Supreme Court made a ruling that said that Donald Trump needed to stop his deportations and sending people to El Salvador until they get their minds around the appeal. I think they stepped out of, they didn't even have jurisdiction to do that. But there's a deep skepticism which is set in at the Supreme Court. And now Donald Trump has seen that, oh crap, we're losing the Supreme Court. He, he needs five votes for all of his crazy things. So now the worm has started to turn. And in a new thing that I don't think the Trump administration thought was going to see the light of day, they have said that they have started the diplomatic negotiations to try to get Abrego Garcia back. This 1am case in another matter involving Venezuelans and removal to El Salvador has rocked Donald Trump's world. We're going to talk about it and rock jurisprudence. I mean, that combined with the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals led by Judge Wilkinson just a couple of days before that, that back to back bookends, that is not with the Department of Justice and Donald Trump wanted to see and they're starting to reverse course as far as I can see as a result. Then we got an update in New York. Who better to do that with than my, my podcast partner, Karen Freeman. Nicknifolo we're going to talk about Letitia James. You know, she comes out with I'm looking into insider trading related to the tariff stop and start and they fire back with the Trump administration is we're looking at whether you committed mortgage fraud. All right, well we'll break all that down. And, and Letitia James has already come back, defended herself related to that looked retaliatory to me. And then lastly, speaking of retaliatory, we got law firms who have basically the world is divided into two parts here. And we got the law firms who are generally litigation trial based law firms where they make their money and their reputation, who are fighting back strongly against the Trump administration and they're winning. That would be Jenner and Block, Wilmer Hale, Perkins Coy. And they've now been joined. You know, finally the, our profession got off the mat and started to decide which side they're on. 500 law firms filed an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coy and General Block. And the rest, 400 former federal judges have done the same thing in these amicus briefs. And we got two cases, one in front of Judge Beryl Howell, who Donald Trump lost his mind over again, and Judge Richard Leon Leon in the district courthouse in Washington who had both had hearings in different cases, one for Wilmer Hale, one for Perkins Coy. But it went terribly for the Trump administration based on reports from inside the room about whether the blacklist or blacklisting of these law firms by Donald Trump, by declaring and proclaiming in an executive order that he was going to cut off all ability for these law firms to basically ply their trade to represent clients in front of federal agencies, to represent clients in front of federal courts, to go into federal buildings, cut off all contracts that the government may have had with these people. For some of these law firms, it is devastating. It is actually the very definition of irreparable harm. It could put these firms out of business. And the first two that we're seeing are related to the Russia investigation in Mueller. Wilmer Hale I think had represented people related to that. And I think, I don't know if Jack Smith went there. I have to look it up during a quick break. But they're, they're seen as an enemy of Donald Trump, as is Perkins Coy. Who's they? Donald Trump thinks It's responsible for the Steele dossier because a guy named Sussman and a guy named Mark Elias, who used to work at Perkins Coy, you know, may have submitted that to the FBI as part of representing Hillary Clinton. Oh, it's complicated. But it's not complicated to the judges because they had some choice words for the Trump administration. Let's bring on Karen. Let's get into our midweek episode. Hi, Karen.
- [08:05]
Michael Popak
How are you? Popoc. I see you're back home.
- [08:08]
Karen Freeman
I'm back home, yeah. The termites have. Termites had one last party dance and then we killed them all. And then we just had to. So it was either them or us. And we chose us. So that was that. Now we're back in our home. And I know that you're not feeling your tip top, tip top today, but we're, you know, rain or shine, man, we're going to put this show on, right?
- [08:29]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. Always, always. Can't miss it.
- [08:32]
Karen Freeman
Yeah. Great. All right, so let's, let's start with our, you and I didn't get to talk about the Armando Abrego Garcia. We, we, we have this amazing, I mean, seriously, it should, we should use it as a teaching, a teaching tool for lawyers on how to write powerfully, eloquently in seven pages or less. It would take most judges other than Harvey Wilkinson, 50, 60 pages. Right. Karen. To do what he accomplished in seven or eight at the Fourth Circuit supporting Judge Zenis about the Armando Abrego. But it went beyond that. And we'll talk. Well, when I, when you and I are bouncing it back and forth, it went beyond that because it seems to have gotten in to that hard little head of Donald Trump and his administration that if they lost a judge like Harvey Wilkinson and a revered icon of federalists, of federalism, a rock rib Republican, an arch conservative. If they've lost him, then you know, that's not great for the positions they're taking before all these federal judges and they seem to have turned a little bit. But why don't you dive into that? We can talk about what Judge Zinnis did just late yesterday with her and her new order issued today about how the government is effing around with her in the Armando Abrego Garcia case.
- [09:54]
Michael Popak
Yeah. So District Court Judge Zinnis is very frustrated because if you remember, she ordered expedited discovery in this case, meaning you're going to take depositions, we're going to figure out what happened, who did what, why, interrogatories, all that kind of stuff. And she Basically, in another short order, I think it was seven or eight pages, she said that the Trump administration is not acting in good faith and that this expedited fact finding process for Abrego Garcia was intentional non compliance with their obligation to produce information. I mean, those are fighting words to have a judge say that. So she issues this eight page order, extremely critical of how the DOJ has been navigating this whole process. And she's basically going after them and saying, look, look, you're not complying with the order to, quote, facilitate his return. And that's the term of art here, to facilitate his return from El Salvador. A couple of quotes that I'm pulling out of the order. So, quote, for weeks, the defendants have sought refuge behind vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield of obstruction to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with the court orders. Defendants have known at least since last week that this court required specific legal and factual showings to support any claim of privilege. Yet they've continued to rely on boilerplate assertions. That ends now. They're asserting some vague kind of government privilege, but they're not explaining it because there is no such thing as a government, just a vague government privilege. So she ordered them and said, look, you have to provide me with more specific legal and factual basis for why you're invoking this vague privilege in order to avoid providing any written discovery to Abrego Garcia's attorneys that they've been seeking. And so, you know, she reiterates that she's expressly warned defendants and the counsel to adhere to this. These discovery obligations don't just give boilerplate answers, which people often do in interrogatories. You know, you admit you deny or whatever it is. You just, you really kind of just put these boilerplate answers. She wants real substantive answers. And she's saying things like, this is a willful refusal to comply with this court's discovery order. I mean, those are very, very, very strong words for a federal judge. And this is very. This is just unbelievable. I think what she's setting up here, and you've said it a couple of times, that this is a complete setup for a, for holding somebody in contempt. But, yeah, it's. Judges are getting sick and tired of this farce that's going on with Abrego Garcia. Right? You've got, you' you've got. The Supreme Court's basically saying you gotta facilitate his return back. And then you've got Stephen Miller with the New York Times article Crossing Out. He basically writes in red pen over the title. He's not coming back. He kind of corrects the, he corrects what he says is the New York Times title of the article about it. And they're just basically giving the middle finger to the courts, to all the courts, including the Supreme Court and everywhere in between. And Judge Zinnis is just, she's had it and she's not, she's absolutely not. She's not going to have it much longer. So, you know, she basically again says calls what the government's doing a false premise. You know, she's accusing them of lying. And it's, she says the defendants and their counsel well know that the falsehood lies not in any supposed premise, but in their continued mischaracterization of the Supreme Court Court's order. That order made clear that the court properly required the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to assure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. And this is, you know, the interesting thing about all of this is there's two different laws that they could send him under kind of a criminal law under the Alien Enemies act, which is this old timey 1800s law that basically they use to send some to deport certain people to Sukkot, this, this El Salvadorian prison. And then there's just good old fashioned immigration law that, that also you use to, that, that they're using to deport people as well. But when you're on the soil, you have certain constitutional rights. You have the right, for example, to not have cruel and unusual punishment. So if he's relying on the Alien Enemies act, like think of an extreme example. Could he send somebody under the Alien Enemies act that he's removing under the statute, sending them to jail in say a war torn, let's say he's going to send them to the Taliban. Can he do that? No, that would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. They're not being afforded their due process rights, which you get in this country. And you're starting to get really sharp language from judges, whether it's Wilkinson, Zinnis or the Supreme Court itself about how Constitution matters, rights matter. You can't just do that. You can't just sweep people up and send them away without any semblance of due process. And what you certainly can't do is obstruct and lie to the court about it. And that's what's happening. That's what's being set up here, this is either gonna come to some kind of showdown where people are held in contempt and we see whether Trump, the Trump administration will defy court orders or whether he'll capitulate. And you gave a hot take earlier today, Popak, where you said in one of the interrogatories, you thought that they buried in there something that seems to suggest that they're, they're taking the diplomatic route.
- [15:55]
Karen Freeman
Yeah, exactly. And so I'll start with that. It wasn't supposed to see the light of day, but because they're screwing around with discovery with the judge, the other side filed their responses, the government's responses to interrogatories, questions and answers under oath, in writing and in there in the response interrogatory number one. This is that timeline that we're laying out here. Right. It's, it's the, the 4th Circuit on the 17th of April rules strongly against Donald Trump, led by Judge Wilkinson. I'll read to you from passages there we said at the time, how are they going to take on Wilkinson? He's not a leftist, he's not an art, he's not a, he's not a fascist, he's not a Marxist, he's not a activist, he's not a left wing, he's not corrupt. He's all the opposite of all those things. He actually wrote a book about against judicial activism called that basically focuses on judicial humility. So he's the opposite. He's on the Mount Rushmore of the Federalist Society. So what were they going to do with him calling out the Trump administration? And then the next day we saw what I thought was the response, and you did too, which was basically a Stephen Miller created social media post on the White House official account that had the New York Times headline with the, yeah, yeah, he's never coming back. Ms. 13. We're like, oh, well, that's the way to respond to Wilkinson. And, and I don't think this. There it is. Thank you. And I don't think the Supreme Court that's, that's on the, that's not any Donald Trump's private truth, whatever. That's on the White House effing social media platform. And so I don't think the, I don't think the Supreme Court appreciated that. I know they didn't. I don't think they appreciated what. It looks to be an insult to Judge Wilkinson, who's very highly regarded. A lot of the people on the Supreme Court either clerked for him or clerked for somebody off of him. They didn't appreciate that. And I thought, is Wilkinson even going to get through to this administration? And then it showed up. Right. But in secret, in public, Donald Trump bashing away, bashing away at Zitis, the judge bashing away at the Supreme Court. You're making me keep criminals here. We can't give everybody due process. That'll take too long before they go to jail. I mean, literally, he's like an infant in a high chair about our bedrock constitutional principles. So he's doing all that in public. But what's failing is he loses badly with Wilkinson. He then after that, that's on Wednesday or Thursday. On Saturday morning, we all wake up to our phones blowing up. 1am Supreme Court. I'm thinking, what happened? They pulled the plug on somebody in a death penalty. No, they make a ruling probably without jurisdiction to block the deportation of people in Northern District of Texas because they don't trust the Trump administration. And even Alito was like, well, I don't think we should have done it at 1 o'clock in the morning. However, however, Trump administration, you better abide by our rulings. So even he's saying that because they're thinking he's not going to. So you got these bookends of Wilkinson and then the Supreme Court at 1:00am and they never rule at 1:00am all right, I joke that you don't see 50 and 60 and 70 year olds moving this fast except in the Senior Olympics. I mean, that's quick for the Supreme Court. Right? So they got that and they're sitting on it right now. By the way, five days have gone by, almost a week's gone by. They haven't ruled. They could have ruled. They may rule. And we'll update you on, on legal, AF and all of that. But so you got those two things going on then. They, they've decided, they decided to put their foot to the gas and try to smear Abrego Garcia and his family in the court of public opinion from the bully pulpit of the United States of America. So she wears a Chicago Bulls jersey. He will. There was a confidential informant who said he, he was a member of a gang. Okay, what else he got? Oh, he's a wife beater. Well, let's take a look at that document. Okay, so the wife filed for a restraining order. Sounds like it's something that's important, but something within their marriage. What else he got? Oh, he's, he's a potential human trafficker. That's the latest one. Why? He had seven people in the car. God forbid you bring Your seven buddies home after a party and now you're a human trafficker. So that failed because the public opinion is not turning against it and the Democrats know it. They're marching down like ants at a picnic down to El Salvador one at a time. Gory, Booker, Van Hollen and the rest to go visit this guy. They think the more they visit him and focus attention on him and he's already been moved to a new prison, which I was like, huh, that's interesting. They moved him out of the seat cot and now he's somewhere else. And then that's public. Right? So that's not working. Rock our world with the two decisions and now what? Here, let me read this to the audience. I think, I think I can grab it quick enough. This is in response to an interrogatory. And in the, in the interrogatory, which I might have to paraphrase, here it is. I'll say if I couldn't find it quick enough. I've looked at it so much today, it's like dog eared. But here's the, here's. I'll tell you what it says in response to what are, what are, what steps are you taking? This is what they said, Karen. They said until the 4th Circuit. That's the Wilkinson ruling that I'll read to you from. Until they clarified what the word facilitate means. I'm like, what is this, a spelling bee? Use it in a sentence. Okay. Facilitate his release from an El Salvador in prison. Which, which word in there are you not getting? We thought it meant domestic facilitation. Like that doesn't even pass even the straight face test for this administration. So under that theory, if Armando Garcia breaks out of jail, you know, like a prison break, and he just shows up like on a raft at a port or he stowaway on a plane, then they'll, they'll let him in. I mean, they'll deport him again to someplace not named El Salvador, but they'll let him in. But that's all we have to do. So they said, until the fourth Circuit clarified what facilitate meant. We thought it meant this. But now that they've clarified, we are in discussions, diplomatic discussions with El Salvador for the possible, for the possible return. But we can't tell you what, they are very sensitive. Now the last time they, they said something like that was in open court when Drew Ensign said it in advance of the dictator of El Salvador arriving to the Oval Office on Monday, a week ago Monday, when they said, well, you know, Monday is going to be Two presidents are going to be meeting. You know, it's a bilateral summit. Can't really. Well, we'll see what happens. Well, we know what happened. It was a chuckle fest. Except the man's life is at stake, you know, with the pitch and catch. Well, I wouldn't smuggle in a terrorist. Well, I wouldn't let you smuggle in a terrorist. Hey, how about taking some of our, our U.S. citizens? I'll build more beds. And Stephen Miller, like the grim reaper standing in the background, scripted the whole thing along with Pam Bondi. Remember that whole thing? I never saw. I never saw a president. I mean, there's so many things we haven't seen with Trump. Who, who violates the solemnity of the Oval Office and shits on it more than Donald Trump? Let's shove, let's bring everybody in. Who's in the hallway? Come on in, everybody. It's like a clown car filled with just 40 clowns that all pile out for this ridiculous, staged, scripted show that they try to use in court. And it didn't work. So now they're either working behind the scenes, like they've just basically told the other side, and now that's going to lead to deposit. They're in depositions right now, questions and answers under oath, live and in person. And, you know, they're asking questions. Tell us about the diplomatic things you're doing. What are the phone calls you're making, you know, because no one can believe, Karen, that America, even under Trump, took people, paid a country $6 million, dumped them off in a prison, and don't have a receipt for it, don't have a contract, don't have an agreement, don't have the ability to jointly control what happens to them. Nobody believes that. And so their continued focus on that is backfiring for them. And Donald Trump, who is a poll watcher, a cable news watcher, and you can lobby the crap out of Donald Trump. He'll change his policies and positions based on who last talked to him. We just found out Walmart and all these major companies just marched into the Oval Office today and said, what are you doing on China? Cut it out. He freaked out and told his treasury secretary to back off on China, and then the markets went sky high. So whoever gets to Donald Trump last because he's a poll watcher and the polls are crappy for him, what do you think? What do you think the next step is with Abrego Garcia? You think we're going to see this guy? I don't mean, like, out for Dinner. I mean, back in the United States before a federal judge.
- [24:43]
Michael Popak
I think at a certain point, Donald Trump is going to realize this is a really bad look for him because it makes him look weak. I mean, if he can't say to El Salvadoran president, I mean, El Salvador is this teeny, tiny little country, right? If he can't say to that president, bring that person back, he's weak. Look, he's already canceled. He can't make the war in Ukraine go away like he said he would. He already hasn't released the Gaza hostages like he said he would. There's no Gaza Riviera again, like he said he would. He's not getting Greenland. Canada has no interest in becoming the 51st state. He keeps losing and looking weak, even though he tries to say he's strong. This is kind of a no brainer. I don't know why he's dying on this hill because I just think it makes him look totally weak and ineffective. And, and so we'll see. I mean, if he can't just ask for him back and get him back, then I think we're doomed. Because I think the reason people claim to like him is because he's strong. But this is not strong to me.
- [25:44]
Karen Freeman
I like the way you struggle that together because I think you're exactly right. If Donald Trump worked for Donald Trump, he'd already be fired as a loser. Yeah, right. I mean, Hegstat's about to be shown here. Have you ever seen the back door of the White House come this way, Pete? I mean, he's getting shown out the back.
- [26:01]
Michael Popak
I mean, I mean, talk about it. Train wreck.
- [26:04]
Karen Freeman
But we told. I mean, but again, who has sympathy for Don? Well, we certainly don't. But, but we told him don't nominate him. We said don't. Are you gonna, you're just gonna shove this guy through this public drunk? Not my reporting. This is reporting this sex abuser, this guy who got run out of two organizations for mismanagement. You're gonna put him in charge of the Pentagon? What are you thinking? And this is what happens when people are obscenely unqualified for the jobs they've been given.
- [26:32]
Michael Popak
Oh, yeah, I was reading that there's a revolt in the Pentagon. I mean, people are just. Absolutely, yeah, there's going to be a military coup there to get rid of him because he just doesn't know what he's doing. And they're trying to have sacrificial lambs, but it's not working well.
- [26:45]
Karen Freeman
Right. And we found. I did a Hot take on it. Recently we found out he's got three assigned babysitters. He runs all of our national security issues past his wife Jennifer. I mean, look, I'm all about a strong marriage. I'm not his wife. His brother Phil, who's also on the taxpayer payroll at the Homeland Security and he put his lawyer on the payroll. His lawyer who you and I talked about at length during the Trump days in Mar a Lago. Tim Parlatore happens to be a Naval reservist and he's found a way to be assigned because he's the babysitter to be assigned to the office of the, of the, of the head of the Pentagon so he can sit on all the meetings with his attorney. It is. I've never seen this before ever in my life. And as you said, we're watching, you know, all of this, all of these failures going on left, right and center. You know, this is not that kind of show. But you know, you've got the health, our chief health officer who's in the middle of a, you know, autism is, is based on diet or is avoidable or what other crazy non scientific things he's saying to scare the crap about autism. This is who he's chosen. So remember everybody at the midterm, this is why the Democrats are now at a 12 point swing ahead of the Republicans in recent polling about the House and the Senate. It's totally flipped since the election. Before it was 51 or 52% Republican. We want Republicans in charge of Congress. And now it's 52 or 53% Democrat and that's which is if we can just hold our together, we will get him voted not out, but we will vote in a Congress that will hold this guy accountable. As opposed to the doormat that's currently occupying Congress. Right?
- [28:33]
Michael Popak
Yeah. Well, let's hope, let's hope he's showing, you know, he's doing a lot of damage fast. So, but I think people are starting to wake up and see this is the emperor truly has no clothes here.
- [28:45]
Karen Freeman
It's going to take a new president two full terms to fix all the damage Donald Trump has done. That's for sure. But we're going to continue to report on it right here on Legal af. In many ways to support this show. As everybody knows, we're doing a big subscriber drive. It's like the old pbs, except I'm not giving away a tote bag. We need more subscribers. It's so easy. If you like the content, you're already here. You Must enjoy it in some way. Either either you love it or you hate it, or you love to hate it, but you're here, so hit the subscribe button. We're adding now about 60 to 70,000 subscribers a month because we're focused on building subscribers. And it's not just for numbers. It's the bigger we are. The more your voice is heard, the more new content I'm able to bring on. I've got some amazing new contributors. We're going to be starting next week. I'm not ready to announce it yet, but people you're going to be like, wow, they're with Legal AF. Yes, they're with LegalIF. But I'm able to do that and expand and bring on some great contributors with great points of view and voices that haven't been heard yet because our platform is of a certain size. So that, that helps. So that's one way. Then of course, we've got so we got legal A after YouTube channel. We got legal AF, the podcast. So now we can announce it. The Midas Brothers podcast Podcast of the year got the Webby. And I remember four years ago, I'm telling Inside Story now. I remember four years ago, Karen, I didn't even know what a webby was. You wrote Webbies. We should Legal Midas. And we all Webby. I remember internally the some people not to be named said, nah, what's a Webby? Webby. And now it's like we got the webby. You know, when you get it, especially now, it's sort of become more prestigious. So we're. They're up there with Taylor Swift and this and that. But I want Legal AF to get a webby one day, as Karen wanted many years ago and on the same scale that Midas is at number one, we're in top 13 in the world and there's a whole bunch of bro podcasts and other Tucker Carlson's and stuff and I want to leapfrog over them. I want to be on the podium with the Midas brothers at at least number two. And the way to do that is what you're doing here. You're watching us, listen to us on the audio podcast platforms, whatever they are, just click pick us up there, subscribe, leave notes and comments, go back and forth between the two and ask people to join us. And that will help with the podcast version of all things Legal af. And then of course, we've got our pro Democracy sponsors hand picked and curated by Jordi Meisellis. So and we love that they're here because again, I want to make this clear. They don't tell us what to say. They don't know what we're going to say. 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And of course, hitting the subscribe button here on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Karen Freeman Agnifolo and I have been doing this for almost five years, every Wednesday. Well, were we ever on a different day? I think it's always been Wednesdays. I'm not really sure. But we're back and I want to pick up with New York, where Karen is located, and talk about kind of two. Two stories. I'm sure we'll find a way to weave them together. One is Mayor Adams. Well, the prosecutors for Mayor Adams have tendered the resignation in a stormy, in a noisy leave. And I want Karen to talk about that because she's been a prosecutor in her life. Maybe you can tell the audience what you would have done if, if you were forced to drop an indictment that you believed in for political purposes. And then Letitia James, who's one of the sharpest knives out there in terms of leading the charge against Donald Trump from a position of attorney general. There's 22 Democratic attorney generals, give or take, and they are doing the lion's share of the filings against the Trump administration around the country. Out of the 140 or 150 cases many of them are coming from some combination of the attorneys general. And she's really first among equals. She's considered that highly about her abilities and her abilities to take down Donald Trump. You know, she still has, as of, you know, right now in the recording, she has a $450,500,000,000 running with interest judgment against Donald Trump in New York for civil fraud. I mean, we're waiting for the first department to finally rule after seven months, but she, she took him down and she's filed a number of these cases and she's been successful. And after seeing the herky jerky motion of the market, after Donald Trump slyly winked, winked and, and after being lobbied by Jamie Dimon and other people on Wall street to back off his worldwide tariffs, he then hit the brake on them. And a lot of people made a lot of money, including maybe people in Congress and maybe people in Donald Trump's own family. And so Letitia James opened up an investigation about it because that, you know, manipulating the markets is a no, no unless you're, unless you're Donald Trump. And she has the power to do things that, that don't have pardon, ability for Donald Trump because she's on the state side. And Donald Trump seems to have retaliated against Letitia James. Why don't you pick it up from there, Karen?
- [37:43]
Michael Popak
Yeah, interestingly so insider trading I think is going to be hard to prove because of the tweet or the truth social posting that Donald Trump made that day right before he reversed the tariffs. He said it's a good time to buy stocks. It's going to be hard to say that he was saving it just for insiders, for his close friends and family, because he basically told everybody to buy, right, told everybody to buy stocks. And only people who follow him and believe in him probably did. And they made a lot of money. It's much more of a kind of a market manipulation type case, I think that she has against him, but we'll see where that goes. But he was going to retaliate against her just because she has been going after him for years now. And so he made a criminal referral to Pam Bondi against Letitia James. And basically they're doing a colonoscopy on her entire life. And what have they found? They found really stupid, stupid stuff. Things like 40 years ago when she bought a house with her father, I guess there was some kind of typo or something on it that said or handwritten on it. They checked the wrong box that said she was his spouse, not his daughter. And then that house was sold and they used it to buy something else. But they're using that as some kind of example of fraud. And then, and then she used it to buy a four family apartment unit that's an investment property. And I guess the people who had it before her filed it as a five family. And the CFO says it's four family. There's only four families in it. It's. She runs it like a four family whatever. And he's like, oh, it was really five family. And she's just trying to get favorable loans and pay less taxes. And I mean, they're really grasping at straws, trying to find errors from prior owners and paperwork filed by other people to try to pin it on her. And she's like, I got nothing to hide. And, but he's really, really grasping at straws to go on his continue his revenge tour. And I'm not sure makes him look weak.
- [39:57]
Karen Freeman
Back to your earlier point, how does this make him look strong?
- [40:00]
Michael Popak
I agree. It really does. It makes him look weak. It makes him look. Exactly. It's like, that's the best you got. And also, and also that you're so petty, that you're so petty that it's all like, you are now the leader of the free world. You've got the United States of America at your fingertips. You have Congress, you have the Senate, you have the Supreme Court. You have all three branches of government. You could do, you could do such good if you wanted to. There is so much he could accomplish and others could accomplish with that type of power and control. He's been told by the United States Supreme Court, go at it. You have total immunity. Right? I mean, he literally has more power than probably any president in the history of this country at this moment. And what is he using his power for? He's using it to go after stupid petty paperwork grievances against his rivals. I mean, he just looks weak and pathetic truly to me. I, I, you know, I'm just.
- [41:02]
Karen Freeman
Petty paperwork grievances, somebody, I'm gonna use that for my, I agree with you. I mean, could you imagine we, we talked about it here on Midas, kind of behind the scenes, like the Hot Stove League. Like, God, could you imagine if he actually used his powers for good instead of for evil?
- [41:16]
Michael Popak
Yeah, exactly.
- [41:17]
Karen Freeman
What would we be talking about?
- [41:18]
Michael Popak
And by the way. And he'd be a hero. He could be a hero. Like hero.
- [41:23]
Karen Freeman
It's like if instead of instead of Lex Luthor, Superman was in charge of the United States. Could you imagine the good he'd be doing with all of these superpowers. But this is what happens when a petty, addle brained, demented, revengeful.
- [41:40]
Michael Popak
Why does he have such thin skin is my question.
- [41:42]
Karen Freeman
But he always has since he was a young adult.
- [41:46]
Michael Popak
You got to have thick skin, put on your big boy pants, you know.
- [41:48]
Karen Freeman
And just take it. He's been busy crapping in his big boy pants most of his career. I mean, you know, listen, one of the lessons he's learned. The guy's been a judge to be a sex abuser and a defamer of women. Even where he hasn't been a judge, the public rightly believes that he's abused other women, a series of women. So. And he's a misogynist. He's lost. He's lost. He's gone bankrupt multiple times, including running casinos. He's. He's got a 400. He's got a $500 million judgment against him right now in New York. He's got 100 million dol. Judgment in the Eugene Carol against him. You know, he, he got criminally indicted a number of times. Three times. He got convicted once. He got impeached twice.
- [42:32]
Michael Popak
He was criminally indicted four times.
- [42:34]
Karen Freeman
You're forgetting criminally indicted four times. What's the four? Georgia, Ohar Mar a Lago, Georgia, New York. What else?
- [42:41]
Michael Popak
January 6th.
- [42:42]
Karen Freeman
I mean, Jan.6. Yeah, forget all these things. Yeah. One state, three federal. Oh, no. Two state, two federal. He's so. He's so bad. I can't even keep track of his. How bad he is.
- [42:53]
Michael Popak
So.
- [42:53]
Karen Freeman
All right, so this is. When you have that person, they're war. They become warped. It's not a healthy. Does anybody think he's a healthy person? That he's not a broken human being? I mean, we, we. He's a bro. If this was just a, a case study in psychology, he's a broken human being. Unfortunately, a fair number of people voted him into office to be our president during this time in his life. And I gotta tell you, I mean, we'll see it show up, I'm sure, at the midterms. But who doesn't want their vote back to voting for Donald Trump? I mean, I sat around here in a community that I'm in, a bunch of people of all different political stripes, and I said, just name for me. I'm being honest. I'm just asking the question here. Name for me something good that you like, that he's done, that's helped you in some way. In 85 days, I'm willing To listen, just tell me what it is. I mean, I follow the economy pretty, pretty closely. I follow international diplomacy pretty closely. I follow domestic policy and immigration policy pretty closely. Tell me what it is. What is it? What is it that you voted for that you. He's doing in any event? And the only thing this group could come up with, and it was pretty. It got shot down pretty quickly, was for the people that were in real estate. They were like, he's good for real estate, because everybody's flooding out of the stock market and they're looking for hard assets. And I'm like, that's it. That's what you got? Okay? That's not what a presidency is supposed to be about. Okay. It's not a business. This is what we keep saying. I mean, we don't say it to our audience this way, but our audience, I think, knows this in the fiber of their being. But this is not a business. This is why business people don't make good presidents because they don't understand the levers of power. They don't understand not only the role, the role of the, of the US in its own economy, in its own political system, in its own political experiment. They don't understand it because they see everything as dollars and cents in a ledger. And that, that's not how its government is not incorporated. It has social contract with the American people, with the people. It has military responsibilities, national security responsibilities, social safety net responsibilities. You know, the things we call entitlements things. It runs an economy. It, it's got all of these things. And Donald Trump just says, where is it? I want to destroy it. What is it? Have we destroyed it yet for? They're going to let go 40,000 federal workers in D.C. d.C. Is going to be shuttered. You know what the businesses in District of Columbia are saying right now about the Trump administration? It's killing business. I never thought I'd say a Republican was bad for business, but is there any Republican that you can think of, Karen, is a president that's worse for business and the business environment than Donald Trump.
- [45:34]
Michael Popak
I can't.
- [45:35]
Karen Freeman
Right.
- [45:35]
Michael Popak
I really, I really can't. I really can't. You know, I was one of the only people who everybody else was just like, oh, this is a disaster. This is disaster. When he was president, I'm like, you know what? Let's give him a chance. Why are we going to crash the plane? We're all flying in. That's very good. You know, let's give him a chance. He won. That's what it means to be in a democracy. And he won the House, he won the Senate, he controls the Supreme Court. Like, let's go, you know, let's truly make America great again. And here we are. This is. This is worse than people said it was. It's worse than we said it was. There are people who come up to me and they will say to me, we thought you were being dramatic. We thought you were being extreme. And it's worse than you said. And it really is. I mean, I just, I'm shocked. I can't believe it.
- [46:23]
Karen Freeman
We saw it coming after the election. The way even from the, the letters that were being written by his acting whatevers and incoming whatevers, we were like, oh, I mean, I said it early on. I mean, I said, right after the election, we're going to be lurching from one constitutional crisis to the next, and just take, take whatever the lawsuits were against the Trump administration the first time around, which were a thousand, and multiply it by a power of three or four, and that's how many we're going to have now. And I, I don't want to be right, but I am right, because as you said, this is how he's using his. His superpowers instead of for good, he's using it for retribution and vengefulness and evil. We're going to talk about Mayor Adams and the prosecutors there, and then finally, what law firms are doing and. And judges are doing to try to support and reinforce a major component that undergirds our free democracy, our constitutional republic, which is our justice system and the role of lawyers in that justice system. When we come back from another commercial break, now's your chance. Hit the subscribe button a little. We got a little automated animation we'll throw up here to remind you, because it will help signal to everybody that you like our content, you need our content, you want our content. And allows me the ability as kind of the curator here to continue to expand the voices, the types of shows and podcasts. And we do that not so much with money. Like, we're not asking you, like, send money in that way. Just hit the subscribe button. And that will help me turn that into currency to grow this particular channel that you seem to enjoy. And then, of course, we've got the. We got a patreon for legal af as well. A lot of original content there@patreon.com legal af. And we've got. We did this channel, we got the podcast that we're trying to continue to boost to get up that chart and get up to number, you know, two or three, join the brothers at the top of the chart. And you can do that by listening to the audio version, leaving comments and ratings and all that. And of course watching us on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8pm Eastern Time here on the YouTube channel. Of course, the videos live on forever. So if you miss us, miss us during the live recording, pick us up during the weekend or during the week and we're there for you in a full library you can find in a playlist. And we've of course we've got our pro democracy sponsors and here's our last break.
- [48:45]
Michael Popak
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- [50:45]
Karen Freeman
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- [52:29]
Michael Popak
So just to remind everyone, essentially, the Southern District of New York brought this sweeping indictment against the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. And the case was proceeding and we saw Mayor Adams courting Donald Trump, right? He was kind of courting him and parroting his language and really saying things that made anyone who's paying attention think something's going on here. And sure enough, when Donald Trump, next thing we know, Donald Trump agrees to dismiss the case. And he orders it turns into this giant, giant mess because they order the prosecutors to dismiss the case. They can't find anyone who was willing to do it. People, the acting United States Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who is Republican and conservative, resigned in protest and released her resignation letter, where she detailed how they took her notes that she was taking. They ordered her to do things that were unethical, how they essentially didn't care about how there's merit here. This is all a quid pro quo. And they were asking to dismiss it without prejudice, meaning they can bring the case back anytime. So Donald Trump would literally control Mayor Adams, and it was all about immigration policy, and Donald Trump was going to use Eric Adams to enforce his immigration policy in a sanctuary city like. Like New York City is. And so it was this huge showdown. Danielle Sassoon resigned in protest and accused Emile Beauvais, who was Donald Trump's criminal defense attorney in the Manhattan DA case and now is the number three at the Department of Justice, of basically being unethical. And so that's what happened there. But then they put the prosecutors who were actually prosecuting the case, three of them, on administrative leave in the interim. The case got dismissed, but with prejudice. The judge, Judge Ho, said, no, you're not doing that. You're not going to dangle this and control the mayor of New York City. If you want to dismiss it, you'll dismiss it with prejudice, meaning they can never bring the case again, which is astounding. This is one of the larger political corruption cases brought ever in New York City. This was a case where it was so important that they arrested Mayor Adams in the middle of the United Nations General assembly that week, that there were heads of state and dignitaries coming to the island of Manhattan from all over the world, because that's where the United nations is. The United nations is located in Manhattan. And once a year, they all come and they all descend upon Manhattan and the nypd, which Mayor Adams controls. They're the ones who protect all the dignitaries. It's this huge coordination. They do an unbelievable job keeping people safe and protected. But this case was so serious and so important that the Southern District of New York, the Department of justice under Joe Biden, said, you know what? We're going to very loudly and very publicly arrest Eric Adams in the middle of all of this. And so it was a big case here. They dismissed the case. Danielle Sosuna resigned, and they put the prosecutors prosecuting the case on administrative leave with pay. So then what happened was, okay, now what, right now, now what do you do with these individuals? And the three individuals, the three AUSAs on the case that were left, wrote a resignation letter to Todd Blanche, the other attorney, criminal defense attorney, who represented Trump in his Manhattan DA criminal trial, who's now the number two at the Department of Justice under Pam Bondi. The the Attorney General, it says. Dear Deputy Attorney General Blanche. The Department placed each of us on administrative leave ostensibly to review our and the Southern District of New York U.S. attorney's office's handling of the Adams case. It's now clear that one of the preconditions you have placed on our returning to the office is that we must express regret and admit some wrongdoing by the office in connection with the refusal to move to dismiss the case. We will not confess wrongdoing when there was none. We've served under presidents of both parties, advancing their priorities while pursuing justice without fear or favor. The role of a career prosecutor is not to set policy, but a prosecutor must abide by the oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States and the rules of professional ethics set by the bar and courts. The Department has long understood that these duties can and should coexist with the need to follow Department policies and orders. This is to the benefit of all the courts, defendants, and the public who can have confidence in the good faith and judgment of line prosecutors. The Department, which retains credibility while still receiving zealous advocacy from its lawyers, and the prosecutors themselves who can stand in court confident that they're ethically carrying out their duties. Now the Department has decided that obedience supersedes all else, requiring us to abdicate our legal and ethical obligations in favor of directions from Washington. That was wrong. Serving in the Southern District of New York has been an honor. There's no greater privilege than to work for an institution whose mandate is to do the right thing, the right way for the right reasons. We will not abandon this principle to keep our jobs. We resign. Signed Celia Cohen, Andy Rohrabach, and Derek Wickstrom, Assistant United States Attorneys. I mean, beautifully written and beautifully said. And it's true. I was a prosecutor for 30 years. And it's not what you do, it's who you are. It's in your DNA. You believe in ethics. You believe in truth, justice, and the American way. I mean, it's really important. And what went on there is unlike anything anyone's ever seen. It's absolutely lawless and unethical and the opposite of doing justice. So the Department of Justice is in crisis right now. So are the U.S. attorney's offices. We'll see where the chips fall. In the meantime, individual defendants are the ones who are going to either benefit or suffer based on whether or not you're somebody who supports Trump or is a fan of Trump or whatever. And that's what's going on. So that was, that was pretty stunning there.
- [59:06]
Karen Freeman
Yeah, that's. Yeah, you eloquently put it all together there. It's what this means for the Department of Justice. Another black eye under Todd Blanche, also somebody that, you know, we held a little bit of hope out for because he had been a reasonably highly regarded former U.S. attorney and Defense lawyer until he went to the dark side and just quit his law practice and opened up a new law practice to serve one master in Donald Trump. And then, you know, from all the reports and media profiles of him I've ever seen, this was his lottery ticket. He decided to run that if he could somehow turn the tide against Donald Trump in the criminal cases, that he would be rewarded handsomely in the, in the Department of Justice. I think he wanted the Attorney General position. He got the number two job. You know, if Pam Bondi ever decides to, or she's involuntarily dismissed, I think he would move up to the number one job. And. But we thought, well, at least he's sort of an adult. But look, the number two job in the Department of Justice is often known as the bad cop, and he's certainly fitting the bill. What it means is that when the Department of Justice, which used to have so much respect, like your old office, like when the Manhattan DA goes into court, okay, it gets the benefit of the doubt more than. More than not. I mean, maybe not on the prosecutor side, because you've got your own burdens. But what I mean is they're credible, they're reliable. Judges trust what they. If they say a case stands for a certain proposition, it does. If they say they've complied with their obligations under the law to do something they did. If they, if, you know, if a set of facts are as they presented, the judges agree with it. And that comes from having a tremendous impeccable reputation as an advocate for being ethical. Department of justice does not have that now. And that, that. That means that whenever they open their mouth, that judges, especially those outside of the red states, have a completely jaundiced view of them. I've seen more warnings of the Department of Justice lawyers in a courtroom than I've ever in the last 80 days that I've ever seen in my collective, you know, 35 years of practice. You know, it is not usual just for those that don't do this for a living. It is not usual or normal for federal judges to take time out and spill in, think in orders and in courtrooms to. To chastise lawyers for the Department of Justice and reminding them of their ethical obligations. And yet we see that in every order and every day because you can't. Let's just put it in plain English, in plain speak. You can't trust the Department of Justice. You can't trust what it says factually. If they tell you there's a set of facts, they tell you the sky is blue and the glass and the grass is green, you better go outside and double check. Check. You can't believe them on the law. You can't believe them to properly recite the law. You can't believe them to paraphrase rulings by the United States Supreme Court without changing the words of it in a meaningful way. And so what does that mean? It means that. That there. That the prosecutors are not trusted by the judges and they need to administer justice by getting to the truth. And they're short one takes two to tango, and they're short one party to that search for the truth. That's what our adversarial process is supposed to be. We're not supposed to be worried about the ethics and the credibility and the virtue of one of the parties to the lawyer, to the suit or the prosecution. They're supposed to be zealous advocates advocating in this adversarial tug and tug of war with the. With the burdens of proof, you know, keeping everybody honest on respective sides. But that's what we're supposed to be watching, not having the judge think. I wonder if Mr. Ensign is telling me the truth here. I doubt that he is. I wonder if this one is telling me the truth. I doubt that they are. And that's why you're saying, let's have an evidentiary hearing, let's have discovery. Let's. That's. That's the solution for everything. You go and go give deposition testimony under oath. You go bring documents, bring it all back to me, and let's have an evidentiary hearing, and then I'll be literally the judge. But it is from Karen. Have you ever. What would it be? What would have been for you as a prosecutor if you didn't have. And your office didn't have credibility with your judges? What would it mean?
- [63:25]
Michael Popak
I mean, the one thing we teach everybody is that's the only thing you have as a lawyer is your credibility. It's all you have. And that's because you go into court, you're an officer of the court, and you say things, and if you don't have your Credibility and judges talk and you have a bad reputation. That's it. You're ineffective, you can't do your job. And the only people who really would get fired are people who lie, who don't have credibility. Everyone makes mistakes. Right? Everybody makes mistakes. But fess up to it, own up to it, but you lie about it, you try to cover it up. That's when people were getting in trouble, because that's really what you have and all you have. I've never seen anything like this before, especially in federal court where Department of Justice. I mean, that's the thing. In federal court, the judges come from the Department of Justice. Right. Or the lawyers clerked for the judges. I mean, there's this incredible symbiotic relationship between prosecutors and federal judges. They almost bend over backwards to protect them, which is frustrating. If you're a defense attorney that does this with the same dynamic in state court. In state court, you don't have these judges. Some are elected, some are appointed, at least in New York work. It's a very different thing. And it's just fascinating that if that's going away, everything, the world order is changing in the Department of Justice and federal courts in this country, for sure.
- [64:50]
Karen Freeman
Yeah. In a way, it's to our advantage that the lawyers for the Department of Justice are both incompetent and borderline unethical, are being called out because it is, as Donald Trump put it in a recent social media post, my lawyers are getting stymied. Yeah, your lawyers are getting stymied because they're making ridiculous arguments that aren't based on the law or the facts by people that the judges don't trust that that perfect storm is not going to make you successful. But that's a good thing. That's why the attorneys general and the public interest groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and others are batting over.900 in these cases. Sure. At the Supreme Court. Well, now it's 3, 3 to 3, because that was before the 1am so it's 3 to 3. We're batting.500 at the Supreme Court once it gets there. Although some of those wins for Donald Trump are going to be ethereal. They're going to be shot down over time. They were, they were cheap victories now, but long term, after the appellate court's rule, I'm not sure they're going to be sustained. But three, three, there it's nine. It's 90% in the other 140 cases. I mean, you can't, you can't swing a stick without hitting a Temporary injunction or preliminary. Or preliminary injunction or permanent injunction against the Trump administration, and all they can do is complain about it. Oh, we got more of them against us than any other. Joe Biden is four years, like, right. Because Joe Biden wasn't insanely lawless. You can say whatever you want about Joe Biden, but he wasn't trying to pick a fight with the Supreme Court and federal judges on an hourly basis. And we were a better country for it. We were a more stable country for it. It, you know, we were, we had a less erratic conduct and behavior. And I'll just make this last point clear to my friends that still voted for Trump or whatever. Erratic is not a doctrine. The Trump doctrine of, well, they don't know what he's going to do. That's not a pot, that's not a policy that makes us weaker, not stronger. To continue the theme from the show today, you know, that doesn't, that doesn't diminish or, or, or may, or weaken our adversaries and our enemies. It makes them stronger because they know they've got an erratic lunatic on the other side that can't be trusted. They're not worried about the bomb being dropped on them. Donald Trump, Donald Trump, you know, can't hold a thought in his head long enough to, to pull that off. We're not, that's not what they're worried about. You know, it's just this erratic conduct around the economy, domestic policy and other things. So that's not a doctrine. And that's what we have to remember as we move into the midterms. All right, for our final segment today, let's talk quickly about the law firms that are fighting back. Two hearings today, one before Judge Beryl Howell involving Perkins Coy, where Mark Elias used to work, along with a guy named Sussman, Michael Sussman and Jenner and Block. Two different judges, same courthouse. Two, two men enter, one man leave it did. Let's just put it this way, it was about whether the courts were going to enter preliminary injunctions having already issued temporary restraining orders to stop the Trump administration from retaliating against law firms because they don't like the people they're representing or they don't like their First Amendment expression and they're trying to penalize them by putting them on a blacklist. So with that, we have the hearings. And how do you think, based on the reporting within the room, we're still waiting for the written orders. How do you think it's going to go for the Trump administration?
- [68:16]
Michael Popak
I Mean, like, you can't just, you can't just issue these executive orders, which are essentially just proclamations that. Against your enemies, right? Oh, you know, I don't like you. So I'm going to revoke your ability to go into federal courthouses. You can't do that for no reason without any cause. And so I think they're going to lose. There's going to be permanently enjoyed from doing it. Frankly, I don't know why more firms didn't fight back and aren't fighting back. I know some of them capitulated and as a result have to provide, I think, over a billion dollars worth of pro bono legal work on causes that he believes in. I think some of them are going to back off of that unless he lets them kind of do a few things that are common interest, pro bono work, work for free, things that they care about if they. We haven't seen the end of this yet for the ones who have caved and gave in. But the ones that are fighting back are the litigation firms, the Perkins Coys and the Wilmerhails. And they're fighting back. They're fighting back hard. And I think they're going to win resoundingly. And what happens when people fight back? You see Trump back down. Look at Harvard. Harvard fought back. Harvard. When he issued an executive order basically taking funding away from Harvard. That is backfiring massively. Right. You can't have a guy who started a fake university and failed, started a failed fake university, go after our nation's oldest, our oldest, 400 years old. I didn't realize that that's how long Harvard has been around. And if you read the complaint there, I know we're talking about law firms and I'm sorry to divert to Harvard, but I read that complaint. It's just beautifully written complaint. And it talks about all the incredible work that they do and the research that they fund and the billions of dollars that of all the different things, the cancers that they've cured or that they're curing in the process of. And the innovations for astronauts in space and just all the different things that are going to be impacted by this because. And then they kind of said, look, we'll pay for these things ourselves for a while, but after a while, if the government doesn't fund it, we can't continue like this forever. People are starting to fight back and we start seeing cracks in the armor here. Right? You see Trump saying things like, oh, that email was sent in mistake, but then he doubles down again, but you fight back. You punch back, and I think he'll back down ultimately. And I think that's what's gonna happen with these firms, because this is just bizarre and outrageous and again, petty and small and weak that this is what you're gonna do against law firms. You can't go into a federal building. It just seems like a petulant child making these weird proclamations that just make no sense. And it's just nothing. Not what our government's ever done or been before. We've always been able. Government's not perfect. Government can sometimes can't get out of its own way, and sometimes there's too much red tape. There's a lot you can say to criticize government, and I'll be the first in line since I worked for government for three decades. But it's never been this corrupt, this lawless, this disorganized, this erratic, this petty, petty, vengeful. Using the power of your office to go after your enemies and your rivals and to be petty and revengeful. It's just shocking. It's absolutely shocking. And to me, that's what is going to have the reverberating effect when the Democrats come back eventually is, are people going to trust the Department of Justice again? Are people going to trust the rule of law again? Are people going to trust the government again? That earning that trust back and earning that. That safety and security back is the thing that I think is going to take a long time to earn back. And that's what I quibble with the Trump administration. It's not okay. I disagree. We disagree on policy. I think that's exactly what a democracy is supposed to do, right? You have debates, you have open communication, free speech. You give your issue, you tell your side, and at the end of the day, somebody wins, and then everybody follows. Because we live in a democracy and we live in the rule of law, and that's just how it goes. We support whoever wins, right? Whatever party. Whatever party wins, whatever person wins, we support them and we move forward and we try to persuade people of our position, and hopefully we get there. That is not what is happening for the first time in our nation's history, certainly. I mean, I don't know, maybe someone's going to correct me. Back in the 1700s, maybe it wasn't like this, but in the modern era, and certainly my lifetime, I've never seen anything remotely like this. And that, to me, is what's going to be hard to bring back. So I'm glad that these law firms are fighting back. I think it's important. And somebody has to stand up and fight back against this craziness. So I support them. So do hundreds of others. Right. There's these amicus briefs that were filed, these friends of the court briefs that were filed from something like 500 other law firms, former judges, I mean, judges.
- [73:26]
Karen Freeman
Right.
- [73:26]
Michael Popak
Yeah. People are coming out of the woodworks to say to support this because this is, this is just not, it's not right.
- [73:32]
Karen Freeman
Yeah. Jamie, Jamie Raskin says resistance and a rally a day keeps fascism away. And that's what we're, we're starting to see. As the Democrats regain their footing and the leadership regain their footing, they're finding a way to make Donald Trump the perfect foil for their policies and showing the American people what it would be like if the Democrats were in charge, which is actually a good thing. So we'll continue to follow it all right here on Legal af. You're here already. Hit the subscribe button for the Midas Touch Networks. Hit the subscribe button for the Legal AF YouTube channel. There it is right there. Illegal AF MTN. We've got a Patreon that goes along with that. Patreon W patreon/legal AI and then of course, our pro Democracy sponsors. Follow us here. Midas Touch. Listen to the audio versions. Help us continue to grow this Pro Democracy channel. And also our particular podcast Saturday I do the show with Ben Mysellis. Always. Always one of the highlights of my week to do it when I have the opportunity to spend time with you.
- [74:33]
Michael Popak
Karen, great to see you. Popa.
- [74:36]
Karen Freeman
Yeah. And feel better. And until then, until then, shout out to the Midas Mighty and the legal A efforts.
- [74:52]
Michael Popak
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