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- [00:01]
Ben Miceli
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- [01:55]
Michael Popak
Desperation breeds desperate behavior and we're seeing a desperate Trump regime right now. Throwing judges in prison, raiding courtrooms of judges during their proceedings, sending two year old United States citizens to foreign countries, sending United States citizen children with cancer to foreign countries, releasing memos from the DOJ saying that they're targeting the media and whistleblowers and these sources of the media. They're sending moms to foreign countries like Cuba and Venezuela while they're breastfeeding their babies and separating families. They're not releasing the Epstein files, they are posting internal work product to federal courts where the Trump administration admits that they are pursuing litigation in bad faith and that they're going to lose the case. And they file their internal memos saying that to federal judges and then say, oopsies. So it's no wonder that federal judge after federal judge this past week has smacked the Trump regime down. And Michael Popak, lots of Trump judges doing that. Trump appointed judges on a lot of these cases, I guess. Is Trump going to say, yeah, I appointed these leftist, radical, activist judges. They're looking at what's happening and they're saying, donald Trump, what the hell are you doing? We were going to give you a little bit of a break here, but you are so obviously violating the Constitution, we can't do anything here. Those are Trump judges. Let's bring in Michael Popak from Legal af. We've got a lot to discuss this morning. Michael Popak, how are you doing, sir?
- [03:42]
Ben Miceli
I'm doing great. Listen, I just said on a hot take, if this was a Broadway show, based on the new polling numbers that just came out this week, the Trump administration would have already closed. I mean, the numbers for Trump, who consumes polls like their McDonald's french fries. This is how he runs his administration. That's why it's so erratic. I mean, forget about what my accomplishments are in the first 100 days based on these people want him out of office. Already 29. He has an approval rating with independent spend of 29%. The vast majority I'm talking about in the 60s of people think his administration so far has been chaotic. This is their words, scary. And then when you look at the, what he's doing in terms of the differential approval rating versus disapproval rating, he's negative 12 points under on his job as president. No president in the history of America has ever had that in the first hundred days. On immigration, which is supposed to be his strong suit. We're going to talk a lot about immigration here on this podcast. He's underwater by 4 points. Managing the federal government. All that Doge, you know, all that Doge, you know, cost cutting and federal worker firing, eight points under the economy. The thing that's supposed to stupid, supposed to get him elected. He's under by 12 points. Trade with other countries, 11 points under foreign conflicts, you know, like Ukraine, 14 points under the war in Russia and Ukraine. So bad is his policies that he had to pull up a folding chair in the Vatican during the Pope's funeral to buttonhole Zelensky and then came away with, I don't think. I don't think Putin wants peace. Yeah, no shit. He's 21 points under how he's handling Russia, Ukraine and on Kilmer, Abrego, Garcia, which we're going to talk about that in the and the progeny related to that particular case. He, the, the, the polling shows that he's 21 points under 52% of America think he's not, he's not doing a great job there. And here's the stat that really stood out for me, Ben, be he's lost completely the independent vote completely is that 16% of Republicans think he's doing a terrible job and hate the Trump administration. And that's now we know he consumes the polls. The only thing reining him in is how poorly the polled numbers. So when people ask us in chat in a different comments, who cares about federal court rulings, he's not going to abide by them. Not so fast because the polling numbers are now showing up against him that in the way the economy is working, all the phone calls he's been getting, you know, Walmart on line one, Jamie Dimon on line one. And then he changes his whole economic policy. You know, this all bodes well for the Democrats. Last number for stat here. The people want the Democrats in charge of the House and Senate by at least seven points in new polling. And that bodes well for the midterms.
- [06:44]
Michael Popak
Except it doesn't bode well generally what Trump is doing for the country, for our judicial system. And you know, my biggest fear when it comes to the economy is what is to come. I mean, the fact that the market, by the way, still perhaps the worst market relative to the markets of foreign countries and generations right now. But even when the market goes up some days, it to me is more reflective. Michael Popak of market manipulation, insider trading, the way meme coins kind of move. That's not the way the United States economy is supposed to move. So the way, you know, a Trump stock or a Trump meme coin, based on a Trump announcement like he made this week, where he said the top 220 holders of the Trump meme card in their crypto wallets gets to meet with me, right? It shoots up. It has a good day, then it has a bad day, then it has a decent day, then it has a horrible day, then it has a decent day, then it has a horrible day. But it's trending in one direction. Right from the inauguration, Trump's meme was at like 100 and now it's at like 11 or 12 or 13 or whatever it is in the day. It trends down and people have lost their life savings. So the market volatility, even when there's good days, what it's not reflective of, if you look at the ports, we're talking about blank sailings right now. Empty vessels, Freight, that is freight volumes down to levels that are worse than Covid. Truck volumes down to levels that are worse than Covid. It's a lagging indicator because companies, a lot of them, are still able to get their supplies in advance of this, but they're running out of supplies. And so we're heading into a summer of scarcity. It's obvious when you look at the data and when you listen to what the business leaders and CEOs are saying, Trump is frozen. He's not taking action. And what's worse about all of this, it's like, you know, when Donald Trump was like saying, like a miracle, Covid's all gonna go away, like one big miracle, don't worry, it's never gonna hit our shores. The real stuff hasn't hit our shores yet. It's the receding water right before the tsunami. I see the tsunami coming because I'm listening to what the corporate CEOs are saying and what the business leaders are saying, what the small businesses are saying. I know what it means when rare earth minerals are not being able to be shipped here into the United States because they're banned by China. I understand what an embargo on a $2 trillion trading relationship with China looks like. The boycotts on tourism. If you just took the boycott on tourism alone from Canada to the U.S. that could have triggered a recession. That on top of all of the tariffs and boycotts from Europe and Australia and elsewhere. So that to me is a big issue now. Popak, when you go and look at this Time magazine interview, it really reflected a demented individual in Donald Trump. A liar, someone. I thought I was reading a transcript. If you were to tell like a five year old, you know, play pretend you're the president, you're gonna be asked a series of questions and you gave him some basic information. That's how this actually reads to me. No offense to 5 year olds who would do a much better job. Because when Trump is asked about the Abrego Garcia case, a reminder. Abrego Garcia was the guy living in Maryland. He had a work permit. There was a withholding order. You can't send him to El Salvador. He would check in once a year to get the work permit. The Trump administration first one gave him the work permit and this time they sent him to El Salvador against a withholding order, saying, you can't do that. He has no criminal history on his record. And now everybody Maga Trump goes, he's a terrorist. He's Ms. 13. He's the biggest scum ever. He's worse than bin Laden. This guy who we gave a work permit to, who has no criminal history, who was working in Maryland, married to an American woman with three American children. The worst human being imaginable doesn't deserve due process. Migrants don't deserve due process. There's nothing we can do with naive. Bukele. He's not returning him. Right. So Trump's asked about it. Popak, in this Time magazine interview. So, Donald, are you committed to complying with all Supreme Court orders? Yeah. Question when you and I spoke last April, you said you were still committed to complying with all Supreme Court orders. Is that the case now? Answer. Sure. I believe in the court system. Okay, Donald, the Supreme Court ruled 9 to 0 that you have to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back. You haven't done so aren't you disobeying the Supreme Court? Answer. Well, that's not what my people told me. They didn't say it was. They said it was. The nine to nothing was something entirely different. By the way, you all know Stephen Miller was out there and Pam Bondi was saying, donald, you won nine to zero. They said you don't have to return him. When we were all saying the Supreme Court said you have to return him because the Supreme Court said you have to return him. So then the reporter goes, let me quote from the ruling. The order properly requires the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador. Are you facilitating the release, Donald? Then Trump throws his DOJ lawyers under the bus. I leave that to my lawyers. I give them no instruction. They feel that the order said something very much different from what you're saying. But I leave that to my lawyers if they want. And that would be the attorney General of the United States and the people that represent the country. I don't make that decision. Have you asked Bukele to return him? I haven't. He said he wouldn't. But did you ask him? But I haven't asked him positively, but he said he wouldn't. But if you haven't asked him, how are you facilitating his release? Well, because I haven't been asked by my attorneys to ask him. Nobody asked me to ask Bukele. Nobody asked me that question except you, Popak. Exhibit A. Sanctions against the lawyers, contempt against those. Like if you're those lawyers right now in that Maryland case, Donald Trump just put a contempt bullseye, criminal contempt on the lawyers. Throw the lawyers in jail. That's what he just did.
- [13:03]
Ben Miceli
Let me ask you a question. That time, that time interview came out when?
- [13:06]
Michael Popak
It came out on Friday, but the interview was from Tuesday.
- [13:09]
Ben Miceli
All right. So it comes out on Friday. Let's continue. Judge Zinnis gets two filings sealed that we don't know what they are. In that same case, she already had her foot firmly on the throat of the Trump administration for good reason, putting them on a requirement that they have to give daily reports about what they are doing to facilitate the release of Abrago Garcia from El Salvador. And every day for the last 10 days, we've watched the Trump administration crap on Judge Sinis and not tell her. And so finally, we saw this weird order that came out right before this interview in which she said, based on two filings that were made under seal by the ACLU on one side and Quinn Emanuel and the government on the other, she said, I'm going to take away the requirement to tell me what's going on every day that you're not telling me anyway. And you had discovery depositions, all sorts of things that needed to be done and documents that need to be turned over based on my new order. Hold off on that as well. Let's revisit this all on the 30th of April. I'm going to give you, I'm going to put a cloak over this process that you're doing. That coupled with what the Trump administration revealed, not in a public filing, but in a interrogatory response to the other side, they said they are working on diplomatic means to return Abrego Garcia. Now take that. With Trump's admission that he hasn't done a darn thing when he's had the opportunity to pick up the red phone and call the dictator, the petty dictator of El Salvador Bukele. Isn't that a darn thing? I put all that together. Either this is resulting in Obrego Garcia getting home by the 30th, or as you just said, this is a major piece of evidence against the Trump administration, its lawyers with Judge Zinnis for contempt, which is what is hanging in the balance here. And Donald Trump has slowly, even though publicly he's not doing it, because Stephen Miller, who's really writing the script for him, is not doing it. All these deportations of children and babies and chemotherapy people and breastfeeding people, this is all out of the fevered mind of Stephen Miller, the guy who separated people and put them in cages the first time around. And he, and he's, you know, he's, he is the, the, the, the Grim reaper. I don't, I'm not letting Donald Trump off the hook. I'm just telling you who's doing it on a day to day, who's ex, who's the COO that's executing this policy. And now, and now they're publicly Bondi and Miller bashing away at Zenith and everybody else. But privately they're now scared of what is happening with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Wilkinson. Rock rib, Republican 90 at the Supreme Court. 72 at the Supreme Court. Now they have a losing record at the United States Supreme Court in the last couple of weeks and this I think has rocked them to their core. And internally they're trying to recalibrate and it may start showing up in positions taken at the courts. Not sure yet. I'm just telling you the worm may have started to turn with these back to back rulings against the Trump administration and Judge Zinnis who's now been affirmed by two separate panels of the Fourth Circuit and a 90 panel of the United States Supreme Court. I mean federal judges are already scary creatures in terms of their powers. I've been doing federal court work for 35 years. You've done it for a long time too. They don't need to be turbocharged, but she's effing turbocharged. And if they pick the wrong two judges to mess with in Bozberg and Zinnis and I think we're starting to see the results. So hang in there our audience. I know you get, you get frustrated and beleaguered and I'm not saying you're wrong about what does it matter? What does it matter? He's not going to abide. Just watch. Because whether it's the polls or it's, or it's just the losses or the economy going down the drain, Donald Trump is starting to reel himself in a bit. And you can see it in interviews with Time.
- [17:05]
Michael Popak
Look, you mentioned Judge Zinnis, you mentioned Judge Boasberg. Let's talk about some of these Trump appointed judges. There's a Trump appointed judge in Maryland, Judge Zinnis, not a Trump appointed judge, but Judge Stephanie Gallagher is a Maryland based Trump appointed judge. She ruled this past week that the Trump regime needs to return another 20 year old Venezuelan man who was living in Maryland who was sent to the concentration camp in violation of a settlement agreement that was previously reached with the government regarding his immigration status. The Trump regime tried to argue to this Maryland Trump appointed federal judge that the invocation of the Aliens Enemy act vitiated any agreements at all with migrants. That the moment Alien Enemies Act Trump could breach agreements. By the way, doesn't that sound familiar with Donald Trump's past dealings as a failed business person always trying to find some way to void his contracts. Remember how he tried to screw and did screw over all of those lenders who by the way he's screwing over now again with the way he's handling the economy. When he would claim that there's a force majeure, when economic times would go bad, he would say that's the equivalent of an act of God that destroyed the contract. So I'm not able to pay you back the money that you lent me anymore. So he, you know, so he's invoking the Aliens Enemies act popo like he used to in fact invoke force majeure clauses or other types of clauses in his contracts to not do the things. But this Trump appointed Judge Stephanie Gallagher, Maryland based Trump Judge says nope facilitate the return of another Venezuelan migrant consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling there. Also you have U.S. district Judge Terry Dowdy, a Trump appointed judge.
- [18:59]
Ben Miceli
Don't gloss over that one Trump.
- [19:02]
Michael Popak
Let's, let's do that one. A Judge Terry Dowdy Trump appointed Judge Louisiana he called out Trump in the most harsh of terms saying I don't believe you. I think you just deported a US citizen multiple you two year old, two year old, a two year old US Citizen to Honduras while the two year old's dad had been petitioning, invoking habeas petitions and just any petition my son's an American citizen. So the mom was a migrant, the dad is a citizen, the son is a citizen. And what the Trump regime is lying about is when they cruelly deported the moment they deported the son with the mom, I think not realizing that the son was had a dad who's an American citizen who or realizing it and wanted to torture this family. And the Trump judge says what the hell did you do? And now you're in my court lying. And so I talk about that Pope but be careful what you wish for here because the Trump regime tried to stop Boasberg from doing the class action type of stuff with all of these, with all of these migrants in one case. So the result is not a win as you and I told the legal A efforts the result was even though the Trump regime was spiking the football like they won something from Mozam. Now you have cases being filed by these renowned immigration groups and the ACLU a hundred times a day in 50 states and the Trump regime DOJ led by Pam Bondi. The idiot crew can keep up with this stuff.
- [20:52]
Ben Miceli
Full court press.
- [20:54]
Michael Popak
It would have been better for them to have it as a class action in one case and litigate the issues.
- [20:59]
Ben Miceli
Once they don't think ahead up to the Supreme Court. You're right, there's nothing here. So Terry Doughty, though, I want to focus on him for a minute. He's not just any Trump appointed judge. He is so MAGA that he was besides Judge Kaczmarek in Texas. Terry Dowdy was the judge that MAGA and Trump and others filed purposely in his Western District of Louisiana, Monroe, Louisiana courtroom in order to get him, in order to tie down Joe Biden and his policies. You know, he came out against Covid and the Commander in Chief policies, all sorts of things that he was the go to is like three of them go to federal judges. But now you, you have to bring them this terrible case with terrible facts of a two year old US citizen holding a born in New Orleans birth certificate whose mother apparently she said in the hearing, I don't know if you caught this one, Ben. They said, the, the immigration officer said, well, well, the, the, the mother wrote a note in Spanish and said she wanted the kid deported. And he's like, how do I know that? How do I get her on the phone? Oh, well, we released her from ICE custody. She's now somewhere in Honduras. And he's like, are you kidding me? You know, of course he couldn't help himself. At one point during the hearing, he said, the plane is over the Gulf of America. Yeah, the plane is over the Gulf of America, Judge. And they just deported. Because of the brain drain that we've now watched, you and I are going to do a couple of stories here in a row on this podcast about what did they think was going to happen when they hollowed out the Department of Justice and career veteran. The starters keep a baseball or sports analogy going. The starters all left. And now the scrubs are underpaid, overworked, they can't handle all of these cases. The elite all left. The career independent prosecutors have all left the various offices. Solicitor General, Department of Justice, main justice, in the offices of the U.S. attorney's Offices around the country, leaving this group behind, led, as you said, by a dimwit and an Attorney General and Pam Bondi. I mean, the more she speaks. She should speak less. The more she speaks, the less, the less confidence I think anybody can have in her abilities. She already got, by the way, on that note, she already got chastised by a federal judge in New York who told her to shut up about, about the. It was Luigi Mangione about going after him in the media because all you're doing is violating ethics laws and polluting his ability to pick a jury. So this is our attorney General. People used to complain that Merrick Garland didn't talk enough and now we got this, she talks too much. So Terry Doughty says all the stuff you're telling me about this two year old US citizen with a US father and a mother who you deported is all hearsay. I need the evidence. So I'm going to hold a hearing on 16 May and by that time you better get your act together about what just happened to the deported 2 year old US citizen. Now to answer the question from the chats because I've seen it started while we've been doing this. She is a he or she. You said it was a son. Maybe it's a son. The two year old has rights that could be exercised hopefully by a guardian to come back to the United States because they are a US Citizen. So there may be a family law dispute going on here on child custody. Sort of like Ilion Gonzalez 25 years ago in Miami. You know, I don't know. But in any event, without due process and the judge says, I have a strong suspicion this was his words, that this judge child got deported as a US Citizen without any due process whatsoever. I mean it's very hard to interview a two year old. So you appoint a custodian or a guardian who represents the child's interests and reports back to the judge as an officer of the court. But none of that was done. This again is the series of screw ups. When you and I get after the break to the judge, Judge Dugan in Milwaukee, I'm going to talk about the screw ups there. That, that I think almost, almost in a way on purpose put the judge in a position. It's almost like entrapment what they did with that particular judge because they could have executed the warrant in a different way. We'll talk about all that after the break.
- [25:18]
Michael Popak
Oh, they are. The Trump regime is going to get absolutely ripped to shreds destroyed on that Judge Doogee case. Okay, okay, Trump, you won your headline right the way you won your headline of 90 deals in 90 days bet. But now do it. Okay, now do it. You arrested a judge in her courtroom. Now go in front of a federal judge. Now bring that case to a grand jury, bring it to a federal judge and then explain why it is that you raided a state court judge's courtroom during the proceedings where the state court judge was trying to impose justice on a criminal justice. You obstructed the state court judges proceedings and then you want to arrest the state court judge with an administrator with.
- [26:08]
Ben Miceli
An administrative search warrant, arrest warrant not even issued by a judge and with a criminal complaint against her, not even a grand jury indictment.
- [26:18]
Michael Popak
They are so sloppy. They are dangerous, they are vile. But thank God their dangerousness is matched by their stupidity and their incompetence. I guess it makes it better or worse, depending on how you see it. Everybody, Michael Popak has started his own law firm. They're doing great work at Popox Law Firm. And if you have a case involving someone in your life or someone that you know or even yourself that involves a catastrophic injury, bad car accident, a trucking accident, wrongful death, sexual assault or harassment, medical malpractice or negligence, Michael Popak is handling these cases. We've always been asked by our legal A efforts, hey, I have this situation. I have that situation. So if you have a type of case that fits that profile, call Popak right now or go to Popak's website and tell them about what your case is about. Popoc, where can they go?
- [27:18]
Ben Miceli
Yeah, we made it easy. Thanks, Ben. Really standing on the shoulders of legal if forum this firm it's easy www the popak p o p. Okay firm.com instantly get to a to a contact form that'll put you in the hands of somebody to talk about your case and a free case evaluation. Or you can use a 1, 800 number that we created special for this 1, 8767-popak AF.
- [27:45]
Michael Popak
Also make sure you subscribe to Michael Popo's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel. It's absolutely crushing it. Legal AF on YouTube, they've got multiple, multiple takes every day from every angle. If we miss it here on the Midas Touch network, they're leading the way with it on Legal af. We'll be right back after our first quick break of the show.
- [28:07]
Ben Miceli
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- [31:15]
Michael Popak
Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to our Pro Democracy sponsors. This show does not exist without them. The discount codes for those Pro Democracy sponsors are in the description below. Check it out again. They're the fuel that helps this go and helps us keep on going. All right, Popac, let's talk about what the Trump regime did with this judge, this Wisconsin county state court judge. She had an individual before her last week in court, or at this point, maybe two weeks ago in court, because the arrest happened this past Friday, and it was an individual who was being charged with domestic violence. He was showing up in state court. She's a judge who administers justice over this individual's case. And he showed up to court. Right? There's a process, right, where you have an arraignment, you have court dates that you show up to. And our system at the state court level and the federal court level relies on people showing up to their court dates. If you don't show up to your court dates, a bench warrant is issued. You get thrown in prison right away. Unless you're, I guess, Donald Trump or Magna Person. But I'm being facetious, but it's also true at the same time. But in a situation like this, you have people show up to court. So the judge is going through. The judge is going through the process. So ICE and the FBI, they want to do a raid of the judge's courtroom while court is in session, and they claim they have a warrant, but it's in the middle. Like, there's a busy docket. When you're a judge, you have maybe 100 cases, sometimes in a day, lots of people coming in. If you're a criminal court judge, you have, you know, lots of people who are accused of crimes lining up. It's busy, it's chaotic. But as a judge, you have to control your courtroom. It's not an easy job to do. And throughout all of this, it would be unheard of. This has never taken place before, ever in the United States. This is not normal. There's no protocol for this, for the feds to say, we want to show up in a judge's courtroom and do the raid in your courtroom to arrest an individual who we think is a migrant, who's here unlawfully because we either want to send him to El Salvador or put him in an ICE detention center. And we need to do that in the courtroom. They did not need to do that in the courtroom. They could do it outside the courtroom. They could do it at the guy's House. They could do it at another place if they need to do it at all in any specific circumstance. The judge here basically said that you're not doing this. You know, she gets this paperwork.
- [34:09]
Ben Miceli
What.
- [34:09]
Michael Popak
What. What are you doing? What the. Like, it's. It's unheard of. It doesn't exist. And so the. And so the judge was like, you know, go away. You can coordinate with, like, court services because there's a whole administrator in every courthouse, in every county court system. There's a presiding judge and then there's court administrators who help facilitate certain things. Because, you know, in a county, There could be 500 judges, 1,000 judges, 2,000 judges, depending on the size of the county. And you need to have administration go speak to the administration. We'll figure something out. Don't do this in my. You're not going to do this in my courtroom. If you take the allegations as true from Cash Patel, somehow the FBI director and Pam Bondi at that point, the judge basically allows the individual who. The. Who ICE wants to take out, lets him out through the door. He walks out and then ICE and FBI arrest him outside and said that she basically helped him leave the courtroom and they had to chase him in order to get him. And then they go back and they arrest the judge in her courtroom on Friday. They make a public spectacle about it. They post on social media about it. Take it from there. Popak, tell us about the judge.
- [35:31]
Ben Miceli
Judge Dugan, doing her job, always defending justice. Started out working the week of Pope Francis's death. One of my. One of my favorite popes is. And honored him is she worked for Catholic charity. She's always worked for the underprivileged. She worked for legal legal aid. She ran for office and became a Milwaukee Circuit Court judge, doing it with. With quite a great reputation. But there's a reason that we consider places to be sacrosanct, like funeral homes and schools and churches where we don't want immigration raids or people being picked up. And a state courthouse is certainly at the top of the list.
- [36:11]
Michael Popak
Why?
- [36:11]
Ben Miceli
Because they're already administering justice. And we don't want to put people, especially those in the criminal justice system of Wisconsin, deep underground, where they avoid their criminal process, putting law enforcement at risk there because they know if they end up back at a courthouse, they could be picked up by the feds and deported, making them more desperate. So you don't want to do that. And what I found so striking, just to add a little bit of color around some of the facts that you laid out, is that ICE in Milwaukee knew that this guy was going to be in her courtroom at a date and time. Certainly they had that confirmation. That's why six officers all showed up at the courthouse. All they had to do was set up outside. Okay? The guy goes through a metal detector, so we know he doesn't have weapons. He comes back out, and as soon as he's done, you look at your watch, there he is. You got his photo, and you pick him up on the courthouse steps or maybe a block away or whatever. What you don't do is you don't march into the courtroom in the courthouse and try to disrupt the administration of justice in that courtroom. She had about. The reporting has been. She had about eight hearings going on. This guy was probably in the middle of the pack. She heard from her deputies that they were trying to execute a warrant outside ICE to pick up somebody. And she's not a. I know it's been reported as she created a sanctuary city inside of a jury room. That's not what happened. She went out into the hallway. She confronted the officers. She said, what are you here on? They said, we're here on an arrest warrant. She said, let me see it. And she said, is it a judge issued one? They said, no, it's an administrative one. Big difference. Administrative one comes out of, like, ice, and it's not. There's no judge like her, her equivalent, making sure that due process is done properly. She said, come back when you have a proper arrest warrant. That's one. Secondly, you're not doing it in my courtroom. And this is. This is outrageous. Go talk to the chief judge. As you said, there's a whole administration around a courthouse, and the chief judge had. Hadn't yet set policies about this. And they went to the chief judge's office, and while they were doing it, she took. She took them and directed the. The. The lawyer and this guy who she just sentenced concerning assault and domestic violence, assault and battery. She took him out another door into another public hallway, and they made their way out of the courtroom, where they were then apprehended after a foot chase. I mean, yeah, okay, maybe after a foot chase, but you didn't even have to do that whole thing. Then they decided to make an example of her and as you said, get the headline. So rather than go to a grand jury in. In Milwaukee, which I doubt is going to indict her, she's very popular there, and she's a state court judge, and there's a little bit of sovereignty and civic pride that goes into this and there they got a criminal complaint issued by a prosecutor. That's different. So you got two weaker pieces of paper involved in this case. You got a criminal complaint and she can't, even though she was arraigned on it. There has to be an indictment by way of, by way of ultimately, by way of a grand jury. Good luck on that and that happening. But they got their headline, but, and they got all those little straight facts that we were even, we were confused yesterday trying to sort out the story before we did our various hot takes on it about, what is it? She stashed him in a juror's room. What is it? And then we got it all confused with another guy, a former judge in New Mexico who hid a trend. Aragua guy. Like, all the stories started conflating, but the reality is Judge Dugan was right that this is not the place to execute a lower level arrest warrant. You know, and all they had to do, as I said before, is set up outside. And what I, what I learned from reading the criminal complaint is that they, of course, they knew exactly where he was. And, and the way that Cash Patel, in a now deleted social media post left it, is that, you know, we wanted him to go through the metal detectors because, you know, it's better for law enforcement because they knew he wasn't armed. We also know he's not armed when he's coming out of the courthouse. So that, that makes absolutely no sense. This is a bad series of facts for the Trump administration. As his poll numbers sink, you know, you're deporting babies that are US Citizens. You're cutting off people from, you know, who are in the middle of chemotherapy and putting people in cages again. At the same time, you're falsely arresting federal judges, I mean, state judges. This is a bad look. And if you think this is, if Stephen Miller and Trump thinks it's going to help get the independent vote back in time for the midterms, he's almost acting, I want to get your opinion on this, Ben. He's almost acting like he doesn't care about the midterms. Like, like he's going to do his maximum damage in the next, you know, whatever months, you know, two, you know, a year and three quarters. And then whatever happens to the midterms, he doesn't really care. And that's it. Because he's not acting like a guy that cares about the electoral fortunes of anybody else in the republic.
- [41:12]
Michael Popak
I don't think he thinks about anything tomorrow in general, the midterms or whatever. I think he'll start thinking about it as it gets close. But I think he thinks about every day. How does he make the day about himself? And he views a successful day as a day where he sucks all of the oxygen out of any other story. And people, for bad, for very bad, or for horrible, and very rarely for good, talk about him, and maybe he gets the good headline for the day. 90 deals in 90 days. That sounds pretty epic. 90 deals in 90 days. You're gonna do trade deals with the world. Okay, well, then when it's day 16 and 17 and 18 and you're not making deals, and then the headlines start to come out where you say, well, we're going to do a deal in principle, maybe with Japan. And then Japan's like, we don't know what he's talking about. And he keeps on talking about a bowling test where bowling balls are hitting the top of cars, and we need to eliminate a bowling ball test that doesn't exist. Like, what the hell is he talking about? You know, you have trade deals with countries that have zero tariff relationships, like South Korea, which would be the easiest trade deal to make. And you're hearing out of Seoul that they're saying, we're not ready until, like, July. And these are people with existing trade deals that already exist that, like, what are you even doing? You know, you have, you know, the European Union. You. As I saw a minister from France saying that we're nowhere close to doing, you know, a deal. Why am I bringing up the trade deal? It's just. It's emblematic of everything, which is he got the headline, and now he's got to deal with all of these things. You know, Trump can say all he wants. Abrego Garcia. Mississippi 13. Mississippi 13. Mississippi 13. And don't get me wrong, people don't want Ms. 13 here. I don't want Ms. 13 here. I want strong borders. If they're someone who is a criminal involved in criminal conduct, I want to see them held accountable. But I think after you get over the headline of Donald Trump saying Ms. 13, and you break it down, you go, wait, wait a minute, wait. But you gave him a work permit, Donald. So you're saying you gave the MS.13 leader, who you was acting like is as bad as a work permit, and he's been. That doesn't really make much sense. It'd be like bin Laden working in Maryland and showing up to immigration services once a year to renew his status. And bin Laden worked in a union.
- [43:48]
Ben Miceli
What?
- [43:48]
Michael Popak
He was a union worker. He was married to An American woman. They lived in a house in Maryland. That doesn't make much sense, Donald. And then he has to do this is why I call it the rug pull, Ponzi scheme presidency. He's got to mount the lie on top of the lie. And then eventually, because there's no attempt to actually fix it, it's just lie over lie. Then what happens? It just blows up. And in Donald Trump's past dealings, that's why he's bankrupted thing after thing after thing, because the lies compound. He gets cornered, he lies, and then he finds ways to, you know, get out of it for himself, but then he screws everybody else over. And I think we're seeing that now. I think we're seeing that now at large. And that's why also, it's not a coincidence that the DOJ issued that memo rescinding the Biden guidance and the prior guidance that existed, which is you can target the media with kind of secret surveillance for working confidential sources and whistleblowers within the government. Right. There was also another memo that the DOJ released which says that you don't really need warrants when targeting migrants at all. That was DOJ guidance. We don't think you need warrants to enter people's homes. So you are now seeing, I think, an acceleration of the fascist stuff which existed before. As Trump gets more and more desperate, the memo saying they're targeting media and sources, especially, you know, as Exith and Homeland Security dog killer Kristi Noma. Like, they're, like they're sitting their employees down, polygraphing them. Imagine working in a company and they sit you down. It's not funny, but they sit you down and polygraph you before you come into work. I mean, that's what it's like to work for the Homeland Security Department and the Department of Defense right now. So they're doing that and then they're saying, you know, basically warrantless searches, which, again, is not constitutional. And all we're saying here, folks, and I think the independents get it, it's why Trump's approval amongst independents is now in the 20s. And I think it's going to go lower than that, is we have a constitution. Our constitution has due process. Due process moves slower, but it's a process. Due, due process. And we're not supposed to be Russia or North Korea where they get to say, hey, you're this affiliation. You die. You. You die. Trump's tried that. That's the concentration. That's why we call it a concentration camp. People go to seekat to die. And as an American, I don't want to see that. I want to see that someone gets process and then the process has a accountability mechanism that matches if there is a crime and if there's not a crime, there's not a crime. It's really that simple. When we come back, Popak, I want to talk about the sloppiness. I mean, you have in that MTA lawsuit where Trump's trying to attack the governor of New York. And this they filed their own memo, not the court filing, they filed their own internal memo, attorney client memo, saying we're going to lose this case, we are violating the law. They filed it and then they had to send the judge a message saying, oopsies, we didn't mean to send that. Can you remove that? Which raises a number of questions, too. We'll address because, yes, attorney client leakage normally should be returned. But what do you do now when you're a judge and you know that someone's pursuing a case in bad faith, which is a violation of their ethical obligations as a lawyer? I want to hear your take. If that even violates the attorney client privilege when you admit that you're not really acting as an attorney anymore when.
- [48:02]
Ben Miceli
We and when we get to it. The thing that was shocking for me is that the Trump administration's reaction to it was to air the dirty laundry and have the Department of Transportation publicly flog and attack its own lawyers in the media. All right. They think this is a winning strategy. We'll talk more about it.
- [48:23]
Michael Popak
Michael Popak, for everybody who wants to know about your law firm, you represent people who are victims of catastrophic injuries, personal injuries, sexual assault and harassment, medical malpractice, negligence and more. You really handle like the catastrophic trucking accident cases that result in serious injuries and wrongful deaths and things like that. So if you, if anybody knows someone like that or someone in your family or something that happened to you, Popak, where do they reach you?
- [48:51]
Ben Miceli
Yeah. And the reason we do that, just one last line on that, is that, you know, that is the intersection of life and the legal system is the catastrophic moments that unfortunately damaged or hurt or killed you or people in your life. And so that's why dedicated the firm to that. On the shoulders of Legal AF, it's easy. Go to www the popoc firm.com sometimes my name gets misspelled here. It's P O P O K for the middle there. And then the 1-800-number is 1-87-7, Popak.
- [49:24]
Michael Popak
AF everybody make sure you subscribe to Michael Popox YouTube channel as well the Legal AF channel Legal AF search Legal AF on YouTube. Let's get that 1 million subscribers. All right, we'll take our last quick break of the show. When we come back, let's talk about Sloppy Sloppy Trump.
- [49:45]
Ben Miceli
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- [53:44]
Michael Popak
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to our pro democracy sponsors. We appreciate them. Discount codes are in the description below. Oopsies. Popoc. How many times have we heard Oopsies. Did we just fire the Ebola researchers? Oh, didn't mean to do that. Oopsies. Did we fire the nuclear scientists who are protecting our nuclear secrets? Oopsies. Did we just deport an individual by mistake to a concentration camp and now we say we can't bring them back? Oopsies. Did we just fire NIH employees that we didn't mean to buy? Oopsies. I mean, how many times have you heard this over and over again? These oopsies cause people and cause Americans real suffering. It's the cruelty. It's the incompetence. And we saw it on full display in this case in New York, where Trump's been strongly, powerfully going after the governor for the highway, the king of New York traffic congestion pricing. Which you're in New York. I've actually heard A lot of people say it's actually been a helpful.
- [54:53]
Ben Miceli
It's working.
- [54:54]
Michael Popak
Is working in New York. But Trump wants to attack anything that's working. He filed a lawsuit against New York for congestion pricing. This and that. Also talk a little bit about, after we talk about this topic, him attacking New York Attorney General Letitia James and the retaliation, you know, you know, there. But the Trump lawyers filed a memo saying that they're going to lose the case because they're violating the law. To the judge Popaka, let you take it from there.
- [55:24]
Ben Miceli
Thank you. Yeah. Oh, that Syrian zoopsy. They just recently, to continue that, that, that stream of thought, they just recently doxed and outed the home address for Abrego Garcia's wife. She's had to go into hiding. Oops. They just, that's what deported the two year old we talked about. Abrego Garcia. This is what happens when you have dimwits and low lights running your departments and all of the career talent headed for the exit or you force them out and, and this is what's left. You can't shutter the Department of Justice, but you might as well have the way you're running it. So I don't want to name them, even though it's been in the paper, but three beleaguered Department of Justice personnel that work for the Southern District of New York, U.S. attorney's office, which covers Manhattan, which had, until Donald Trump took over, a long history of being one of the elite offices in the U.S. u.S. Attorney's Office network of offices in the country. Like when I was graduating and even today, up until today, like that is the, the elite. That is the plum job. I mean, there's people that if they didn't get into the Southern District of New York, they didn't want to be a U.S. attorney anywhere else. It just sets your life on a whole nother trajectory. But now I'm watching what's happening with who's left there. So let me just say something. In 35 years of practice, I've not had a perfect practice. There have been times where because the sheer number of documents that are involved in a case, and even if you use AI and platforms and you do review occasionally, it's happened to everyone, including me. An attorney client privilege documentary slips out and ends up in the other, the side, the other side's hands. Not pub, not published in the public docket. And then the federal rules have a whole procedure for it because they understand we're dealing with like terabytes of information. And it can happen. And you can claw it back and there's a procedure for it and you kind of seal it away and it happens. And if somebody's out there that's a lawyer that says it's never happened to them, then they're not handling big enough or enough cases because it does happen. So I kind of felt for these people. I've never done it on the public docket, but it certainly has happened unfortunately in discovery. And then there's ways to deal with it and make sure the client isn't harmed. This group, I don't know if somebody's eye slipped or they got tired, but at 9:00 at night, when they were supposed to load up docket entry number 65 of the public docket, pardon me, that was supposed to be just a plain vanilla letter to the judge about a procedural issue about the timing of certain document production. Instead, they uploaded an earlier internal memo that was also on letterhead that was sent from these lawyers to their counterpart at the Department of Transportation, giving them advice and cold hard advice about the chance of success of their legal arguments in front of Judge Lyman. They literally said things like, this isn't going to fly with Judge Lyman. He's going to reject this. But they did, to their credit, because it was a memo they did give another path. They said, the path we're on right now is about to hit a brick wall and we're going to loose. However, we could switch gears and we could argue this, this and this. Good lawyers give alternatives besides doomsday. We're going to lose. And that's what they did. And that would have been fine if it was just an attorney client communication to your client. But it got uploaded to the public docket and then everybody saw it. Our phones blew up. People around the midas universe started post on their social media. I got a copy of it off the docket and then they, they didn't realize it for about a. For not. They didn't realize it immediately. They then called the other side and said, oh crap, we sent you our memo which says our case is dog, do please give it back to us. They called the clerk to get it sealed temporarily. Clerk said sure, but you got to go back to Judge Lyman. You go. They went back to Judge Lyman and they had to file this. We screwed up and we filed our secret attorney client memo that nobody should see. It's already been in the media, which the judge acknowledged in one of his orders. But can we get it back please and have it sealed or removed. So that went on now that is one way to handle it. Clean up behind the elephant. The way I wouldn't handle it is the way the Trump administration handled it, which is to call a civil war between two parts of your own administration with the Department of just. Just Department of Transportation, run by Sean Duffy, formerly of the Real World, and his own lawyers. So the spokespeople for the Department of Transportation come out with, this is professional malpractice. They either did it, they're incompetent or they did it on purpose as part of their resistance. Who does this out loud? I looked at their credentials. It's just too young department, you know, U.S. attorneys and one woman who's been there for about 20 years. I mean, I don't know. I looked at her social media. Does she seem to side a little bit more of the Democratic causes? Maybe. Do I think she jeopardized her law license and her professional ethics to accidentally on purpose post an internal legal memo? I don't. But that's not where the Trump administration went. It went, oh, here we go. I mean, to a, to a hammer, everything's a nail. It's the only tool they got in the bag is a hammer. Oh, boom. Hammer. Our own lawyers. I'm thinking, what are you doing publicly now? What this case was about was about we weren't even really following it on or on legal af. We're like, I don't know, it's sort of kind of ho hum. You live in New York. It's interesting. You got to pay $9 now if you come in below 60th street for congestion pricing, which, by the way, has reduced traffic 13% and 6 million cars in New York, that's a good thing. Between the Ubers and the people that drive in, and everybody's got to take their own car. Nobody carpools. It's a mess. And so this was a good thing. But not to Donald Trump. He's never gonna get votes in New York. I don't know why he cares about New York in terms of the political expediency of it. He just likes to. He just likes to stick it to a hochul, you know, like, oh, I'm gonna take over the development of Penn Station. All right, well, she said, all right, take it over that we're not gonna contribute our New York funds to it. You know, you want, you want to be a big shot and take over Penn Station. Redevelopment, the trades, go ahead. We're taking our 17 billion with us. You know, this is that thought process that you pointed out that's never you know, there's no executive function in the executive branch. That's what we're watching. So I'll end it this way. I feel a little bit sorry. Although they stayed, they didn't go for the three lawyers at the Department of Justice, who I don't think they or their paralegal, I don't think they did it on purpose. They've now, the case has now been transferred to main justice in Washington. And I'm not sure it's going to get any better. Directly under Pam Bondi, by the way. And now you've got Jay Clayton, who, I'll end it this way, who is Donald Trump's former securities and Exchange Commission head, formerly a U.S. attorney there and literally Howard Lutnick's and Donald Trump's golfing buddy, who's now The Acting Interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District. So I guess they think they have to clean up. But have you ever seen, could you imagine the Biden, Clinton, Obama administration, a department bashing its own lawyers publicly?
- [62:48]
Michael Popak
No. I mean, look, federal prosecutors, it's supposed to be a very esteemed role, stepping stone to maybe becoming a judge. Great career in and of itself. You're supposed to be able to pick cases following the law that you're confident you're going to win. You don't have to bring bad cases. You represent the US with limitless resources. You should be winning cases and not looking like fools before the court. But the same way earlier, as I described, Donald Trump has turned our economy into looking like a Trump meme coin or a Trump company, which is bad. Trump has turned the DOJ into like a Trump legal team, like an Alina Haba led legal team and she's his United States attorney interim in New Jersey bad. And they go in there fumbling, bumbling and you know, as someone who is a law professor and Popak, someone like you who's, you know, had a 30 plus year career as a lawyer, we've taken this profession very, very seriously. And there's the dangerousness aspect of it there. And that comes first. But then to me, when I just look at some of this stuff and I'm like, oh my God, they're just so bad. Like, like they're just not good. And that's a big issue. America was supposed to be talented and have talented people at top positions. And so when I see just, just bad lawyering and, and sloppiness and the judges see it too, it's why like earlier in the show too, even these Trump appointed judges, at least from his first term, they came from top law school still. And they went through a system and a path that they were still. They cared about like grammar and like sentences and facts at least at some point. And this Trump DOJ can't even get, get really past the like sentences portion. Like you guys want to talk in sentences. And then maybe we can elevate legal arguments and then maybe we can elevate persuasion. But like they don't even get there. Popak, just before we go, I want to talk about this Letitia James briefly, briefly, briefly, because we were on New York anyway.
- [65:10]
Ben Miceli
Yeah, you're talking about the 19 attorney generals led by her. Okay.
- [65:14]
Michael Popak
Yeah, yeah.
- [65:14]
Ben Miceli
So 19 states have filed, led by Letitia James, who basically brushed off any accusations that she was corrupt, which Donald Trump made in a political retribution, saying she lied on mortgage forms. She didn't. She lied on a property she bought with her father in Virginia. She didn't. And if they thought it was going to back her off. She is Freddy Krueger for Donald Trump. She lives in his nightmares. She occupies a considerable amount of real estate in time inside of whatever's left of Donald Trump's cranium. I really, really believe that. And so if they thought that was going to back her off, quite the opposite. She's now filed along with 18 other states. In Massachusetts, it's been assigned to a senior judge who's a God, he's still around, a Reagan appointee, senior judge there. And it's all about their attempt to cut off tens of billions of dollars of school aid for special needs children, for children to learn English in schools for the disadvantaged and fragile population, primarily in school systems. When did that become a red versus blue thing helping special needs children. And what they said is in their new filing and seeking yet another injunction, which I'm sure is coming, is that this last minute Department of Education sending them a notice that if they don't cut diversity, equity and inclusion out of their programming and they don't sign on the dotted line, they basically weaponize Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act. And what their response in this lawsuit, I read through it on a new hot take on legal. AF is diversity and equity. And inclusion is the lifeblood of the public school system. It's in the fabric of the very programs you're trying to cut. You can't tell us in three days we have to cut the heart out of our programs in order to get money. That violates the Administrative Procedures act act in about five different ways, including being arbitrary, capricious, it violates all the things about separation of powers, you wouldn't know it by the way. This Congress led by the Republicans is a doormat and a wet noodle. But it is Congress that's supposed to have spending power, appropriation power, and, and, and all of that, not you. You're supposed to executive branch, you're supposed to faithfully execute, you're not supposed to legislate, you're not supposed to kill funding. And, and so they have all these constitutional claims there as well. He hasn't said a hearing yet, the judge up in Massachusetts. And just the last comment there. There's a good reason we've been following these kind of cases in Massachusetts and in the New England states is because we're having tremendous success there through the First Circuit Court of Appeals and then off to the United States Supreme Court. It's a perfect way to set up the case. You could do it in New York, but it's just a better place to be. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and those kind of things. California and Maryland and D.C. that's why we're seeing, that's the strike zone that the Democrats, the moderates, the ACL use, the attorneys general are hitting over and over and over again because it's working.90, they're batting.900 then 90% success rate against this administration in all their cases. And whereas two weeks ago I was like, well, Trump's strategy of doing everything by emergency application to the Supreme Court seems to be working. Forget that after two back to back losses at the United States Supreme Court, we're winning there in large numbers as well as I think Donald Trump is losing the votes he needs as the United States Supreme Court, who may finally have found something that they can do to help our constitutional republic, which is the stand up to a lawless president. President.
- [68:52]
Michael Popak
You know, the amount of losing is really unprecedented for a federal government. You don't see loss after loss after loss like this. And they want to complain that these are activist judges. A lot of these judges, though, are actually, as we talked about earlier, Trump appointed judges, George W. Bush appointed judges, even Reagan appointed judges. Yes, you have your Obama and Biden and Clinton judges, but it's a mixture of all of them. And Trump's poll numbers, unprecedented low. Trump losing in courts, unprecedentedly high. The amount of losses that are mounting up and you know, as we are here April 26th, we're heading into May, we're still less than 100 days in. This has been the worst presidency officially in the history of the United States of America. That's what Donald Trump has demonstrated and Donald Trump, Trump thought that he was going to be able to, with Elon Musk, bulldoze the federal government, destroy people's will to fight. And they may have wrecked the federal government. It's going to need a lot of rebuilding, a lot of rebuilding in the future. But he has not destroyed our will. He has not destroyed the people's desire to fight. And as significant as a resistance was during the first Trump administration, I know people were worried that they didn't see that this time around in Trump too. Here we are in April as we reflect on the fact that the resistance is stronger than it ever was before, the opposition is stronger than it ever was before, and this time it seems to be even smarter, more sophisticated and really keen on making sure generationally that these mistakes don't happen again. I want to thank all of the Midas Mighty and Legal A effers for also helping hosting the Midas Touch podcast win the Podcast of the Year award on the Webbies next year. We'll try to see if Legal AF can win Legal AF Podcast back to back. We'll go for back to back. That's their top award for all podcasts in the world. And so we're honored that the Webby's gave us that award and we'll keep on fighting every day. Popak, if people want to reach out to your personal law firm, if they've got got someone in their family that they know are themselves who suffered a catastrophic personal injury, whether it's a car accident, a trucking accident, sexual assault, a case like that, and they want you to handle it, where can they contact you right now?
- [71:26]
Ben Miceli
Very easy. 1-877-POPAK AF or go to the website www the popoc firm.com on the legal AF YouTube channel. We're adding 80,000 subscribers a month. Month. That's all because of you. And by doing that you're allowing me, who's curating the channel to bring on some amazing new contributors. We're up to a dozen now. We got a couple that have joining us in the next week that I'm going to be announcing next week and two after that. You're really going to be impressed with the quality and the new points of view that we're bringing on to Legal AF, the YouTube channel we do in collaboration with the Midas Touch.
- [72:06]
Michael Popak
Yeah, we're working with a lot of groups as well. You may have seen. I did an interview with with the ACLU this past week with Anthony Romero, their executive director, hoping to have more collaborations with the ACLU and groups like that as well on the Legal AF channel. They can talk about their cases firsthand, what they're doing when they when they are fighting these cases and winning. It's a great thing that we're building over there and it's thanks to you Legal A efforts and Midas Mighty. So check out the Legal AF YouTube channel. Subscribe subscribe on audio to the Legal AF podcast as well. Thank you Midas Mighty. Thank you Legal A Effort. Always a great time when we get to spend time together. Let's keep fighting for our democracy. Shout out Legal A efforts and shout out Midas Mighty.
- [72:59]
Ben Miceli
There are research firms, there are consulting.
- [73:02]
Michael Popak
Firms and then there's Forrester. Forrester combines research based insights with hands on guidance that's focused on your needs and goals. Whether you're looking to align your organization or transform your business through generative AI, Forrester is on your side and by your side. Meet Today's Forrester@forrester.com.