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- [00:01]
Michael Popak
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed.
- [00:22]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Or your money back.
- [00:23]
Michael Popak
Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast. Terms apply. Well, as the President of the United States continues his influence peddling scheme, now going abroad to the Arab countries in Riyadh and other places, announcing deals, some of which were in the works during the Biden administration, bringing along his true, true cabinet. Not the ones that are responsible for, you know, running agencies and things like that and departments, you know, the oligarchs, the tech bros, all those like Elon Musk that want to make money in Saudi Arabia and in Riyadh and in Qatar and all that. You know, I thought the big announcement, Karen, was going to be some sort of peace deal somewhere. But for Donald Trump, a big announcement has to do with transactional, has to do with a deal, has to do with I'm getting a giant plane. Has very little to do with how he helps the American people or fulfills any of his campaign promises. But we have that as the backdrop. But things are still going on in the United States while Donald Trump goes on his influence peddling tour, selling off America one piece at a time. We've got a huge. And we got New York. Look at me. Listen to New York. It must be Karen's apartment. Is that your apartment?
- [01:40]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah. You know, sometimes it's really loud outside. What can I say?
- [01:44]
Michael Popak
All right, okay. Sometimes the life intrudes. We have, I can't put a too fine a point on this. We got it. We got a momentous Supreme Court decision or Supreme Court oral argument tomorrow. Going to be live on Legal af. Yeah, of course it's going to be live on Legal AF. We're live streaming this 10am start. Usually they're on the bench by 10:05. We'll be doing commentary before, during and after. I got Dina Dahl, who's doing commentary before. She's going to join me after. We're doing it in the chat about, well, it looks like it's about birthright citizenship, but it's really about nationwide injunctions. And even though there's been 13 or so emergency applications by the Supreme Court, this is their first one, Karen, about a Trump policy as an oral argument. All the other oral Arguments before it were about older cases that have been kicking around for the last couple of years through the Biden administration. But this is the first one and they took up this case, which gives everybody a little bit of concern. But we're going to do a preview of tomorrow, like a little bit of a watching or listening guide for tomorrow's oral argument. Then we got some developments in the area of the Alien Enemies act, including a new ruling that's come out by a Pennsylvania Trump judge. And she's an outlier. Four judges have all found Donald Trump improperly invoked the Alien Enemies act because we're not at war, really, with Venezuela and a foreign terrorist organization doesn't count. But not this judge. We'll talk about Judge Haynes in Pennsylvania and her ruling and what it means while Judge Zinnis in Maryland. There we go. Judge Zinnis in Maryland has more on her hands because at the end of the day, the Trump administration may be lying to the American people about. Well, we're never bringing Abrego Garcia back. But in secret filings and sealed filings with the court, they're saying the opposite. They're saying they're working on a diplomatic solution. And the Abrego Garcia lawyers, I've had enough and the media has had enough with the secret filings. And the Supreme Court has said that Judge Zitis needs to get to the bottom of what steps are being taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from an El Salvador in prison. And we're on, Forget about the 120 days or whatever this is of the administration. You know, we're on like day 70 or more of Abrego Garcia being illegally held as a hostage in a El Salvadoran jail. So we got developments there as courts around the country start to release from ICE detention graduate students for the crime of speaking out and exercising their First Amendment rights. And then we've got the case, the courageous case of Judge Hannah Dugan, Profile and courage. And it's not what you do when you've been floored and you hit the canvas. It's what you do when you dust yourself off and then dust yourself off in the next punch you throw. And so Hannah Dugan was indicted for the BS made up crime of administering justice in her courtroom as a state court judge in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But she's also filed a motion to dismiss. And I'm going to leave the audience a little bit in suspense, but you can leave guesses in the comments tonight, she cited a case as grounds to have her indictment dismissed and which we're going to go over in detail here and guess. I'll give you one guess which Supreme Court case she cited to give herself immunity. I'll make it. I'll spot you a couple of letters. Starts with a T and it ends with a P. And we're going to pick it up there with my, one of my favorite co anchors. I almost said the favorite, but then they would get mad at me. Karen Freeman, Ignipolo. We're here on the Midas Touch Network, fresh off a win for another podcast. What's the name of that podcast again? The Midas Something Brother Sisters Podcast. Yeah, they won Webby of the year. Holy cow. We'll run some B roll of them accepting the award down in lower Manhattan the other day. I'm so proud of them and proud of you, my podcast partner, for all the work that you do inside the podcast studio and in real life. How are you?
- [05:59]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
I'm good, I'm good. I'm really happy to be here. A lot going on, trying to keep up with all of the flooding the zone that this president of ours does. He, It's, I think the strategy is to throw so many things out there and of course we have to chase them all because they're all criminal and you kind of forget some of them. You don't notice some of them or some aren't as bad as others, so you're kind of like, you're numb to it. And you're like, well, how's that so bad? But the grift continues. I just can't get over the airplane and the cryptocurrency scam that he's involved in and that he's, he claims he's going to save people, the taxpayers money by accepting a $400 million plane from the Saudis. Okay, so I need, I want Air Force One. I'm going to save $400 million from the Qataris. Oh, I'm sorry, You're right. From the Qataris. I apologize. I can't even keep track of who's trying to get.
- [06:51]
Michael Popak
We can't keep track of the grift and the bribes.
- [06:53]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Exactly. The Saudis are the crypto or the crypto memes, the meme coins. But, but so, so the Qataris want to give him a $400 million plane, and this is the definition of gaslighting, right? Because he'll say, oh, but saving taxpayer dollars, of course. Why wouldn't I accept this? You know, instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a plane that Boeing is, is creating for, for Air force 1 or PS the cheapest way to do this would be to just use the perfectly good Air Force One that already exists. But no, that's not good enough for him. So he needs a new plane and he wants to get this $400 million one. But what he doesn't say is it's going to cost more money to retrofit that. First of all, to take it apart piece by piece to make sure that there's no hidden bugs or anything. Right. You have to, from an intelligence perspective, figure out that there's no surveillance or anything in there. Also, you have to bomb proof it, you have to bulletproof it, you have to equip it with all of the various capabilities where he can receive information, transmit information. I mean, it's really a souped up White House in the sky. That's what Air Force One is designed to do. It's designed to be in the air if there's a catastrophic event on the ground. And so that's going to cost more money to retro taxpayer dollars to retrofit that so that it can serve as Air Force One. And it's not going to be around, it's not going to be ready in term for Trump's term. But that's okay because once the taxpayer dollars are spent to retrofit it, it's, he plans on keeping it as his private plane. That's just preposterous. That is outrageous and it is a scam, it is criminal. The fact that the Qataris are gonna have basically own the President, what is he gonna, if the Qataris wanna do something that's not in the best interest of the United States, he's gonna say no to them because he, but now he's their best friend. I mean, it's stuff like that that is just horrendous. And I don't know which is worse, that or the fact that he of millions on this trip, he's peddling his crypto and he's making, he's selling access to the White House. If you trade in his cryptocurrency, he and his family are making hundreds of millions of dollars. And what do they say? Oh, they were business people before, they're business people now, they're just continuing business people. They're just doing deals that they do. But that is the definition of gaslighting. They are enriching themselves off the back of the presidency, off the back of the United States of America. And I want to see what are they doing for the States, what have they done for Americans, for average Americans? Nothing. And so that's what's going on. But we will continue to cover all of the various scams and lawlessness that is going on.
- [09:45]
Michael Popak
Yeah, he's made for his family upwards of a billion dollars since he was elected, primarily through meme currency, through the operation of the World Liberty Financial, which is a liquidity pool marketplace for meme sales. This is his version of, he didn't make enough with Bibles and sneakers and NFTs. Now he's moved on to memes. And it's a great way for you to buy a piece of the presidency. You can't donate as a foreign entity into a campaign donation, but you can buy as much cryptocurrency as Donald Trump's willing to sell you. And then Donald Trump knows through the electricity, through the digital wallets, he knows exactly who's buying and who's basically, this is the influence peddling that we talked about. And if you don't want to do it that way, you can do it by buying stock in a couple of public companies that are closely tied to Donald Trump. He's got djt, which is his Truth Social, and his sons just created a new American bitcoin company, a crypto mining company and infrastructure company that's been around since, let me just check my watch, since March of this year that just went public yesterday with no track record. Right, because they got there because Daddy's in the White House and Daddy's going to be the crypt. He's, he's president crypto. He's, he's, he's going to do everything to bend over backwards because his goal as any kleptomaniac, as any fascist dictator before he leaves office is to walk out with everything he can and make as much money. There was two goals for Donald Trump on full display here in running for the presidency. One was to win to avoid going to jail. Check. The second one was to make as much money. There are three goals as possible for his family on the way out, using the leverage of being the President of the United States to create a printing press for him through cryptocurrency and, and through real estate deals around the country and other things, like taking a $400 million, $400 billion bribe from the Qataris that frankly should have gone to his investors, that are his limited investors in the $5 billion golf course that was just approved by the Qatari government three weeks ago. See, that was really a success fee that should have gone to the investors. But Donald Trump figured out a way to do money laundering and Tax evasion all at the same time.
- [12:13]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Well, he's doing the success fee because but for the fact that he's President of the United States, none of this would be happening.
- [12:20]
Michael Popak
That's right.
- [12:20]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
None of these deals would go through.
- [12:22]
Michael Popak
Right. 1,000%. So he takes the plane, which as you noted, by the time they're done retrofitting it, it will be late into the2030s. It will be beyond. He'll, he'll barely get to use it for a year and then it will fly away with him. After hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars being spent, by the way, Air Force. The Air Force is taking possession of the new Air Force One. It's supposed to be in 2024, but it looks like it's going to be in 2027 or 2028. It's still going on. So we, we spent billions of dollars for the new Air Force One. He doesn't want to wait around for it. His Trump Force One is old and decrepit. This is younger. So he wants this, but he'll never get it unless he just decides he's just going to fly with it without having any protection in it, like bomb proofing, being able to operate a nuclear war, you know, those kind of things. Like have at it. I'm thinking. You want to do that? Go ahead. But. So this is the grift. He just wants it. And he wants the title to be transferred to the Trump Foundation Library foundation, bought and paid for by the crypto pros and the, and the tech bros. And the Facebooks and the millionaire. The millionaire. The millionaire. You know, all these, all these monies that he's getting in these phony settlements, all going to the foundation so he can, so he can fly around in his, in his old age on taxpayer dime in a giant 787 or 777, whatever the heck it is. It's obscene. And lawsuits, which is why lawsuits are so important. The last firewall against tyranny and these excesses has to be the court system. Whether the Supreme Court is up for it, that's yet to be determined. But that is our process. Why don't we talk about.
- [14:12]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Before you move on, I want to just say one thing.
- [14:15]
Michael Popak
Sure. Say many things.
- [14:17]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
The reason people like Doge is because they are purportedly cutting waste, fraud and abuse and saving taxpayer dollars and not wasting taxpayer dollars. Fine. If that's really what we're doing. How much is this trip to the Middle East? That is for his own family business. It's for his own plane. It's for sell his own crypto. It's to launch these new golf courses in the Middle East. How much is it costing taxpayer dollars? Because don't forget, he has to have his whole staff travel with him. He has Secret Service travel with him. I mean, I bet it costs. This is costing hundreds of millions of dollars. And that is what we are paying for as taxpayers. That is. That, to me is absurd.
- [15:01]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. Because none of that is true. There was no goal of tax savings or efficiency savings. This was like to get. Get their hands on our data, create a giant treasure trove of data that could ultimately be used by business like Elon Musk. And. And that. That's it. The third goal was just to, you know, I said there were three goals for the presidency. Avoid prison. Check. Make as much money as humanly possible as the President of the United States. Check. And the third is a vindication and retribution against all his enemies. That's all. That's why people are like, where in that list is anything that helps me around my kitchen table? None. Because that's not why he ran. You know, we used to ask our presidential candidates, remember back in the day, Karen, when you may be interviewed on 60 Minutes or something, and they'd ask that, that question, tell the American people why you want to be president of the United States. Remember these days, that question. And you'd have to have, like, a burning desire. And if you didn't, there was one, I don't know if it was Gary Hart or somebody was like, they couldn't. It was like they weren't expecting the question, like, how you're running for president. How are you not expecting to answer that question? And it like, tanked their, their. Remember those days, you just tanked your whole political career when you couldn't answer that kind of question. But Trump can't answer that question.
- [16:14]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
It seems kind of cute, you know?
- [16:16]
Michael Popak
Right.
- [16:16]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Why do you want to get it now?
- [16:18]
Michael Popak
Right. So that's where.
- [16:20]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Do you remember how cute it was? The biggest scandal that, you know, the biggest scandal that Trump did was he didn't release his tax returns. Like, that was like, Right. How adorable.
- [16:30]
Michael Popak
The biggest scandal for Obama was he wore a beige suit in the summer.
- [16:34]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
That's true.
- [16:35]
Michael Popak
Tan suit.
- [16:36]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
I just, I can't. This is just so frustrating. It's so frustrating. I mean, and the thing is, he's not even being. He's not even trying to be secret about it. It's just like, this is what I'm doing. I'm, you know, do something about it. There's nothing you can do about it.
- [16:52]
Michael Popak
You're a loser.
- [16:53]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
And you know what? To him, he's like, that means you're a loser and I'm a winner. And that's, I value that 1000%. This is all the, you know, the, the whole, the whole thing about I, I like people who weren't captured as prisoners of war. I like people like he really does. He like to him, getting rich and finding the loopholes and scamming the American people make him a winner. And he, to him, that's a point of pride.
- [17:16]
Michael Popak
It was a good article in the Times today or yesterday. I forget I got on the digital version that basically said the enemies and the frenemies have figured out how to negotiate with Donald Trump. You don't listen to any of his bullshit. You don't listen to any of his threats. He'll cave on every threat he ever makes, whether it's the tariffs or anything else. All you have to do is start waving around contracts for investment and wait him out. That's what's going to happen in China. China has got the the United States by the boss, courtesy of Donald Trump. He declares a win after it's a loss that he's. That has been made slightly less bad, but it's still terrible. And that's a win for Donald Trump. It's like I said on one of my hot takes, it's like I had 100% of something and then Donald Trump did something bad and I lost 20% of it. So I'm down to 80% and then it went up to 85% and Donald Trump said, we won. I said, what do you mean we won? Where's my other 15% of the thing that I had? That's not a win to give me back less than what you took. But that's Donald Trump's whole game. And the frenemies and the others counterparties against our country know this about Donald Trump and China knows it. And all China's going to do is China's going to go, this is where they really eat our lunch, is they're just going to say, we want to have more investment of American companies in China. Let's make deals that you can announce. And the Donald Trump's guards salivating and whatever things that we're trying to do to contain China go completely out the window because Donald Trump just sold us out to the Chinese and everybody knows it. Every one of our adversaries knows that Donald Trump is for sale and therefore the United States is as well. Until we get them out until we get them out. So let's talk about. Well, we did a nice intro there, went for a while, but we're going to talk about birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions because the Supreme Court is making us talk about it because they took up the case. They're holding the hearing tomorrow. Oral argument, you got hopefully everybody else come to Legal AFMTN and hit the subscribe button and the reminder button because you're going to want to be there for that. 10 o' clock. It'll go on about an hour, hour and a half. It'll be fascinating and we'll know right away whether Trump's going to be winning or losing. And I'll give you some ideas here on the podcast of I thoughts. Along with Karen, we'll talk about the Alien Enemies Act. Got some new reporting today that Donald Trump really didn't like the fact that his national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, obtained a memo from the intelligence community that completely undermined his arguments about the use of the Alien Enemies Act. And now it's off with their heads. Everybody's been fired that wrote that memo just, just as recently as April as Judge Zinnis comes to terms with how quick when is she going to declare the Trump administration in in contempt. And have we moved closer to that based on some new filings in her courtroom? And then Hannah Dugan, I love her in many, many ways. We support her here. I might as touching on legal layout, she's the judge out in Wisconsin just doing her job of defending the rule of law and the propriety in her courtroom, the courthouse, and got indicted for it yesterday. But today the motion to dismiss has been filed. We're going to cover all of that. But now it's that moment in time where we talk about how do we keep this channel, how do we keep this program on the air? Sounded ominous, but we're independent, as everybody knows. We don't have outside investors. We are building this network with our bare hands with you, our audience. And so there are a number of good ways to, to support us, most of which don't cost any money to you, that are important to us as a channel and as a network. One is for legal. AF is the podcast itself. Wednesdays and Saturdays, we do the show live versions. People join us 10, 15, 20,000 at a pop. And then we have the audio version over on wherever you get your podcast from. Listen, watch, watch, listen. All important, leave comments, ratings, all that. That's very important. Inviting other people to discover our show so we can Continue to grow organically. We don't have a PR department. We don't have a marketing department. We are the marketing department. So you can help us in that area. That would be very much appreciated. Then we've got the other kind of, you know, if you can't get your fill of Legal af, there's other ways to nerd out on what we do. We've got a. I used to call it new, but we're seven months old now. Legal AF MTN for Midas Touch Network. Legal AF, the YouTube channel which I curate. Forget the 500. We got to get rid of that banner. We passed 500 a long time ago. We're well on Salty. We're well on our way to a million. We're on. We're at over. We're gonna hit 700,000 in about a week or two, all because of you. Free subscribe, hit the reminders. You'll know every hour when we post something new. At the intersection of law and politics. We've got about a dozen great contributors over there, including Court Accountability Action, Court of History with Sean Wallentz and Sidney Blumenthal. We've got Melba Pearson, formerly the aclu, Dave Aronberg, formerly of the state Attorney's office in Florida, and a lot of other great people, and me and Dina Dahl and other things. So come over to Legal A f there. Then we've got a substack because we have to. You can't live today without a substack. And what I'm doing on substack is not only posting some versions of the videos and some amazing articles that are being written by our contributors. I do a morning briefing we call Morning af. But I'm also posting, like, all the filings in the court that people are scrambling to read. Sure, we analyze it for you, but you may want to read it for yourself. So we have a post thing, we call it, wait for it Filings af, just to keep it consistent. And we got things like the thing we're going to talk about with motion to dismiss filed by Judge Hannah Dugan. It's there. You know anything? The. The secret memo that got a bunch of people fired today in the intelligence community by Tulsi Gabbard. It's there along with other audio, video and. And written work only on Legal af, The substack. We got a Patreon Legal AF Patreon, which also has exclusive video content and other things there as well. And then we've got our sponsors. And people say, what do you need the sponsors for? Yes, yes, they are the gasoline that runs the engine. If it wasn't for our sponsors, frankly, this would, we would, it would just be me and Ben and Carrie getting together for coffee occasionally. And so these are pro democracy sponsors, meaning they know what we say, they know what we're. They know not what we're going to say, but they know the tenor of our conversation. They know the types of people you know, you know, they know, they know what they get with POPOC or KFA or Ben. And they're here for it. And they honor our audience for wanting to sponsor on here and be advertisers on here. If you have disposable income and you think this is an interesting product, I would encourage you to use it. If you don't and you can't, just watch the ad. We try to make them as funny as possible, as entertaining as possible. And now we've got our first word from our sponsors. I never thought much about teeth grinding until my dentist asked me if I'd been waking up with jaw tension. 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Take Via's product Finder quiz to get personalized recommendations tailored to to your needs. It can take you less than 60 seconds to complete, so if you're 21 years or older, treat yourself to 15% off and get a free gift with your first order using our exclusive code legal af@viahemp.com v I I a h m p.com plus enjoy free shipping on orders over $100. That's v I I A H E M P. And we're back. Thank you to our Pro Democracy sponsors and thank you to everybody in the audience who supports all the things we do on Legal AF and all the contributors including Karen and myself. It really, it's heartwarming and we do appreciate it. Karen Tomorrow 10am Be there. Be square. Supreme Court oral argument right Legal AF showing it live stream live feed. Why don't you if you can kind of frame the issue, why is it important and why do you think the Supreme Court took this particular case to talk about nationwide injunctions?
- [28:28]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
You know one thing I love that you're doing Popak, is you're providing a one stop shop for people which is just there's so much going on here and there's so many things to follow. It's so much easier for people to have one place to go for all of the content, the information, the filings. If you Want to learn about it, hear about it, figure out what's going on. So it's really, really a huge service that you, that you're providing to people. And so I really, I just love the legal AF substack. It's really a phenomenal resource and so it's just fantastic. So birthright citizenship and the Supreme Court. And what is happening tomorrow is really momentous. This is a huge deal. This is. There are two big issues that are being decided tomorrow or that the court is deciding tomorrow. The issue that's presented before the court, that they're going to brief and that you're going to hear a lot about in some ways has nothing to do with birthright citizenship. It has to do with whether one district judge in one place can issue a nationwide injunction. If you remember when, back when Judge Kacmarek in Texas issued a nationwide injunction, seems like 100 years ago now, but it was a couple of years ago now on the mifeprestone and the abortion medication. A lot of people, including myself, was like, how could he do that? How can, how can, how is it possible that one judge in the middle of Texas in, in a one judge district and there are districts like that, right? There's, there's big districts like where I live, the Southern District of New York and where I practice, and there's dozens of judges who sit in the federal district court at the trial level court. And those judges are assigned randomly in a wheel. Literally, they put their names in, in a, in a tumbler and, and depending on your seniority, if you're, if you're new or if you're senior, if you're a new judge, your name is in there more times. If you have a light docket and you don't have a lot of cases, your name is in there more times. So that you have more of a chance of when they literally spin the wheel and take a name out that you will get that case. Now there are, but depending on the size of the jurisdiction, there are fewer judges. And it's really luck of the draw, right? With the Trump Mar A Lago documents case, we were, we were all so surprised that a Trump appointed judge got that case. Right? But that was the luck of the draw. That's what you get. Sometimes you get good judges, sometimes you get judges that, that are not the ones you want. But then you've got these jurisdictions like where Judge Kaczmarek sits in Texas, where it's such a small district, he's the only judge there. And you have plaintiffs who go and forum shop and bring cases in places like that where you either have 100% chance or more of a chance of the judge that you want. And then if they can issue a nationwide injunction, I mean, there's no other case, I think there's no better case to show the power of that than that nationwide injunction with the abortion pill and how that was going to affect millions of Americans. This one person. So this case tomorrow is really about that question. And it's happening in the context, though, of this issue of birthright citizenship and whether or not, if you are. It's whether or not the 14th amendment that basically says if you were born here, you're a citizen. Right. It actually says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state where they reside. And that's in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. It's been the law of the land for over 100 years. And there's this fringe theory out there that it doesn't apply to people who are here temporarily, that it was passed, the 14th amendment was passed around the time of slavery. This was about giving citizenship to children of slaves, not everybody else. And who is one of the architects of this fringe theory? None other than a lawyer who we've talked about considerably in this podcast for years, John Eastman. Who's John Eastman? He's the several times indicted architect of the, basically of the false elector scheme. And so he's been disbarred in California. He's been indicted at least twice. And judges have found that the attorney client privilege doesn't apply with him because of the crime fraud exception. I mean, this is, the guy who has been, has been peddling this, and it has caught fire, and it has caught fire with maga. And, you know, this, this is, this case was decided, by the way. This issue was decided in 1898 in a case called US v Wong Kim Ark, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents. And the judges basically said he's a citizen. And it made me actually want to Google this issue, made me look at when Barron Trump was born, and he was born four months before his mother became a naturalized citizen. And Trump's executive order conveniently makes that because Trump's a citizen, it doesn't count. Right? Because otherwise even his own child would not be a citizen. But he had to say, oh, no, if one parent, if the father is a citizen, then it's okay, but what is this going to do, do for the, for the, you know, the hundreds of Thousands, probably more of people who, what if you're 18 years old and you were born here and you've never lived anywhere else, and then what, suddenly you're not a citizen of this country and you don't speak the language of another country, a country where you've never been. And then are you citizenless now? I mean, what's supposed to happen or what happens if you are in a state that recognizes this, but not, you know, but, but you, you live close to another state and you happen to give birth when you're in that other state, but you reside in the state that does. You know, this is going to cause so much confusion. But really the issue that's going to be discussed, I think tomorrow is this issue of whether one judge can issue a nationwide injunction. And it'll be interesting to see. I think it, I think they have to be able to or the chaos here would just be insane. I mean, because I think what, 28 states have sued and so what are those the only states that are. That if they rule, if they rule that the states that sued in this particular case, that those ones, if you're born in those states, you're a citizen, but in the ones that don't challenge it, you're not a citizen. I mean, this is the kind of issue, first of all, it's completely well established law and it's black letter law. It comes from old timey thing times, which is what the Supreme Court loves, right? They love, what was it back in, in the olden days and it's written in the Constitution. So I think this is a slam dunk win. I can't imagine that it won't be. And I think in issues like this that are so clear and that affect so many people and where chaos would ensue, I think they're going to say that yes, they can issue a nationwide injunction, but, but that's just because that's what common sense would say. But who knows anymore. What are your thoughts on this?
- [36:13]
Michael Popak
POPA yeah, I just interviewed with Alex Aronson, Leah Lippman of, of strict Scrutiny, a professor at University of Michigan. She got a new book coming out called Lawless. And we talked to her about the book about the Supreme Court. And I asked her that particular question. I said, what do you think? She said, well, it concerns me that they took up nationwide injunctions. They took up the issue on the backs of the birthright citizenship issue, which gave her, you know, anytime they're like lifting up the hood and start monkeying around under the engine of the Constitution when it comes to birthright citizenship. It gives her pause. She said, you know, they have, you know, a couple of, couple of fringed ascents by Gorsuch and some others. They generally have allowed and, and, and affirmed the use of nationwide injunctions when it's appropriate. I can't think of a more appropriate purpose of having one or, or as a remedy in the toolbox of having one federal judge issue a nationwide injunction than when you're talking about a constitutional, a constitutional right. I mean, and maybe that's why they decided to do it. So it, because it's so clear on a nationwide injunction grounds that you need to have one judge, not 50, not 500 make a decision about something so fundamental as whether the 14th amendment does or does not provide for birthright citizenship to people other than slaves. Donald Trump's words, not mine. Yes, they came out of the post reconstruction period and they're known as the Reconstruction Amendments, Trump, but that doesn't mean it only applies to people from that time or from, or to former slaves. I know you fell asleep during any aspect of civic, civics or, or history, but you do have people that work for you, don't you? So maybe the reason one of her theories is they took it on the backs of that case because it's such a clear cut that nationwide injunction is appropriate for a judge, one single federal judge in one single federal district and they have affirmed the use in the past. But there are, look, things that were fringe theories have, have gained new currency on this Supreme Court because they've got the numbers. You know, another example of that is the unitary theory of the presidency. That was a ridiculous fringe theory that would have gotten you laughed out of academic circles if you raised it in the 80s and 90s and as a historical, as historical analysis to claim that, that our founding fathers intended for us to create a, to have a president operate as a king and suck in to one executive branch in one person, all of the powers, king like powers, regardless of checks and balances. Just no way that's the history of our republic alone tells you that that's not, not the case. But to those who believe, well there's three branches. Congress is over here and judges are over here and there's just one guy over there. So I guess he gets all the power of being the one guy. I mean that is a fringe lunatic theory. But look, now that you have four or five votes for that at the United States Supreme Court, we'll know soon when the Supreme Court stop, stops sticking around and granting procedural rulings in Donald Trump's favor and starts granting substantive rulings, which could start with this oral argument tomorrow. But these fringe theories, you know, all these fringe theories kicking around, like, you know, oh, well, that one line in the 14th Amendment about subject to the laws of the territory, you know, you're not subject to the laws of the church because you're undocumented and you're really subject to the laws of Venezuela, blah, blah, blah. And so that line alone eats the rest of it. And therefore, it's not that I'm changing the constitution with the 14th amendment, I'm just giving the, with the executive order, just giving a proper interpretation. I mean, it's eye popping. So I think there's going to be a lot of nationwide injunction discussion tomorrow. I think there's going to be a little birthright citizenship discussion on the substance, although that's ripe for appellate review by the Supreme Court too, because we've got, you know, like four different appellate courts who have all ruled that Donald Trump and his arguments are all wet. So, you know, although if you look at the math, every time somebody files a motion, it is the movement at the Supreme Court so far they've sided with the movement without exception. So the movement tomorrow is Trump administration. But I think that this is the one where I agree with you. I think they, it's just so clear cut and maybe that's why they, they use this particular case for that. And we'll see. But let's not, let's not get too high or too low. If they rule the way we think they're going to rule, you know what the press is going to run with? Oh, Trump is rebuked. Trump, Trump's been slam dunked by the Supreme Court. See, they, they don't, they're not monolithic. The Republicans, they, they ruled against him. You know, let's not get too high or too low here, okay? They have, generally they side with Donald Trump on the most important issues fundamental. And they have for a very, very long time. Is, is there an outlier here or there on something so clear cut that even they have to rule against Donald Trump? Yes, let's not, we have to take this big picture approach. Anything else on Birthright and tomorrow, Karen?
- [41:28]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
No, I think you covered it perfectly, Popak. I just, I think, you know, if you want to know what they're going to do, just look at what they say, right? They've been talking about this for a long time. Read Project 2025. You know, that's like the road map to everything they're doing. They're just doing it all. So.
- [41:46]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. One of our contributors, Dave Aronberg, was going to do a hot take about trying to ban pornography. I'm like, just go to page 327 of Project 2025 or whatever. It's right there. Everything that we are watching is coming straight out of verbatim. Project 2025. The thing that Donald Trump said, he, he didn't, he didn't know what it was and he wasn't familiar with it. Everything, really, really just about everything. Let's, let's move on and talk about Alien Enemies Act. We got a ruling coming out of Pennsylvania that seems to be an outlier. And then Judge Zinnis and what's going on in the filings there. You want to take Judge Zinnis?
- [42:30]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
You, you start. I love when you set things up.
- [42:33]
Michael Popak
Okay, got Judge Haynes. She's a Trumper captain in the JAG Corps, army person. And I went through her, her 46 pages or whatever it is. I'm still scratching my head. She's the only federal judge so far, and that includes two Trumpers and a Biden and all that. That has found that Donald Trump's proclamation declaring that the trend Aragua, the narco terrorist decentralized gang that's been in this country for years is because Donald Trump called them a federal, a foreign terrorist organization, an fto that, that is enough for him to use the Alien Enemies act, because that's the equivalent of being a military combatant, an enemy combatant that's conducting an enemy, a predatory incursion. And she got all, she got all excited and all and all and all enthusiastic about her dictionary analysis. Yes, you heard me right. You don't have to adjust your volume. She found dictionaries online from the 1880s and 1900s, the 1780s, about what the word predatory means, what the word incursion means. She, this whole dictionary analysis, it was funny though, Karen, she did a little dig to Donald Trump in the middle of the dictionary analysis. She said, I got this dictionary courtesy of the National Endowment of the Humanities, which Donald Trump is trying to get rid of and defund and destroy. I'm sure she knew that. But that was about the only thing in there that was against Donald Trump. The rest was, and it's, and it's this complete catch 22 chicken and the egg problem that she has in her analysis. He called it a federal, a foreign terrorist organization. Therefore, he gets to use the proclaim war and he gets to use the Alien Enemies Act. But so then was the declaration of a foreign terrorist organization. Enough. And where is that? That's not in the Alien Enemies Act. We didn't have foreign. We didn't have the word. As she noted, we didn't have the word terrorist back in the time when the Alien Enemies act was passed. So I don't even get her analysis. All I know is Judge Rodriguez in Texas, Sweeney in Colorado, Hellerstein in New York have all said, as did Judge henderson on the D.C. circuit Court of Appeals, all said the same thing. What we're watching is migration. They came to this country and they committed crimes, but that's not the equivalent of a war. A war like combatant against the, the, against the United States to allow you to use the Alien Enemies Act. And then, of course, she made, she did make a note of saying that regardless of what I declare here, they still get notice and due process because the Supreme Court says they do under the JGG case from just a couple of months ago. So they will get a writ of habeas corpus. Right. They will get notice and due process as long as Donald Trump doesn't take away the writ of habeas corpus. Right. Which he's threatened to do through his henchman Stephen Miller. So that's what happened there. You want to pick up there and then we'll flip it over to Abrego Garcia.
- [45:41]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah. I mean, look to, to people who don't practice law every single day, what is the writ of habeas corpus? Right. And it essentially means bring the body to the court. And it's, it's when Stephen Miller, who is, I think, who's on my list of the top, most evil Trump people and is the architect to a lot of these terrible policies, when he says we'll just suspend habeas corpus, it's extremely dangerous. It is extremely. It's something that we should all fear. A writ of habeas corpus is the only, the only thing that a lawyer has. And how you go to a court and say, I want you to bring this body to this court so that we can have process, so that there can be due process. Otherwise, what's going to happen? People just get sent away, locked away somewhere, and you'll never hear from them again. There will be no court proceeding to have to figure out, was this lawful? Are you a member of Trenda Aragua? Is this somehow an arm of the Venezuelan Maduro government? Is this a foreign incursion? None of those things can happen if there is no court case, if there's no matter, if there's no body in front of the court. And that's why, for example, you know, all of these things that Trump is doing, sending bodies to, he's sending prisoners and deportees to El Salvador sicote infamous, terrible prison. But he's also looked, looking to do this third party prison thing all over the world. He's looking for places to ship immigrants and he's looking for places to hold criminals. And that's what he's trying to do. And he wants to set up these agreements basically to outsource our prison system as a form of deterrence, to send them to the worst countries, the worst prisons. But there is precedent for that. Look, we have Guantanamo Bay and that is what we have. And now those are people who we declare don't get any process here. You can't have a writ of habeas corpus because these are people who are foreign nationals who are people who are essentially committed terrorist acts on our country and they are in another country, they are in Cuba. And he's trying to set this up for immigrants. He's trying to essentially say that he's trying to turn immigrants into terrorists. And that is what's happening here. And he's. And they're looking at people who come here and migrate as people who are breaking the law by coming here illegally or unlawfully. Except, of course, if you're a white South African, you know, that's a whole different thing than welcome to this country. You refugee and let's take care of you because you're politically persecuted, but all these other individuals are not. And so, so that's what's happening here. And so this is really important that these things get adjudicated and that people get process and that these individuals who are being skirted away in the dark of night and taken to foreign countries without any process, not turning the planes around despite court orders. This has to play out. And it has to play out in a way that I think the Supreme Court even is going to say this is a bridge too far. People deserve due process, period. End of story. And this executive order, you know, his, his sort of, you know, waving a magic wand by executive order and these declarations, you know, he, despite controlling Congress and the Senate, he. And presumably you could do things lawfully and get laws passed. He's just bypassing all of that because he likes the whole unitary executive theory. And Congress is doing nothing. You hear any hearings, no one's holding hearings, no one's complaining, no one's doing anything. It's like Congress doesn't exist right now. I, I haven't heard a peep from a member of Congress for any reason whatsoever. They have relegated themselves into the complete irrelevance. And they are sitting back and just watching and letting Donald Trump do whatever he wants. He is just making these declarations like he's a king. And hopefully the courts are going to start holding him and his administration accountable. And they lie. They, whether it's, you know, whether they lie to the American people, right? Whether it's Abrego Garcia who, you know, has become kind of the poster child of this whole thing, whether it's him, whether they say, oh, well, you know, we don't have any power, we don't have any control to ask him to, you know, to have him come back. But then they'll say that publicly. But then they'll refuse to tell the court why. They'll refuse to come forward and give any reasons why, you know, because they'll claim privilege or state secrets or all these other things, but yet they have no problem going out and talking about it on TV publicly. And they say one thing to the courts and they say another thing publicly, and that's going to come back to bite them. The problem is going to be how do you enforce it? How are courts going to enforce this? And how are we going to stop Donald Trump from removing people who, I mean, I know one of the things that we're talking about tonight is what he's doing to students and grad students. I mean, I was reading today that there's a Harvard doctoral student is being sent back to Russia where she, she says I'm going to be arrested and persecuted for, for criticizing Russia in the war on Ukraine. And you know, there's, there's people who are, are, I mean, to, to say that, that somebody who's a doctoral student from Russia at Harvard is not someone who's going to benefit this country. Right. She might not be white. I think she is, though. But, you know, some of these people might not be white, but they're not these criminals that they're saying these Ms. 13, these gang members, these are legitimate, really important people who, it's important that our country welcomes them in these going to our finest institutions, doing research into things that are really important for science and for the world, frankly. And that they're getting arrested, detained and sent back to countries where they're going to be persecuted. I mean, not only is it inhumane, the brain drain that is going to happen to this country and the brain gain that is going to happen to places people like, places like China are like, come to mama, come here. All you smart people who are at Harvard, all these things you were doing, come here. We want you. We are going to become irrelevant because of what he's doing. He's going to get richer, his friends are going to get richer, and we are going to become irrelevant. That's what's happening, and it's really terrifying.
- [52:36]
Michael Popak
Brain drain is a real thing. I mean, Russia experienced it when they made outcast of the Jewish community in the 80s and 90s. One of the reasons Israel and its Silicon Valley equivalent and tech is so, is so on point and so industry leading is because many of the scientists from the former Soviet Union, including those that were Jewish and other groups that were maligned in Russia and Soviet Union, ended up in Israel. And we. And of course, we saw it in, in Germany, when Germany, During World War II, again, a lot of Jewish scientists ended up, including Einstein, ended up in the United States. Our atomic weapons program, our atomic bomb. There was a lot of people that came over from Germany and ended up joining NASA and the Manhattan Project and went to places like Princeton and things like that. So it's a real thing. And if people are insecure about pursuing their academic pursuits and research and all of that in the United States because they're uncomfortable here because of the political environment that Donald Trump has created, there are, as you pointed out, Karen, there are. I could pick. I could put on one hand a number of our enemies and frenemies that are more than willing to take them in and give them unlimited budgets and not threaten them with potentially being sent off to a dark, dank foreign gulag. And as you said, we will be the worst for it. We're certainly the worst for it when you're simultaneously attacking the Harvards of the world and cutting their funding on important things like medical breakthroughs and technology and all those other things. I mean, we don't really have a space program to speak of any longer. One of the dirty little secrets of outsourcing it to Elon Musk and to Bezos is that we don't have the R and D, the research and development that we have in our own labs, in NASA with a group of scientists. And a lot of those breakthroughs ended up being used for civilian use. A lot of things come out of the military end up for civilian use, but we're losing that. And Donald Trump's cutting all the budgets out of all the national institutes out there because he sees them as woke or weaponized or whatever it is. And like you said, he's a short termer who only cares. He's a short time horizon, literally. He only cares about making the most amount of money for himself and those around him as possible. Cares little, not a wit about us. And we are going, you know, it's almost like I feel sorry for the next incoming president who will be a Democrat because they are going to have, they're going to need at least two terms. It's going to be a herculean effort to clean up behind this elephant of Donald Trump. We'll get there. We're a resilient country led by the right person. We can do great things. It's just not this person who it doesn't appeal to people's higher angels. He appeals to their worst instincts and the basest instincts and the devil inside of them. But we will be exercised one day and it may be coming as soon as the midterms if we can get the House and the Senate back to restore some type of checks and balance and separation of powers that we're that will go a long way and to limit the damage of a full four years of Donald Trump. But the people have to speak. Can't just be us talking to each other. It has to be action and action in the form of in the streets, emails, correspondence. You know, one of the things Professor Lippman said today is the Supreme Court is influenced, at least Roberts is and a couple of others by what they hear on the streets about people's reaction to the Supreme Court. Others don't care. Alito doesn't care. He says, he says out loud, I don't care. But, but some do. And Amy Coney Barrett may fall into that camp. So letter writing campaigns and protests in the streets and other things like that matter and polling matter to some of these people, these political animals. When we come back, Karen, why don't we talk about and celebrate the courage of Judge Hannah Dugan and some new developments in her case. Something happened yesterday and something that just happened today before we went on the air. And now we're going to do that part of the show that some people may enjoy and some people might tolerate, be agnostic towards or some people may not like it, but we got to do it because that's how we keep this pro democracy channel together. Talking truth to each other is subscribe here. Listen to the show on audio podcast legal af watch the show on YouTube tell your friends about it. We do these legal af after dark clips. We send them off in different places. Legal af the YouTube channel legally F Mtn free subscribe there. You'll see about a dozen contributors there doing a dozen videos or more a day, live feeds of oral arguments like tomorrow's Supreme Court all over there on legal af mtn we got legal af the sub stack which is only about 2 weeks old. We just went over 30,000 subscribers like today and it just shows that there is a real need for people to touch and feel the things that we talk about on Legal af. So the motions that are filed, the oral arguments, the briefs, other other things. As Karen, you said earlier so perfectly, one stop shopping for all things at the intersection of law and politics. That's legal a off the substack. Come on over there and subscribe as well. 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It's made me feel more youthful and energized as I have the energy level to nurture my baby daughter the right way. Experience the science of Feeling younger go to qualialife.com legal af for up to 50% off your purchase and use code legal af for an additional 15%. That's qualialife.com legalaf for an extra 15% off your purchase. Your older self will thank you and thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to our Pro Democracy sponsors. Thank you to everyone. It is humbling and heartwarming to see the overwhelming support for all things Legal AF the substack the Legal AF YouTube channel, contributions of the various contributors. And we do appreciate you from the bottom of our heart. And let's talk about, speaking of heart and soul and courage and conviction, let's talk about Judge Hannah Dugan, currently suspended by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, currently indicted. But there's a bigger picture here and I want, Karen, I want you to lead on it. Hannah Dugan indicted today. Motion to dismiss filed. Tell our audience what it's all about.
- [63:37]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah, so this is a judge who, she's a local criminal court judge. This is not a federal judge. This is a local elected judge in Wisconsin who was doing what she does, hearing criminal cases. And she gets wind of the fact that one of the people in her, one of the defendants was going to be arrested by ice. And in order to not disrupt her courtroom, she had him walk out of a different door, a few doors, by the way, a few feet away from the courtroom door. So it's not like some back door to get away. It was just a few feet away. So not to influence or not to interrupt the flow of people coming in and out of her courtroom, which I think is totally legitimate and totally valid. But regardless, that's what she did. And so what is the DOJ doing? The DOJ is they arrested her very publicly, very humiliatingly. I mean, they, they showed up and arrested her in court, clearly trying to send a message to everybody. And now they've indicted her and they're going to try to make an example out of her. I think they are going to lose big time. And she's very well represented. She has a very conservative, well respected ex solicitor general attorney representing her, Paul Clement. And that should tell you something, that, that he's conservative and he's representing her because this is so outrageous. I mean, this is so not, this is just, this is like crazy. I mean, the fact that they're arresting judges who are trying to just manage and control their courtroom is insane to me. But it's, you know, it's just very interesting to me. The Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Justice made an announcement, I think yesterday or the day before that they're scaling down their work in white collar crime and they're focusing on immigration. They are really, that is what this is becoming. This is becoming one giant immigration department of Justice. And they want to send a message to a judge because it's so easy for them to find people if they can just go to court and go to their court appearances. But if that, if people get word of that, then what's going to happen? People are going to stop showing up to court, whether you're a victim or a witness or a defendant, people are going to stop showing up to court. If you know that, gee, there's, you know, there's your name, you know, you're going to be there at a certain time. How easy is it for ICE to find you? And so what's going to quickly happen, people are going to start losing control. Judges and local judges are going to start losing control of their dockets, of their cases, and cases will get dismissed. And also the other thing that's going to start happening are people who are victims of crime or witnesses of crime, who are not, not full United States citizens, are going to be afraid to go to court because. And to report crimes or to go to court and be witnesses to crimes in addition to, again, if you're a defendant. And so what's going to start happening to our judicial system? It is so inherent in a judge's power to have control of their courtroom. I mean, just federally, every federal judge has what's called local rules, their own set of rules of everything that you have to do in their courtroom and how you have to do things, how page limits, font sizes, margin sizes, I mean, you name it, how you conduct yourself in court, how you communicate with the court. I mean, and they are allowed to do that because how you control your court, how things work, is such inherent, is such an inherent part of being a judge. And so if that's what she has determined she needs to do in order to run, effectively run her criminal court, then she needs to do that. And I think she's going to win for two reasons. She filed a motion today, a motion to dismiss, one citing judicial immunity. One issue was judicial immunity, and the other is federalism. And those are the two issues that are in her motion to dismiss. And you alluded to it in the introduction. The very first thing she does is she cites to United States versus Trump, right, the decision that, or maybe was Trump v. U.S. at that point, but it was the decision where they gave Trump absolute immunity for anything that he does that's presidential. And so that case was decided because something like immunity is, gets to be decided in the beginning of a case, not at the end of a case. There's certain issues that you appeal after a case is adjudicated, but there's certain foundational and fundamental issues like, like immunity that get to be decided first before you can go on and prosecute someone. And so she cited to Trump v. US where they found that, yes, this was perfectly legal and lawful to decide this presidential immunity issue at that stage, because this is so foundational. So she cites that as a reason why she gets to appeal this now. And I think that's very compelling. But she talks here and says, look, first of all, I have judicial immunity because I was being a judge, I was controlling my courtroom. This is absolutely foundational, part of what I do as a judge. And I think she's going to win on that. But she also argued the 10th Amendment, federalism and the 10th Amendment to the U.S. constitution, which was, I think, think from the 1700s or early 1800s. It's part of the Bill of Rights, and it essentially deals with the balance of power between the federal government and the states and says that the powers that are not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution nor prohibited to the states are reserved to the states, respectively. So it basically means that federal authority, the federal government's authority is very limited to the powers that are in the Constitution. Right. Or powers that Congress, meaning the people, give them. And so everything else is reserved to the states. And that's why police powers, for example, are almost entirely the state's purview. I learned by reading these filings and preparing for this that 99.4% of all criminal cases filed in the United States are state cases. Not even 1% are federal criminal cases. That's how minuscule the jurisdiction over the federal the federal government has over police powers. And so this is essentially the crime in criminal courts is essentially a state function. And by coming in and bigfooting this judge and saying what she can and cannot do and how she can control her courtroom, they are essentially disrupting a state court proceeding and disrupting a state court sovereignty of how sovereignty to handle their cases their way. And that is what I think is so powerful and why I think she's going to win. And I'm so glad she's so well represented because they're trying to make an example out of her. I hope she makes an example out of them.
- [70:57]
Michael Popak
Yeah, I liked. I liked everything about it. My gut is I don't know. That eight pages of that motion, which I read, sort of looked to me like a placeholder motion. Like they wanted to get it out early. But it's not really the written work product of somebody like Paul Clement, who you mentioned. In fact, his name is not on there. I think this is a placeholder because they got indicted today. They wanted or yesterday after a series of. And so people know we talked about the writ of habeas corpus Process. Grand jury is a lonely place for a defendant because they're not in the room, nor are their lawyers, nor are their witnesses, nor are they permitted to cross examine. It's the prosecutor. Sometimes a federal or judge or magistrate, depending upon. If we're in federal court, depending upon the process, 20 grand jurors, give or take, and just witnesses that are asked leading questions and documents without context or explanation. And it's not an adversarial process. And hopefully, if the prosecutor is worth their salt, they're able to get a indictment. And they were after a full day. They got a majority of the grand jury to agree and indict her. But. But I think this motion to dismiss, which you've summarized, is really. They even say, we'll write a bigger brief if you want. Judge. And I think that's where Paul Clement comes in. It was sort of like what the law firm Quinn Emanuel did for Mayor Adams when Mayor Adams got indicted, like, within hours, their motion to dismiss. But that was like a thing of beauty, to be frank. I was like 50 pages. You know, they've been working on it for like a whole week straight. And it looked, and it looked great. And it started the process. I mean, Trump winning also helped Adams, but it started a process to get him into a, in a good leverage position to negotiate something. This one. I mean, I like the fact that they use the Trump case against Trump. That's great. I like the fact they do a lesson, a history lesson about the 10th Amendment, which is all, all power not in the hands of the federal government is reserved for the states to say separation of powers, federal government, you stay out of here. This is the province of a state judge controlling, as you said, their courtroom and their courthouse. And they have absolute immunity. And figure it out now, not later. Like, we shouldn't move any part of the case forward until this fundamental issue is resolved. See, the Trump case, and I think it's a novel, but it seems to be square with the facts. Very little law cited in here, but I'm sure that'll improve as the court sets a briefing schedule and we'll see. But I, I did have to do a double. I sort of did a double take when I looked at the signature block and I saw the, the lawyers that I know that she had originally hired, including a former federal prosecutor, Steve Biskapic, if I'm mispronouncing her name, I apologize, had signed it, but. But no mention of Paul Clement. Now, I did do a little research before we got on the air. It looks like he's still in the case. Maybe he's working on the bigger brief that they'll file, the substitute for this one. And they wanted to catch the news cycle. But in any event, it does show that she is fighting hard. It was appalling, disgusting and depraved to pick her up in the courthouse, handcuff her in the courthouse and take her for a perp walk and then post it through the FBI and the Department of Justice websites. All things I know are going to be cited by the defense as you would, as I would, as being completely unconstitutional and against her burden, against her presumption of innocence, especially when it comes time to ever pick a jury. But let's see, I think with a well written replacement motion to dismiss here, they may have a good argument to get rid of the case before it goes any further. And if not, you know, she's going to be on trial for looking at 6 years and $350,000. I'm glad she's still getting paid. I'm sure some MAGA Republicans are trying to figure out a way how to take her pension away from her, take away her paycheck, but that's really the province again. We're back to the 10th Amendment. The SEC, this the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, which is 4 to 3 on the Democratic liberal side. They've acted and no amount of lawsuits can change what they've decided about Hannah Dugan. So we will. She's going to be arraigned tomorrow. This was filed before the arraignment. The indictment is out. It will or it will be unsealed tomorrow. We already know what it's going to look like because it's the people that have seen it say it's the exact, the same as the criminal complaint that was filed. It's two counts obstruction and concealment or something like that. All total and complete bullshit. At the end of the day, she did her job up. She administered justice in her criminal courtroom. That guy got his due. Flores, Ruiz, he then stepped outside and he got arrested for something else entirely on an administrative warrant. Okay. I mean, this is all sounded a lot like entrapment to me. Sounded like they wanted. They knew Dugan will kind of take the bait. They knew she was liberal, you know, Catholic Charities, former, former life. And they kind of set up to trigger her. And as they remind everybody in the motion to dismiss, it doesn't matter what her subjective intent was. If she was managing her courtroom in her courthouse and the coming and going and the flow of people in and out, you may not agree with it. You may not like it, but it is immune from, from being sued. Can you imagine if people could sue the judge for how they handled witnesses in and out of a courtroom or defendants or for motion practice? I mean, it would be obscene. But we'll continue to follow that there. But I, but as a person, I, I can't wait till she's exonerated and we can have her on, for instance, Legal af. This is very similar, though, just to put it in context. Donald Trump did almost the exact same thing his first term. I think it was a Massachusetts female judge. And he went after her. Eventually, when the Biden administration came in, it got dropped. But this could be hanging over her head for quite some time. And she's, I mean, she's out of her gainful employment. I mean, she's getting paid. But she, she's been put on this earth to be a judge, and the people of Wisconsin have sent her to be that kind of judge. And she doesn't get to do that. She gets to sit around and, and think about her case for the next year, which is, I know, is an uncomfortable place for her to be. Right.
- [77:19]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
Yeah, I, I think it's really, it's really such a shame.
- [77:23]
Michael Popak
Yeah. So we've reached the end of another episode of Legal AF at the midweek. Been doing it for five years almost straight without interruption. Karen Friedmann, McNifolo Saturdays we do it. I do it with, with Ben Mycellis. We do hot takes about every hour at the intersection of law and politics, either on the Midas Dutch network or over on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. So those are the two places you just need to live. If you live there, you're going to get your full, your fill. You're going to be happy because this is the information that we need in order to be active, in order to resist, we have to have the information. And that's what I hope you're finding in a truthful way, in an honest way, in an informative way, in a entertaining way here on Legal AF the Midweek. Karen, as always, last word.
- [78:12]
Karen Friedman Agnifolo
So great to see you, Popak. It's always my favorite time of the week is doing this and being a part of this community and this movement with you. It's just, I just can't believe what's happening. I don't recognize this country. I don't recognize this president and what's happening and so many things that are happening that are just blatantly, blatantly corrupt. It is so important that as many people as possible, talk about it, understand it. And I'm so thankful that. And just so proud of the brothers who created Midas Touch and brought us all together and created this unbelievable community so that we can, A, know that we're not alone and that we have each other, and B, just try and defeat this. This is. This is, A, I don't know what you would want to call it. I thought it was an autocracy, but it's worse. So we all need to defeat this together. And the first part of it is to really understand what's happening.
- [79:09]
Michael Popak
Yeah. Beautifully said. Until next week, Legal af, Michael Popa, Karen Friedman, Agnifolo, Shout out to the Midas, Mighty C and the Legal A Effers.