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- [00:01]
Ben Miceli
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- [00:32]
Michael Popak
Com Dunoszk if you used Babbel, you would Babbel's conversation based techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at Babbel.com Spotify spelled B A B-B-E-L.com Spotify rules and restrictions may apply what makes a great pair of glasses at Warby Parker? It's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95 including prescription lenses plus scratch resistant, smudge resistant and anti reflective coatings and UV protection and free adjustments for life. To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker.com 10 years from today, Lisa Schneider will trade in her office job to become the leader of a pack of dogs as the owner of her own dog rescue. That is a second act made possible by the reskilling courses Lisa's taking now with AARP to help make sure her income lives as long as she does. And she can finally run with the big dogs and the small dogs who just think they're big dogs. That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP. Learn more at aarp. So when I ask, what is Odoo? What comes to mind? Well, Odoo is a bit of everything. Odoo is a suite of business management software that some people say is like fertilizer because of the way it promotes growth. But you know, some people also say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it grows with your company and is also magically affordable. But then again, you could look at Odoo in terms of how its individual software programs are a lot like building blocks. I mean, whatever your business needs, manufacturing, accounting, HR programs, you can build a custom software suite that's perfect for your company. So what is Odoo? Well, I guess Odoo is a bit of everything. Odoo is a fertilizer, magic beanstalk building blocks for business. Yeah, that's it. Which means that Odoo is exactly what every business needs. Learn more and sign up now@odoo.com that's o d o o dot com.
- [03:00]
Ben Miceli
We had some major Supreme Court rulings that dropped on Friday. We'll go over them all, especially the nationwide injunction case involving birthright citizenship. What are the implications? What happens next? We'll break it all down. California Governor Gavin Newsom files a massive defamation lawsuit against fox. What are the causes of action? Where is that lawsuit going next? I had the opportunity to speak with California Governor Gavin Newsom. He broke down the case with me. Michael Popak and I will discuss. We're also seeing more disbarments of Donald Trump's former lawyers. Is this basically a sign that this is what's going to happen when with the current band of bandits, basically, that Donald Trump is surrounding himself with? And also Donald Trump threatening to sue CNN and New York Times for defamation for reporting on the intelligence community in the United States and in Europe, frankly, saying that the strikes on Iran were not as successful as Donald Trump claimed. When Donald Trump says total obliterations, bring in Michael Popak from Legal af. Good to see you, Michael Popaka. Very busy week in the Supreme Court rulings with lawsuits being filed by Governor Newsom. A lot to track.
- [04:24]
Gavin Newsom
Yeah, it's a, you know, there were moments in real time when you, me and the rest of the Midas community who do, who does what, we do the video work. You know, we're kind of dusting ourselves off a little bit and a little bit of gallows humor at moments. Well, then once, once we had the opportunity to take the plane up 5,000ft and take a look at, for instance, the Supreme Court decisions, which have all now dropped, except for a lot of things that are going to be happening over the summer involving some of those very issues like birthright citizenship. Once we got a little bit better lay of the land, it's not that we felt better about the decisions, but we understand what needs to be done moving forward. And I was encouraged and we will touch on it today during Legal af. I was encouraged by the public interest groups and the attorneys general who I knew because we've spoken to them and we had them on our respective shows. They are ready and have already drafted the papers around the Supreme Court decisions in order to make sure that the 24 and there are 24 of them, national injunctions that have already been issued, which are all now going to have to be revisited by trial court judges based on the Supreme Court decision that you and I will talk to in, I think the second segment today. They're ready to go with the alternative strategy that was mapped out by Justice Sotomayor. We'll talk about it. You, me and the rest of our audience are going to be talking a lot about class action as a vehicle to defend constitutional violations and abuse of power by this president in a way that we have never before. You and I have experience in class action in our private practice respectively. But I was encouraged after we kind of got ourselves off the floor with what is the strategy moving forward and how ready and at the ready, the attorneys general, public interest groups, democracy forward and the rest are and are already in court hours after the Supreme Court decision. And that gave me a lot of renewed confidence.
- [06:38]
Ben Miceli
Agree. You know, I think though we're seeing this worldview, we've known about it, but with all these MAGA Republicans, from those in the House and the Senate to those who have been appointed in the judiciary, that they are okay with an imperial president, a dictator, like they're, they're okay with that concept. And in co equal branches, they're okay with subordinating their roles to a dictator and functioning the way courts and congresses or parliaments do where there are authoritarian regimes. Right. Like you want to talk about Iran, for example, or Russia or North Korea or China. Like there's parliaments, right. There are courts and judges that are there. It's just not the system that we've had in America and in Western democracies that we come to cherish. Now you can try to give all of these parade of horribles, right? Well, I mean. And try to reverse it to scare the mag as well. Imagine what can happen now if you have a democratic president and the democratic president goes and does all of these things with democratic policies. The issue is, is that democrats or pro democracy, by the very nature of pro democracy, don't want an imperial president. We liked co equal branches of government. And so yes, Popak, you're right. When you actually read the six to three right wing extremist order by the Supreme Court, are there ways around it? Yes, but they have a very Handmaid's tale dystopian worldview that the courts should be, they should inhibit themselves in Congress, they should inhibit themselves and just allow Donald Trump to do all of these things. And then you have to find the kind of workarounds to deal with it. I also, when we talk in the second segment about the Supreme Court rulings, I also want to talk about another decision regarding how the Supreme Court's been using the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to basically say that you are discriminating against religion by not allowing religion to freely exercise its right to discriminate against people. If the religion says, we don't like gay people, we don't like black people, we don't like Latino people, we don't like the other religion, they're saying all of these laws that are meant to protect diversity and inclusion should give way to if a religion has a legitimate view that they want to be discriminatory, because how dare you discriminate against the religion? There's this case out of Maryland where the Supreme Court ruled that the Maryland school policy barring opt outs for LGBTQ books violates religious rights. That's part of a line of cases that you and I have been covering over the years by this right wing Supreme Court saying there is a free exercise clause, right in the First Amendment to allow the football coach to hold a prayer during halftime at the center of the field, which then opens up the idea of prayer in school. Or a private business should be able to discriminate against gay people who want to get married by not doing their wedding cakes or not taking photographs of them. And a lot of these contrived cases have worked their way up. They've been manufactured cases where the plaintiffs have even said, I'm not even the plaintiff. I'm not gay. Why are you claiming that I'm even someone in this case? I never even went to this law firm. I mean, think about that, Popak, that one of the seminal cases, not this one, but in two terms ago involving the Colorado business that said it wanted to deny the ability for to photograph a gay wedding. The people who were supposed to get married said, I'm a straight guy from Colorado. I never even use their services. I don't even know who the plaintiff is. Why are you, why are you saying this once it already was ruled by the Supreme Court. We'll talk about all of that. All right, let's break down, though, this Gavin Newsom lawsuit. Pop. I had the ability to interview California Governor Gavin Newsom about the $787 million defamation case against Trump. Here's what he said to me. And then let's get your take on this lawsuit. Let's play it.
- [11:16]
Pam Bondi
No, I appreciate it. I mean, I think you summed it up beautifully. I mean, they knowingly misrepresented the facts. They altered and edited statements of the president, United States videos, and they knowingly stated that I lied about a phone call with Donald Trump. Donald Trump, as we know, lied about a phone call he had with me the day before. That call, in fact, was almost four days prior. Trump himself went to John Roberts of Fox to show a screenshot of the call. That call was never in question. They went on then to alter the fact that the President said it was a call the day before. And then it was weaponized further on the Jesse Waters show, who had a chyron saying Gavin lied about President Trump. And so look, I can take it. These guys go after me 24 7. I'm a pinata and have been for years and years at fox. Never once that I think I had to file a defamation lawsuit. But this crossed the line, the journalistic and ethical lines, the boundaries of defamation, malice. And they need to be held to account because it's one thing to cover up for the lies that of a president, but the impact of covering up for these lies is impacting our democracy. Truth and trust.
- [12:35]
Ben Miceli
Michael Popak, what do you make of this lawsuit? Break it down also, maybe in a little more detail, what's being alleged here. What do you think is going to happen? It's filed in Delaware.
- [12:44]
Gavin Newsom
Yeah. So Governor Newsom, I love many aspects of the filing. First, the number 787 million not picked out of a hat. It's the exact number. Of course, Governor Newsom knows it. Of the settlement between the Dominion voting systems and Fox coming out of Delaware a couple of years ago that led to the downfall of Tucker Carlson. Lou Dobbs was sued. Marina Bartiromo, Fox, Fox News, Fox Corp, Rupert Murdoch, they were all sued because of the lies that were spread as the propaganda machine of Fox for the Trump administration about the fact that Donald Trump. The lies that were spread about Dominion voting systems, that they are hardware in the election process and a couple of precincts were being used by a global conspiracy involving an Argentinean business person. This is all spread by Sidney Powell, flipped votes from Trump to Biden, all a lie. They ran with it, even knowing. And we learned about the internal emails at the time. They all came spilling out because Delaware summary judgment process required these documents to be filed, including deposition transcripts of people like Rupert Murdoch. And that led to the $787 million defamation settlement. There's still another case, by the way, involving smartmatic, a software company almost exactly the same up in New York. So that's where they got the number from. Why Delaware? Because Fox is like many of our corporations in America are, is a Delaware corporation because it's a business court and has been a very friendly environment, or at least one that you can rely on with very reliable body of law in the corporate world and judges that sort of know what they. They're doing in the Chancery Court division. And so that's why you sue in Delaware. And it's. And as governor News, as that clip touched on, there was a phone call many days before Donald Trump federalized the National Guard. When Donald Trump told the story, he collapsed the timeline and made it look like there was a phone call just before the federalization, as almost as if Gavin was in Newsom was in agreement that he had lost control of the state and the cities like Los Angeles and needed the National Guard. You got to do better. It's out of control. It was almost like he was implying, Trump, that Newsom was in on it when the phone call was on the 6th, several days earlier, then on Jesse Waters, they sliced and diced it and collapsed it and got rid of the things that were. That were sticky, like facts about the timeline and made it look like to support Donald Trump, that the phone call had happened just before the federalization and almost as if he was governor, Newsom was complicit in it when that phone call came a lot earlier. And it had nothing to do with that particular, you know, that particular issue. So that is defamation. Now, as a public figure, there's a higher standard for the news media propaganda machine as they are through Fox. They've gotta, you know, he's gotta prove actual malice, which means under a line of cases you and I refer to as New York Times versus Sullivan, that they either knew what they were doing was false, sort of like the Dominion Voting Systems case, or recklessly disregarded the truth or falsity of what they were putting on the air. And that Chiron, you know, that title, you know, Newsome lies about phone call. If they knew or should have known, given the timeline in the reporting, that that was defamatory because it was untrue, then, you know, we're up and running. And I think he survives a motion to dismiss in Delaware. I haven't seen the Chancery Court judge that's been assigned to it. I don't know if it's the same One could be the same one that was assigned for the Dominion Voting Systems case. But that's what he's signaling. The flag that Gavin Newsom is waving is Fox has admitted the defamation of public figures, so to speak, in the past and has paid big as it relates to it. And he has no choice but to do that, just as Donald Trump is, and we'll talk about it in another segment, is running around sending threatening letters from some local lawyer here. I live in Miami and Coral Gables, frankly, I'd never heard of that. Sued, you know, Michael Cohen and then lost and then, you know, sued ABC News or threatened to sue ABC News over George Stephanopoulos. So this is the guy. It's like a toolbox, tool bag for Donald Trump. Oh, who's the guy in my repertoire in my group that's going to send a nasty letter on media issues? Oh, Alejandro Brita. Oh, send the letter. Okay. So he sends the letter. I'm not sure. He wrote the letter to the New York Times and David McCaw from the New York Times who I know wrote back and said, we'll get to it, our reporting was accurate. But Donald Trump has the taste for these defamation cases because, you know, the Disney is considering settling with him. ABC did settle with him for millions and millions of dollars.
- [18:06]
Ben Miceli
Others, who else CBS right now is considering, Right.
- [18:12]
Gavin Newsom
So he's used to getting tens of millions of dollars on these things. And Gavin Newsom has a point. You know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. They're going to get the famed, then they need to run into court and, and, and use the court system to.
- [18:24]
Ben Miceli
Our advantage except the goose and the gander. And I'm not really honestly sure and have to Google what a gander is and what a goose is in this situation. But I'll say this, Newsom, and I'm not just saying this because I'm supportive of a lot of Newsom's policies, certainly more so than anything that Trump does. But California Governor Gavin Newsom is saying, I did not have the phone call. I'm ready to sit for depositions and talk about this made up phone call that existed that Trump claims that didn't happen. I had the original phone call that I said and you are now lying about really serious conduct. That's saying I'm essentially complicit in violating my duties as a governor. You're basically saying I engaged in a conspiracy and a crime. And you know that's not, you know, that's not accurate and that's causing Me a lot of, a lot of serious issues. On the other hand, when it comes to Trump's campaign cases. Let's talk about it now. The one with, you know, where he's threatening. CNN and New York Times, they simply reported that the intelligence community from the Pentagon and CENTCOM had an initial damage assessment of the strikes against Iran and found that they were not as successful as Donald Trump claimed they are. And in the subsequent intelligence briefs that got delayed, but have happened before the House and before the Senate, although not a lot has actually been shared with them at all. And a lot of members of Congress are very frustrated that they're not really getting any real insight or data. It seems that the intelligence was accurate. The European intelligence confirms also that what the New York Times and CNN reported, which was just saying what happened in our intelligence reports was, is consistent with the Europeans are saying that it seems that Iran was able to move uranium out before the strikes took place and that the facilities were not totally destroyed, they were damaged. It may set the program back a few months, but it seems that Iran will be able to, in short order, be able to develop a nuclear arsenal if that's what it wants to do. Those are, those are the, those are the facts that are in the report. And also CNN and New York Times said the report was necessarily low confidence because any report that's an initial assessment without actually going into the facility can't be high confidence. But from the satellite images, from the human intelligence, that's just what we know. That's, that's called the truth. And we know that it's the truth also because Donald Trump and the Department of Defense and Hegseth and all the propagandists like Caroline Levitt said this was a top secret report that was leaked to the New York Times and that we think it's treason, that the person leaked it and we're launching an investigation. And Fox, Jesse Waters, and this may be evidence, you know, as well, and against Donald Trump in the Trump case. Jesse Waters is saying, oh, the Trump regime should pursue the death penalty. I think he used words or on Fox in general, they were suggesting that treason is punishable by death. And therefore this could be a, this could be a capital crime if you engage in this type of behavior.
- [22:02]
Gavin Newsom
Well, David McCall, the New York Times, who I've dealt with before and I admire as a First Amendment lawyer and scholar, deputy general counsel at the New York Times, and he's dealt with Trump before. Every time Trump doesn't like a story, whether he was candidate Trump or President Trump the first time, or President Trump now, he always writes the hometown paper, you know, the paper of record, all the news that's fit to print the New York Times and ask for a retraction or apology or whatever. And David McCall wrote back and said, the second word of our reporting is that this was a preliminary assessment and we reported it that way and we stand by our reporting. It's. It's not the final assessment, but it is a preliminary assessment from your own Defense Department intelligence. This is another Tulsi Gabbard's group, by the way. If they're looking to hang anybody, it's Tulsi Gabbard, which is the reason she's not at Camp David for any of the intelligence briefing. She's not in the war room or situation room ever at all. It looks like John Ratcliffe, who used to have her job, is now the CIA director, is now the chief spymaster for for America. She's been sidelined completely. Internal reporting about her is that Trump insiders are saying she's been wrong on every big thing since Trump's been in office, including running a video on her social media talking about the horrors of nuclear war while she visited Hiroshima right at the moment when Donald Trump was dealing with Iran, which he did not like, and alleged, according to reporting, told her, you're not gonna run for president while you're in my cabinet, so if you don't wanna be in my cabinet, that's fine, but if you think you're running for president this way, you're not. So. And allegedly she's now been completely sidelined, or as I joked when he, When Trump came out in the. I forget the hallway there where they do all the major briefings, when he came out for the initial briefing after Saturday night last week when they bombed the three nuclear facilities, I said, take a look at the photo. There's no intelligence in that photo. And I mean that literally. There's nobody from the intelligence community standing next to Donald Trump. It was like him and J.D. vance and Marco Rubio and whatever. I'm like, where is the intelligence community? And then Donald Trump, of course, goes off half cocked and starts talking about, we did it, mission accomplished, we've obliterated the nuclear program, when, of course he hasn't. If he wants to sue as a sitting president, he wants to sue the New York Times and waive his privileges and for a counter suit back, because he's not going to be able to have it both ways. I don't believe then he's, he's free to do it. But this is their. This is the fascist playbook, right? You sue when you can sue. You work the courts. If you don't like the result, you sue the courts. When you don't like the Democrats, you arrest and indict and sue them. And when you don't like what the media is talking about, you abuse them in the press room, you bar them from the press room, and then you send nasty, threatening letters to them, to all in an attempt to shape the propaganda machine. That's all we're watching. And that's, I think one of the reasons people come here is so that we can use our Google Translate and our filter to call that out and keep our eye. You know, we have to be laser focused in order to accomplish what we need to accomplish, which is to start taking down this regime beginning with the midterms, if not before. We got a lot of work to do as a community from now till the midterms to get there. But, you know, I think. I think the first place is telling truth to each other.
- [25:34]
Ben Miceli
You know, it's the fascist framework of the right wing, a sociopathic framework of the right wing, which is also inextricably intertwined with a fascist playbook. But it segues into our next segment on the Supreme Court, saying that nationwide injunctions issued from district courts that are sought by individuals or individual groups outside of class action contexts and not brought by states are improper, unlawful, illegal. Which is an interesting perspective considering that nationwide injunctions were always the tool used by the MAGA Republican Federalist Society to try to block, and in many cases, successfully. So the Biden agenda that was trying to deliver rights for the people, whether it was helping people with the burden of student loans and debt relief, whether it was Biden focusing on women's reproductive rights and trying to allow women to have more freedom over their body, whether it was Biden's attempts to try to deal with immigration comprehensively and all of these issues. You would have the MAGA Republican Federalist Society lawyers run into one court in the Northern district of Texas, Judge Kaczmarek, and he would issue nationwide injunction for them and block Biden's agenda. And you better believe that Biden and his administration would say, whoa, whoa, whoa, that seems to be a bit unfair. And the Supreme Court said, we can't have an imperial presidency. We can't allow Biden to rule like a dictator and give people all of these freedoms. Nationwide injunctions are a major protection. That's what the Federalist Society. That's what all of these Groups were saying, then you bring in the actual dictator on day one, Donald Trump, who's ruled like a dictator on day one, an idiotic one, one that's harmed our country significantly. And then notice the Supreme Court changes its framework. We're worried about an imperial judiciary. We're worried about ourselves. And we, the courts are the ones who are the big problems here, huh? Because when there are nationwide injunctions, this is me now speaking, it goes to the Supreme Court eventually, who can rule on it. It's not like the district court. Nationwide injunction is the end of the story. It goes to a court of appeals, and then it goes to the Supreme Court. But now the Supreme Court made this ruling in a case involving birthright citizenship. Now, it didn't reach the merits on birthright citizenship, but this was a horrific ruling, even if its reach is not quite as terrifying as the initial headlines might suggest. But I think the judicial philosophy behind it is indeed terrifying. How this will impact other situations that are not like birthright citizenship. We'll talk about that and more after our first quick break. But I want to remind everybody about Michael Popo's substack, the Legal AF substack, which is doing absolutely incredible. Check out the Legal AF substack for the legal news you hear on the hot takes and you love. And then Michael Popo's law firm, the POPOC firm, is signing up a ton of legal AF listeners and viewers who have cases. If you were in an auto accident, a truck, a truck accident, a truck hit you, that was really a bad accident, really serious injuries that require surgery, reach out to the POPOC firm. Also, if you have other cases involving negligence, wrongful death cases, sexual assault, sexual harassment cases. If you have medical malpractice cases, reach out to the POPOC firm. And the consultation is free. Popak, where can they reach out to you at?
- [29:52]
Gavin Newsom
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Ben. And it's really rewarding. I mean, we're, we're getting contacts from almost all 50 states. You know, thousands and thousands a day are coming to the website. So let's start with the website, www.the popoc firm.com all spelled out. There it is. And then the 1-800-number-1-877-popak AF.
- [30:16]
Ben Miceli
Let's take our first quick break of the show. Let's talk about nationwide injunctions.
- [30:21]
Gavin Newsom
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- [33:16]
Ben Miceli
Welcome back to Legal AF. Let's talk about the Supreme Court rulings on Friday that was officially their last day of the term before Clarence Thomas takes his usual trip funded by the billionaires. Maybe he's going to go on the, the, the foam party on Bezos's yacht with Bezos's stepson. Who know, who knows what journey Clarence Thomas will be taking this time around. But, but in all seriousness, this is the last day and he's probably going to do something like that. But in all seriousness, it was the last day in the term. It's when this right wing fascist Supreme Court makes its most horrible rulings. They usually save the worst for last and try to bury it on a Friday. And it's no different this time. Their nationwide injunction case and a case involving LGBTQ opt outs in a Maryland school district in Montgomery county where parents were saying for religious reasons they didn't want their kids to be around LGBTQ books there under their ability to free exercise their religion inside, inside the school. So Popak, let's start with nationwide injunctions. The case involved birthright citizenship. The headline that came out and the initial reporting was obviously this is an absolute disaster. It's still a bad ruling. There's ways around it. But break down the ruling. And it was, by the way, in terms of the drama in the Supreme Court, like all hell was breaking loose inside the Supreme Court where you had the justices, I guess it was the equivalent of like a, like a Supreme Court rap battle, if you will. They, they read opinions that they feel strongly about. So you would have the different justices, like read their opinions and then they would go back and forth with each other, like staring each other down. And Alito would stare down Ketanji Brown Jackson and she would read these points and, and Sotomayor would step in and Kagan would say, you know, you've just thrown our country into. Anyway, that was basically what's going on. Popac, tell us what happened in the ruling.
- [35:24]
Gavin Newsom
Well, yeah, and we, we're, we're fighting for the soul of America and democracy. Unfortunately, we're doing it through a Supreme Court that is divided and divided. I mean, not equally divided. It's six to three maga, right wing on matter, on issues that matter most to our audience. Yeah. You can get Amy Coney Barrett occasionally to like slide over to the other side on a matter that's less important. And Robert's the same, but on things that fundamentally involve our separation of powers, the co equal branches of government, the presidency, the ability to control the presidency. We're outnumbered. And they are using their impressing their advantage in a way that I've never seen. I've seen it last five years. And just to put it in context, I've been alive for 59 years. For more than 50 years, the United States Supreme Court has been dominated by Republican appointees. I have never known in my lifetime, and neither have you a Supreme Court that has been run by the moderates to the liberals at all. So it's not about that, because I was okay. I may not have agreed with every opinion, but I was okay when we had Republicans like Sandra Day o' Connor or Black or others that Kennedy even that I could find some common ground with. That's over. And so we were concerned, you and me and Legal AF when they took nationwide injunctions, meaning does a trial court level federal judge have in their tool pack something called the ability when he only, he or she only has a couple of parties in front of them or 19 or 20 states in front of them, the ability, depending upon what is the violation on the other side? Is it a nationwide violation that impacts everyone equally the way a constitutional violation or abuse of power does? Because if Trump as president with the executive branch is creating nationwide harm by an executive order attacking birthright citizenship, an executive order taking billions of dollars away from the states because of DEI nonsense, taking billions of dollars away from foreign policy and humanitarian aid or Social Security or Medicare, things that have nationwide implications, why shouldn't a federal judge who is declaring that unconstitutional be able to fashion an appropriate remedy that is symmetrical, that matches the nationwide impact without having to have 50 or 50,000 lawsuits having to be filed with individual judges or a class action. And class action is not. We're going to talk about what a class action is. But class action is not a proper vehicle for every type of case that involves trying to rein in Donald Trump, because not every state has the same policies, not every state has the identical claims which are necessary for Rule 23 class action under typicality. We'll talk about that in a minute. So using, you know, this callous comment that Kavanaugh made in this new decision we're going to talk about, in which he said, well, just do a class action with an injunction and that's the equivalent of a universal injunction. It's not because of the hurdles that are baked into class action as a vehicle, and the elements of it don't fit every type of constitutional violation. The 6 to 3 Supreme Court said only, effectively only the United States Supreme Court has the ability to enter a universal declaration about an abuse of power or constitutional abuse by a president not at the lower level. That's our job. You do your cases, you do your cases in controversy of whoever is in front of you, you fashion a remedy that's no larger than it needs to be to address that case and those facts. And then the underlying constitutional issue, it'll get to us eventually and we will be the ones to declare that it is unconstitutional. What happens in the middle, the babies born in the meantime in states that are going to recognize the executive order, that's none of our concern. And they went after Amy Coney Barrett, went after Ketanji Brown Jackson, not just on the dais or on the bench, but in her written order, basically calling her an idiot. I mean, I've not, I mean, I've seen, you know, Scalia used to go after his brethren a lot, but I've never seen Amy Coney Barrett or, or anybody go after Ketanji Brown Jackson the way they did. And what they're, what they're. The 6 to 3 MAGA majority's view is, and they left open the issue about whether state, if the states are involved, whether like 19 states get together, like you and I report on a lot of these things like, led by Letitia James and Rob Bonta, the California, New York, all these state cases, there's about 50 to 100 of them. Whatever it is, whether this ruling applies to them, whether a judge is precluded from using nationwide injunction, if there is a state or states that are bound together. Leave that for another moment. But in general, they have now ripped away the ability of any individual federal judge to not only declare Donald Trump's actions rogue and unconstitutional, but they do anything about it from a nationwide perspective. Now they're saying, well, do it by class action. All right, so how do you do that? Well, there's a rule, and you got to make sure you comply with the rule. And you have people like Alito and his concurrence going and make sure there's no abuse of class actions. We don't want to see that either. So which is it? So now every time the, the attorneys general or the public interest groups or we'll talk about that in a minute. Run back into court. They already have. And said, all right, we want a class action class action certification. We have our class plaintiffs. We want to certify a class as everybody similarly situated who's being abused by Donald Trump's constitutional action and then issue an injunction off of that. Then the Trump administration, right on cue, is going to attack the class action vehicle being an inappropriate vehicle. And just a quick teach out moment, there's two ways to bring a case into court. Either an individual case, which is one to, you know, could be a couple hundred plaintiffs, but not large enough to satisfy collective or class action status. So you have an individual case involving those parties only and the relief the court can grant to those parties only and no more. And then you've got a class action, which is a few plaintiffs and plaintiffs lawyers come into court and say this is an injury that's happening around the country or among a group of people that are all similarly situated with typical type claims with a very numerous amount and it's better to be a class action vehicle. But then you have to have the fight over whether that's appropriate or not. Now, both Sotomayor and Kavanaugh gave the roadmap for what happened several hours later after the ruling on Friday, which was you're now if you are representing people whose children are born or about to be born and the 14th amendment citizenship is ripped away from them by the executive order, you need to go back into court quickly with a class action and a temporary restraining order and then get this case as quickly back to the United States Supreme Court as possible. Within three hours, the same case this the same group, CASA Inc. That brought the Supreme Court case, ran into court in Maryland in front of Judge Bowman and filed a motion for class action certification and an emergency motion for temporary restraining order, which is up for grabs. And we'll have to report on it off of this show as as the next few days move forward. Here's what the Trump administration had to say about the ruling. And there are 24 different national injunctions which are now all imperiled. They're done. They're going to have to all be revisited by judges who are going to have to figure out how to narrow this down to the parties and or consider class action certification. That includes birthright citizenship, which we just talked about, which is the subject of three different birth nationwide injunctions, but also includes immigration issues, deportation issues, funding issues, state funding issues, education funding issues, and the list goes on. Here's what Donald Trump's view of the case now. Birthright citizenship itself was not decided. They made a point of saying we're just here on nationwide injunctions and we're telling you how to get back to us on birthright citizenship and how quickly to do it and what the procedure or the order of operation is, is now the minority here. Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor and Kagan, mainly Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said, we are watching a court complicit with allowing and promoting an imperial president that cannot be checked by the judiciary. Amy Coney Barrett said, no, you're wrong. It's not that we're not going to check it. It's that we're not going to allow a potential abuse of power by the president to be matched by a potential abuse of power by the judiciary. That's not the two wrongs don't make a right either. And just get the case up procedurally the right way and we'll take care of it from here. Thank you very much. Birthright citizenship, even the Trump administration doesn't believe was ruled upon on Friday. Here's what Bondi said. Payam Bondi said, yes, birthright citizenship will be decided in, in October. Now she's controlling the court's docket in the next session by the Supreme Court even though the high court has not accepted the case. And it's not procedurally right. So for right now, from now till October, we're in and the babies are in purgatory because, you know, the red states, the parents are like, hey, here's my birth certificate. My child was born here. I'm applying for aid. You're not a citizen. I need a passport for my child. She's citizen less. What do you mean she's citizen less? I need to go travel to somewhere. Who's going to issue me the passport? Well, the executive order says, and we don't have a ruling definitively and we're not subject to any of the, any of the injunctions. That is what's going to happen between now and the time the Supreme Court gets around a ruling. It may be earlier than October. It may be an emergency application more quickly than that over the summer with this ban getting back together again and setting oral argument. But here's one of the most two depraved things, Ben, I'll turn it back. That Donald Trump did this shows you the mental depravity and the mental decline of Donald Trump. When reached for comment about the decision on nationwide injunction, he made a comment about birthright citizenship. He said that the 14th Amendment that was meant for the babies of slaves. It wasn't meant for people trying to scam the system and come into the country on a vacation. This is how the executive branch thinks that the amendments post reconstruction in this country are only to be applied to people who were slaves or the descendants of slaves, which I don't even think this United States Supreme Court is going to go along with that. And then lastly, on the day that they announce that their hand is strengthened to try to rip away birthright citizenship for the 14th Amendment, Donald Trump announces the gold visa, the, you know, the $5 million buy a U.S. citizenship program. So if you're born here, he's not recognizing your citizenship, but if you want to pay $5 million, he'll put you on a fast track to citizenship. Disgusting.
- [47:46]
Ben Miceli
So let me just present this case to our audience as I would to a jury, as it relates to Ketanji Brown Jackson and the liberal justice's fear of an imperial president violating the law and then using the inability now of district courts to potentially issue nationwide injunctions to kind of very rapidly push forward the violation of law until you have hundreds of lawsuits filed in every corner and in every district based on the potential confusion caused. Or do you think the big concern here is an imperial judiciary? You go back to the ruling on absolute immunity with the same six to three right wing Supreme Court dynamic giving Donald Trump absolute immunity. And we saw in the oral arguments and in the questioning by the judges, the liberal justices, although I don't like that term, the pro democracy judges, the ones who were appointed by the Democrats, they said you can't give the president absolute immunity. We're not worried about a president feeling that their executive actions are going to be chilled because they should just follow the law. This has never been an issue by any other United States president who's claimed their. They want to commit crimes there. No one is above the law, including the president, and there should be checks on that. If a president commits a crime, they should be held criminally accountable. To which the six right wing justices says, no, no, no unitary executive special. We can't chill. We can't have someone like Trump get worried that everything they do could potentially be criminal. We gotta make sure that their deliberations are not impeded by even the thought of being brought up on crimes, if it could anyway be construed in their official capacity. It's that same kind of logic, you know, here in a way, of the liberal justices saying federal courts have a role in this, to check executive power if the executive is not following the law, not saying that, you know, district courts are just going to start making crap up if there's a violation of the law. For example, if birthright citizenship is in the Constitution and Trump says by executive order, not even legislation, by executive Order. I'm declaring people who are born here, not citizens, and I'm going to deport you by executive order. A district court should say no. And especially in a case like birthright citizenship, a nationwide injunction makes a ton of sense. Because what if you're now born in Kentucky, you're not a citizen. If you're born in New York or Massachusetts or New Hampshire, you are a citizen based on where the district court sits. And then even more than that, within. You have to be within. If you're in the Central District of California, you may be this. But if you're in the Eastern District of California, Bakersfield, Fresno, you may not be a citizen. That doesn't make any sense. So now everybody has to file lawsuits everywhere. That's what Ketanji Brown Jackson saying. And this is what Amy Coney Barrett said in her opinion. We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this. Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing an imperial judiciary. And do you see that Amy Coney Barrett there is not only just dissing Jackson, she's dissing the court. And if you want to take her word for it right there, the way the Constitution's been for two centuries, then why Amy Coney Barrett has this. Has nationwide injunctions like this always existed and always been allowed until you've just declared otherwise, the same way you've overturned all these other precedents? She goes on to say the following. In Amy Coney Barrett's decision, no one disputes that the executive has a duty to follow the law, but the judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation. In fact, sometimes the law prohibits the judiciary from doing so. Let's pause there. So, yes, there are workarounds to this ruling. Right? Class actions can be filed to seek nationwide injunctions. On that basis, states likely can seek nationwide injunctions. But what I say is most disturbing is what I just read for you saying that no one disputes that the President has a duty to follow the law, but the judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation. Like, do you realize what she just said right there? That the judges do not have unbridled authority if the judges see the President violating the law, that judges have to be like, nothing we can do here. If the police officer is watching the murder, nothing I can do here. Just, I guess, go, go do it. See you later. On your way. Because you have special significance to me that strikes at the exact opposite of what our country is built on. And if you want to know whose fears are right, the imperial judiciary fears of Amy Coney Barrett or the imperial executive fears of Katanji Brown Jackson, just watch what Donald Trump did right after this ruling where in fact, Donald Trump said as a result of this ruling, we're coming for everybody. We think that we should be able to by executive order, we're going to send our military and our troops like we've done in California and ice and we're coming for you all. Listen to him. This is what Trump said. Let's play it.
- [53:56]
Michael Popak
So thanks to this decision, we can now properly file to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis, including birthright citizenship, ending sanctuary city funding, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding, stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries and numerous other priorities of the American people. We have so many of them. I have a whole list. I'm not going to bore you and I'm going to have Pam get up and say a few words. But there's really, she could talk as.
- [54:31]
Ben Miceli
Long as she wants because so whose concerns there are more justified. And the reality is, my view is if you break the law, I do think the judiciary, if you see the legal violation, you and you're a federal judge, you're an Article 3 judge. Call me old fashioned, but I do think that you have the authority to say, no, I'm not going to allow that. Subject to the safeguards of our system, which is the district judge doesn't act as king. The district judge makes a ruling, then there's a court of appeals, then it goes to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court. Already Popak has been staying or pausing district court rulings that involve nationwide injunctions to begin with. So it's not like it's without a safeguard. But when we come back, let's talk a little bit more about that. Let's talk about the other ruling in the case involving LGBTQ opt outs and the free exercise clause. And then let's conclude with talking about a Trump lawyer, disbarments and estate bar complaints. Let's take our last quick break of the show. A reminder, everybody. Check out Michael Popak's new law firm. You all may have a case that you that you've been injured, whether you've been injured in an auto accident, a trucking accident, sexual assault, sexual harassment, maybe you know somebody, a friend, a family member who's got a case as well, catastrophic injuries, medical malpractice, a wrongful death Wrongful death cases Give Popox Firm a call. The Popoc firm has free consultations. Their cases are done on contingency, meaning that they only recover if you recover. Popak where can they reach out to your firm?
- [56:29]
Gavin Newsom
Start with the website www.thepopocfirm.com or if you prefer, it ends up in the same type of place with talking to a live person. Call 1877 Popocaf.
- [56:43]
Ben Miceli
Check it out. Also Michael Popox Substack subscribe there. It's the Legal AF substack and also help the Legal AF YouTube channel get to 1 million subscribers. They are on their way to 1 million subscribers. Let's take our last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.
- [57:02]
Gavin Newsom
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- [60:14]
Ben Miceli
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to those pro democracy sponsors. By the way, we don't have outside investors on Legal af, so the show grows thankfully to those sponsors. Also, the memberships here on these youtubes help a lot as well, but those pro democracy sponsors go and they really help, so check them out. Jordy negotiates the discount codes so they're great stuff and great discounts as well. Popak before we took the break, I was talking about Amy Coney Barrett's basic attack on Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in the opinion of the court on nationwide injunctions. And you know, whether it's, you know, Coney Barrett who, you know, her background, you know, is kind of being in a Handmaid's Tale type of religious community. You know, everybody can go and check that out. You know what her background is. You know, whether it's naivety or whether it's just an outright open hug and embrace of fascism. It's baffling to me that the world exists as it does right now with masked agents who may work for ice. Who knows where these people work for the deputized by ice, walking around and disappearing humans off the streets. And Donald Trump using the Marines and the National Guard as props in front of federal buildings and you know, and shutting down key portions of the government that are needed, like for us to live. And then the Supreme Court is like, but I'm worried about what happens if the judiciary becomes an imperial judiciary. We do not want to, we think that the President will faithfully execute the laws. I'm like, what world are you looking at right now?
- [62:14]
Gavin Newsom
Even Amy Coney Barrett's not in that world. She actually quoted the one part of Barbary vs Madison to prove her point, which is the leading case that gives the Supreme Court its power to say, well, even in that case, they found Madison had violated, you know, he'd done something wrong. And they, they also found they didn't have the power to do anything about it. Great. So now we've got a feckless Congress, a limp noodle doormat of a Congress, no internal, nothing internal to the executive branch that provides any guardrails in this second go around for Donald Trump, right? No, I mean, there's some resistance, but no real resistance. He's, he's, he's only brought in with him bootlickers and sycophants. So he's got nothing that stops his outrageous overreaches of, of presidential power, imperial power. He's got no Congress to do their job until the Democrats get it back in another year and a half or whatever it is. And now you've got Amy Coney Barrett declaring for the rest of the court that there's only one court in the land that can declare it and that's us. And even then, we may not be able to stop an out of control imperial president that we created a year ago with our immunity decision. And so this battle of the imperialists and suddenly Amy Coney Barrett becoming an originalist textualists, you know, she stepped out and took on Clarence Thomas. When he started talking about, when it's, it's about guns, right? Like, and his constant look for historical antecedents, like, well, the old timey times, there wasn't a regulation that an 18 year old couldn't carry an AK47 down the streets of his city in old timey times. AK47. And she was like, there's limits to the ability to use historical antecedents and precedents. And now she starts off with, in the history, I've done a full survey and in the history of since 1787 with the judiciary act, which was soon after our nation's founding, when lots of things were different. And she got history wrong. She said, well, then you have to go back to Britain. We're like, oh, now we're going back to London. And in the British area, there wasn't A notion of, of a national injunction either. Stop. We left Britain, we formed a new country that went through a number of permutations before it became a union of states under a constitution. And back in old timey times, courts were divided into two different courts, courts of equity and courts of law. We don't have that in our country. We only have judges who sit in equity and sit in law. And so to say that she's looked everywhere, but I can't find the equivalent in history is a lie. There's been, at least since the last hundred years, especially about civil rights. There have been nationwide injunctions issued without comment and supported and defended by the Supreme Court without commentary until now. And so what we are watching though, is, as you said, at the top of this entire legal AF today is this jurisprudential philosophy that is pro tyrant and pro imperial president, even if it means that we've lost the three co equal branches of government and checks and balance. And as you said, we should not worry about an out of control federal judge who's ultimately supervised by an appellate court who's ultimately supervised by a Supreme Court with all the checks and balances along the way. We shouldn't worry about that. We should worry about what we're watching, which is a leviathan, a Frankenstein of the Supreme Court, maga's creation that is running roughshod over constitutional rights. And when I hear Donald Trump in that clip that you play say, well, it's all gas and no break, it's just green light all the way down for all of our imperial fascist policies. And he starts reading them off and then he gets bored halfway through. What I hear is, no, redouble our effort. We're at 200 lawsuits in the courts, we're at 24 injunctions. We need to convert those quickly into class actions or argue to the federal judges. This is the last argument here, argue to the federal judges that because states are involved, they are entitled to a nationwide injunction. Put that back up before the United States Supreme Court and at the same time, this class action methodology and continue, because underlying it, I don't want anybody to lose sight of this. We have 24 federal judges who have declared that Donald Trump's actions are unconstitutional in 24 different topics, effectively, at least in 200 overall cases. And that doesn't change the substance. The Supreme Court still jerking around, dicking around with procedural problems, and kicks the ball down, even though the human lives are at risk, whether it's immigration, deportation, jails in foreign countries, you know, third world, third world jails in foreign countries or babies born who are nationless or citizen less, which is what we just created with this decision. And then stand on high ceremony about, oh, heaven to Betsy, that we, we nationwide injunctions should go the way of who knows what. Ridiculous. All right, that's it. That's it for me.
- [67:48]
Ben Miceli
Well, let me ask you this and let me prove the point to our audience this way. In history of humankind, was the norm a democracy with co equal branches of government, or was the norm kings and authoritarians and royal families? Authoritarians and royal families. So what sociopaths do and what sometimes children do as well, no offense to children, is if you can create a framework for your argument that no matter what happens, you win the argument and it doesn't matter if you flip flop, the outcome is already decided by the very nature of the framework. And so the right wing justices over the past several decades have gaslit the entire nation with their frameworks. And they teach this to you at law school. It's all bullshit. It's total bullshit made up so they'll say, oh, you know, there's a whole doctrine called being a strict constructionalist and a textualist. Every word in the Constitution has a meaning. And the best way to determine how to rule the case on constitutional issues is you got to analyze each word where the words fit next to the words. And you don't need to really even dig deep into the statutory history. The words are it. That often takes place when the statutory history rebuts what the words say. Then you have something like the second Amendment which talks about a well regulated militia before it talks about the right to bear arms. And then they'll say, ooh, ooh, we don't want to talk about the text there. We're not strict textualists there. Let's dig a little bit deeper right there. Or they'll talk about states rights and how important and robust states rights are. Okay, until a unitary executive comes along, imperial president and says, you know what, nice National Guard you got there, state. They may be doing the things that you want in your state because the governor controls the National Guard. But you know what, give it over if the president wants it, even though the law says that there has to be coordination with the governor, the president can just send you a letter, that's fine. So we're actually no longer states rights there. And they would talk about when they didn't want to address Republican presidents who would violate the Constitution. Oh, we're just going to do a doctrine called constitutional avoidance. Constitutional avoidance. And now Their big one, whether it comes to firearms, whether it comes to a case like nationwide injunctions, what do they do? All those frameworks that they've taught you in law school that were the orthodoxy of the Federalist Society and that they were acting like they were so academic. Their new one is we got to go back in history and really have a historical understanding of what took place. Now, that's kind of like arguing sometimes who's a better basketball player, Michael Jordan or LeBron James. Right. It's. You see those debates on ESPN, but it's really meaningless, who's a better basketball player, LeBron James or Michael Jordan?
- [71:16]
Gavin Newsom
But the.
- [71:17]
Ben Miceli
The telling of history sometimes has different interpretations. So basically, you remember that movie 300 where they then, like, where the guy from Sparta, he, like, then climbs up to the top and then the oracles of Delphi basically hand down what the ruling is going to be by engaging in their weird rituals. And they go, ah, let me see, let me figure it out. That's kind of where we're at with the Supreme Court right now, right? Like, at this point, they have a point of view leaning towards dictatorship in a Handmaid's Tale world. And they're going to find that, and they're going to go back and they're going to find their own selective interpretation of history. The law be damned, the present be damned. And that's what they're doing on all of these cases now. That's their new framework. And I want to. I want you to educate yourself on it, because these people try to come off as academic in their presentation, but they're con artists, they're grifters, they're scammers, and that's why they align with Donald Trump as well. Okay, enough of my rant right there. Let me quickly discuss the ruling regarding these LGBTQ opt outs and the implication there, because that was another big ruling before the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that a Maryland school policy barring opt outs for LGBTQ books violates religious rights. The First Amendment talks about the separation of church and state. The First Amendment, of course, also deals with free speech, and it also has a statement about the free exercise thereof, relating to religion and the separation of church and state was usually viewed throughout our history. If we want to talk about historical interpretation as a given, as an anchor. But religious groups over the past few terms have come in and they've said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We want to freely exercise our religion where we want to. And if that happens in the public square, you. If that happens in schools. We want to do that. And not only that, our free exercise of our religion goes beyond even, you know, you can't justify discriminating against races, discriminating against minorities or marginalized communities. In business, based on the First Amendment, you can express heinous views about marginalized groups, but you can say, I have a First Amendment right to exclude certain things, remove certain things from, like, because that's. We have anti discrimination laws. And those emerged wholeheartedly, like in the 60s and the 70s and the civil Rights act and the civil rights movement. But now the religious groups are saying, we want to discriminate. Our religion says thou shall discriminate, and we want to freely exercise that. So can you stop discriminating against us as religious groups for wanting to discriminate? Your secular anti discrimination should be trumped, pun intended, by our religious right to discriminate against who we want to. And so we're seeing a lot of free exercise clauses. So, you know, why did they pick this case? Salty throw up at headline again right now? Because it involved, not to say it was a sympathetic case, but it was a case where the Montgomery School District in Maryland basically said, you can't opt out. Your kid has to go to the library where these LGBTQ books are. So the Supreme Court was saying, you shouldn't be forcing parents to send their kids into the library, basically where the LGBTQ books are. And it's like, what do you think is going to happen with. Do you think the books are going to turn your kids gay? I mean, what are you. That the books are on the shelves are going to make your children gay? Is that. Is that what you're afraid? Like, seriously, that's. That's your thinking. But they brought it in and saying, oh, all we want to just do is be able to opt out. So the Supreme Court acts like, come on, just let them do the opt outs. But there's a broader principle, right, Popak? And that's how the Supreme Court moves. And what they're doing is augmenting the free exercise doctrine to promote discrimination against gay people, against races, against marginalized groups. And so that's what really was going on there. Popak.
- [76:10]
Gavin Newsom
I think I said, yeah, that one's fine. But one other one, the Planned Parenthood case also came out also on a religious right, allowing a state to deny Planned Parenthood funding, primarily because the Planned Parenthood has as part of its protocol that it will provide appropriate counseling and services for the life of the mother, including about abortion. And so states wanted to cut that out. Especially the red states Supreme Court said that that was fine to put Planned Parenthood effectively out of business for funding in those states because it's inconsistent with that state's view on abortion. And so, you know, just a, just just goes to show you with this, as you said, this last gasp of, of opinions dropped just like, you know, the Dobbs decision ripping away a woman's constitutional right to choose on the last day of the term. The immunity decision, last day of the term, same thing. That's why we were, we were really on pins and needles waiting for this last group to come out because it was on the most fundamental issues that were, that were before us. And we, we had a sense, having watched it closely, that things were not going to go the way of a fair democracy.
- [77:27]
Ben Miceli
Popak talk briefly about Chesbro being disbarred and then the bar complaint against Haba.
- [77:35]
Gavin Newsom
Sure. Ken Chesbrough, one of the architects of the, of the stealing the election for Donald Trump came up with a fake elector scheme. As a lawyer indicted in Wisconsin, convicted pled guilty in Georgia for his role in that. You know, it went from, you know, well, just giving advice to him telling the fake electors what their certificates needed to look like, what their signatures look needed to look like, when they needed to meet, when the certificates needed to be delivered through Mike Roman, the election day coordinator for Donald Trump, to try to get to Mike Pence, who is presiding over the Senate during the certification, in order to either recognize the fake elector certificates and or throw up his hands and say, well, I got this one slate over here that came from through the governor, but I got this other slate that says they're electors. Oops, what can we do? Let's throw it over to the House and let the House pick the president. And the House's delegations are dominated by Republicans. And so it would have been a Trump victory. He came up with all that. There were others involved, Sidney Powell and Peter Navarro, Mike Roman, as we've talked about, Jeddah Ellis, Jim Troupas, there's a lot of people he pled guilty along with Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis in Georgia, but he forgot to report it to places where he was admitted to the bar, like New York. That's a problem when you are, when you are convicted of a crime, you need to report it promptly to, you know, we're a self regulating profession and we, every state has a code of professional responsibility or code of professional conduct. It's based coincidentally on the American Bar association model rule. And then that state determines who's going to regulate and police those ethical rules. It's either a unified bar like in Florida, which is run by the Florida bar, or a state allows its Supreme Court or some version of the of their court system to administer that set of rules and suspend disbar people based on investigations that are open either anonymously or through a grievance that's filed and the like. So they opened up an investigation against Chesbrough and and they did a full a referee did a full investigation. And I'm a member of the New York bar, not of the department that he's a member of, but that department with three judges in the appellate division, took a look at all the evidence and said, yeah, you're disbarred. We're striking you from the rolls in New York, much like Rudy Giuliani was. And you can't practice in the state of New York any longer. And he now has the opportunity to appeal that to the Court of appeals in New York, the highest court. He's going to lose and he is this part another lesson to those lawyers that want to represent Donald Trump and push the limits and beyond of their ethical obligations, you too could be disbarred. Now, I'll make one contrast that with something else. Pam Bondi, just as Alina Haba, the acting interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, both got hit with grievances in the last couple of weeks. Grievance letters Bondi because she's violating left and right the Department of Justice manual and trying her cases in the public with propaganda, leaking perp walks of judges that they've arrested, making extrajudicial statements outside the courtroom in order to influence what's happening inside the courtroom with judges and juries, all the things you're not allowed to do and it's unethical, lack of candor to the tribunal, lying to the courts, you know, those types of things. Florida bar said we have a policy about Pam Bondi, particularly we're not going to if she's a federal officer, even though she has a bar license, we're dismissing the grievance until she's done being a federal officer. I don't know what they're talking about and I doubt that New Jersey, which is where Alina Haba just got a grievance against her brought by a public interest group because she similarly has violated about six rules of professional responsibility in the short time that she's been the U.S. attorney for the entire state of New Jersey, including everything she did with arresting, indicting and dismissing the indictment of Mayor Baraka of newark, indicting Lamonica McIver, a member of the House of Representatives in New Jersey who just pled not guilty, all because she went, she had the temerity to go down and take a look as a member of Congress at a federal immigration detention center operated by people who donated to Donald Trump. And she gets arrested and has to continue to stand charges. Also threatened Alina Haba to investigate and open up a criminal investigation against the New Jersey governor. Governor Murphy and a friend of yours. When I say a friend of yours, he's been on the show with you a number of times, the attorney general for New Jersey, Matt Plotkin. Because, because they're not enforcing immigration policy as Donald Trump sees fit. And that is, again, another violation of ethics rules threatening a criminal prosecution in order to gain an advantage in some other civil matter. So New Jersey is not Florida. I'm a New Jersey boy. It's, it's a pretty powerful grievance against her. I don't get the argument that Florida made, which is, well, they're feds, so we're not going to deal with it. If you're going, you do not. Let me make this third our audience. You don't have to be a lawyer to be a judge. You don't, you don't have to be a lawyer to be on the Supreme Court. It helps. You don't need to be a lawyer to be an attorney general. You don't. Donald Trump could have picked X, Y and Z, guy, woman, whoever, that's not a lawyer to be the attorney general of the United States. There's nothing in the Constitution that says the judge or those people have to be. And if you and I know there are people who are on the Supreme Court of some states who have never been judges before, and you don't necessarily have to be a lawyer, but if you are a lawyer and you have your bar license until you turn it back, you are subject to the regulation of your bar for your ethical conduct, even if you're not operating as a lawyer. I know, I know. CPAs that have a law license, they screw up as CPAs. They could be disbarred because as long as they're holding themselves out and they have that credential, they are subject to the ethical investigations and regulatory powers of that profession. If you don't want your license, Alina, and if you don't want your license, Pam, then turn it back. Then you won't have to worry about the, the bar investigating you for ethical violations. But if you're going to hold yourself out as a lawyer and pay your dues and whatever, an officer of the court and practice in courts as a lawyer. Not sure you can practice in courts without being a lawyer, but maybe you can then you need to, to be subject to this investigation. So Chesborough disbarred, started the process right now for Alina Haba. I'm sure wherever Pam Bondi is also a member of the bar, maybe she's a member of the DC Bar, they can open up investigations related to her. But I don't think. Ben, you don't think they get a pass because they're in the federal government, do you?
- [85:02]
Ben Miceli
Well, look, I think when it comes to Haba, I think that, you know, I don't think she's going to be confirmed. Right. I think, I think that her time will end once her special session and that deadline passes. So, you know, she's on a time clock. So for her, it doesn't really, for her, it doesn't really matter. You know, look, with respect to, you know, Bondi and the complaints against Bondi, as the Attorney General, you know, my view is that any action against Bondi will happen after she's Attorney General and I think after the nation has a deep reflection about the moment that we're living in, which is past a constitutional crisis. It is a dictatorship in the United States of America. It is a cacistocracy, a dictatorship of idiots and some of the least qualified people. But America's like, let's not, let's, let's not try to, you know, ignore the reality here. America now has a congress the way North Korea has a congress. America has a judiciary the way Iran has a judiciary, you know, with the, with the Supreme Judicial Council or whatever, whatever it is there. And, you know, the midterms are going to be critical. It's going to be critical that we fight to have midterms. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that there will be midterms. I think as the dictatorship escalates, they're going to try to pull more stunts together. But I leave you with hope. And the hope is, is that Americans hate this stuff right now. Even conservatives, even right wing people, yes, there's 30% or 35%. You're never going to move them away from Maga and Trump. They call him Daddy. I mean, Trump sells Daddy merch to them. I'm not going to convince someone who refers to Donald Trump as their daddy, not even jokingly like they seriously refer to him as their daddy. I'M not going to convince those people of anything logical or constitutional. So I write them off. I don't even care about them. I speak to the rest of the country right now and the tens of millions of people who did not vote. Donald Trump did not get a majority of votes of American voters in the election. His approval rating is the worst ever, worse than his first term. The disastrous budget bill has even a worse approval than Trump's approval, which is horrific. And the people are ready to take to the streets again and continue to peacefully protest. We saw that with the no Kings protest, which was huge. But to me, it's an appetizer of what's to come. Part of the authoritarian playbook is to crush the resistance in opposition. And I think the resistance in opposition is actually stronger than ever. But we can't rely on the courts. We can't rely on on politicians. We have to rely on ourselves. And now is the time to be fearless and courageous. And I know it could be scary, but we have each other. We have each other and we'll support each other. That's it for Legal af. Everybody reach out to Popox Law Firm, the Popak firm. We've gotten a ton of calls on the show. Don't be shy. Look, if you've been in a car accident, if you've been in an accident where a truck or a car has hit you and you're injured, reach out to the Popoc firm. Don't be shy, don't be like, oh.
- [88:40]
Gavin Newsom
By the way, motor motorcycle, rideshare, Uber Lyft, those types of things, too.
- [88:44]
Ben Miceli
Sexual assault, sexual harassment, medical malpractice cases, wrongful death cases. Obviously, if you know somebody who's been killed in an accident, reach out to Popa. You see him here, you know he and his firm are happy to do a consultation. If there's not a case, there's not a case. And he has lawyers across the country who can take a look at these cases for you. So reach out to him, Popak. Where can they reach out to you?
- [89:11]
Gavin Newsom
Easily. Www.thepopocfirm.com It'll lead you right to a free consultation form. And then ultimately, you'll talk to somebody about your case. Or you can skip that step, go right to speak to somebody at 1-877-popocaf.
- [89:27]
Ben Miceli
Everybody check out the legal AF YouTube channel. They're on their way to a million subscribers this summer. Let's help them hit 1 million by the end of this summer. And check out the Legal AF sub stack. Legal AF sub stack. Check it out everybody. Thank you so much for watching. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Remember, we're in this together. We ain't going anywhere. We're fighting together. Our our democracy is ultimately going to be reclaimed. I make you that promise. Because that's where the people are. That's what the people want. And this fascist regime right now that is in charge, I think it will ultimately inspire generations of change in a positive direction, moving us forward in the direction of a stronger democracy. We'll be fighting for that every day. Thanks for watching. Hit subscribe here. Help us get to 6 million subscribers. That's it for Legal AF. I'm Ben myself Ellis, joined by Michael Popo. Shout Out Midas Mighty Shout Out Legal A efforts Today we'll attempt a feat once thought impossible overcoming high interest credit card debt.
- [90:42]
Michael Popak
It requires merely one thing a SOFI personal loan.
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Ben Miceli
With it, you could save business big.
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Michael Popak
On interest charges by consolidating into one low fixed rate monthly payment. Defy high interest debt with a SOFI personal loan. Visit sofi.com stunt to learn more.
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Ben Miceli
Loans originated by SoFi Bank NA member.
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Michael Popak
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