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- [00:01]
Ben Miceli
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- [00:29]
Michael Popak
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- [00:50]
Ben Miceli
To find your next pair of glasses.
- [00:51]
Michael Popak
Safe sunglasses or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker.com 10.
- [01:01]
Ben Miceli
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.org skills A federal judge in Washington, D.C. judge Boasberg has certified a class action of migrants sent to El Salvador without due process and he's ordering the Trump regime essentially to facilitate a due process process for all of them. There was a $1 bond requirement also for the class. I want to explain why he did the $1 bond requirement to get around what Congress is potentially trying to do in their disastrous budget bill. Also, you had Donald Trump always saying it would be impossible that Abrego Garcia would be returned to the United States. It would never, ever happen, he said. Impossible. But Abrego Garcia was indeed returned to the United States on Friday. But then he was immediately indicted out of Tennessee's federal court for trafficking charges. It's being alleged that he helped bring other migrants into the United States to work inside of the United States. That's the essential allegations when you actually read this indictment. But when you saw Pam Bondi, the Attorney General's press conference, she tried to tie him to like child trafficking and murders and gang members who and there's nothing like terrorism, nothing that's actually alleged in the indictment. So they violate his due process by sending him to El Salvador, they bring him here, and then they violate his due process by talking about allegations that are not even in the indictment during a publicized press conference. Also, the head of the Nashville Federal Criminal Division immediately resigned once he saw what was going on with The Brago Garcia 15 year DOJ vet said, I'm not dealing with any of this crap. See you later. He was there for the first Trump administration, the Obama administration, the Biden administration. Not a partisan guy. It's not a political issue. This guy Ben Schrader, who is chief of the criminal division in Tennessee, is like, I'm not dealing with this crap. This is, this is not why I signed up for this job. Two major Supreme Court rulings on Friday. One relates to discovery rights that we the people have of Doge. Another relates to Social Security data being sent over to Doge. We'll tell you about what the Supreme Court ruled. And if we've got a little time for it, we can do a little bonus topic while we're talking about Elon Musk continuing to mention that Donald Trump has all these connections to Epstein and that's why they the DOJ is not releasing the Epstein file, although earlier Elon Musk deleted the posts. And also the Proud Boys, the insurrectionist group that Donald Trump pardoned. And Trump said they're political prisoners. Guess what they just did. They filed a $100 million lawsuit against the United States, quoting Donald Trump and all of the Republicans saying, look, they say we're political prisoners and we should never have been arrested. So if the president says it, isn't that just automatic liability? Give us $100 million. That's our money, the taxpayer money that may be going to the Proud Boys. And Donald Trump's already given our taxpayer money to other insurrectionists. Michael Popak, let's bring in. How are you doing on the Saturday?
- [04:48]
Michael Popak
I'm physically exhausted by this week with the Trump administration. I knew I would be. I steeled myself after the election. I said, this is going to be lurching from one abuse of power scandal to the next. And I didn't know how right I was and how right you and I were just this week just to put the law and politics intersection on the, on the map with the human dimension behind it. We not last week we talked about the falling out and Donald Trump amputating the hand that feeds him with the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo and we were like, what's that all about? And that's not great because federal judges will be picked from a new bucket by somebody like Stephen Miller. That'll be worse than what we had before. We thought that was the scandal du jour or that was the breakup du jour. And then within 72 hours, we have Trump firing Musk. Musk firing Trump. The world's richest man versus the world's most powerful man, as James Carvel so eloquently put it, in a steel cage match. And who's the loser? MAGA and Congress. We got Congress that's afraid of Musk and his money and his longevity cuz he's younger than Donald Trump and he's not going anywhere in three and a half years. And people scared of Donald Trump in real time because of his vindictiveness and his abuse of power. And so everybody, as one of the Congress people just said, Ben, I think you caught it and maybe even did a hot take on it. He said, it's like Mommy and daddy fighting and we just want it to stop, but that's not going to stop. And it has impact on Donald Trump's legacy, on the lawsuits that involve Doge that you and I are gonna talk about. I mean, I did a hot take, so did you. I did it on legal AF about this. And we predicted it. We heard rumblings that Elon Musk had physical fisticuffs like fights with Boris Epstein, a leading consulari for Donald Trump before the administration was even formed. Marco Rubio almost came to blows with him over the dismantling of US Aid. He shows up to his farewell address in the Oval Office with a black eye. Then we've got Sarah Scott Bessette of all people got shoved and shoved back as the Treasury Secretary. I mean, a. This is the leakiest administration I've ever seen in my lifetime. It's great for us. I might as touch an illegal af. We learn more about the inner workings of this administration. But now, people, we're in the taking my toys and going home phase and in the side taking phase of this public spat. The side taking phase is going to be very interesting for Stephen Miller because his wife works for Elon Musk and she went out the door with Musk when they left. We'll see how long that relationship between the wife and Musk last. But it impacts the lawsuits and it impacts the ability of this administration to get things done. There's a reason why he makes announcements like as cover, oh, we indicted Abrego Garcia in May, so we're bringing him back finally to stand trial. Not because the judge told us to. Or let's put everybody that I that supported me last term, let's put them all on a no fly list or a ban and hope nobody notices it. And it distracts from other things going on with my big beautiful budget. There's just so much going on at the intersection of law and politics. Sometimes it's heavy politics, sometimes it's heavy law. But we're here for it. And we'll break it all down and connect the dots today.
- [08:08]
Ben Miceli
Let's get right into the Judge Boasberg ruling, where he certifies this class of migrants who were sent to sicat in El Salvador. You know, he spends the first page and a half comparing the United States of America to a Franz Kafka book. And he says it's very Kafkaesque. And he goes into, you know, in kind of real significant imagery, talking about people disappearing in Kafka's books. JOSEPH K. And then how that's basically America, you know, And I'm not really sure if it's an apt analogy because I think what we have in the United States of America is worse. You know, I've heard people try to compare what's happening in the United States to, you know, it's Orwellian, it's like 1984 or it's like Kafka or whatever. It's worse. It's, it's really worse because it combines the authoritarianism with this dangerous idiocracy. And the only thing I'll disagree with you on, Pop, that you said at the outset is, you know, Donald Trump is not the most powerful person in the world anymore. The United States is not the most powerful nation in the world. The Trump regime came in and said, the United States is a power, not, not, not, not a leading power. They said that they're like in a multipolar world, in the way they saw the world. And go back, watch Rubio speeches, United States, Russia and China as being the three major powers. And then everybody else is all, you know, kind of picking sides and there's other alliances within that multipolar system. I guess he left out the European Union there because they're the ones who are actually now looking like the leaders of the free world. And you have China asserting itself in another way. And frankly, the presidency looks small. It all looks very small and weak and pathetic. And it's very dangerous, what we're seeing here. But it looks very small and weak. So, Popak, walk us through Judge Boasberg's ruling. What's the import of him certifying the class. And then we'll talk a little bit about this bond requirement because of the MAGA Republicans wanting to sneak into the budget bill section 70302, which would divest federal courts of contempt power if a party doesn't post a security. So now federal judges are just saying, okay, post a $1 security bond, which.
- [10:30]
Michael Popak
Was invited by Maga congresspeople who said like Jim Jordan was like, well, just we're not setting how much of a bond to set. Okay, we'll take you up on that. Well, I'll be able with you to tie together a number of stories before the break and then we'll talk about some other things, including the Supreme Court after the break. A couple of days ago, I thought you and I were going to be talking about the one, two punch of Judge Zinnis and Judge Boasberg back to back, taking the wind out of the sails and hitting the solar plexus of the Trump administration about things like Abrego Garcia, this is before his return, and about certifying the class. But of course, not only has that changed, but actually they speak. Those two cases speak to each other more harmoniously and can be synthesized even better since the return of Abrego Garcia. But let me start with Boasberg. He didn't actually say Kafkaesque. He just quoted Kafka and the trial and Joseph K. Which was just a remarkable moment when a federal judge decides he's going to spill ink in the first two pages of his order telling a story about, about the trial, which is one of my favorite books. Anybody that's a lawyer probably resonated with them early on when they read that book in high school or early in college. And just showing how a out of control nation state which doesn't respect the rule of law can then use its goons to enforce it and have somebody stand trial and without real due process or notice. And then he goes on to describe the rest the case that's in front of him. We remind people or tell them for the first time, they're just joining us how we got here with Boseberg. Boasberg had the original case several months ago in which after hearing from the ACLU about the 250 or more people, human beings undocumented, yes, but you are being deported under the Alien Enemies act, more to the point, were loaded onto planes in the middle of the night to be checked in to an El Salvador in gulag. Not because that's the check in time, but obviously, as noted by this judge and other judges to take them away from federal jurisdiction of a judge's oversight. That's the ruse. That's what happened. And when the judge got wind of it with a fast filing by the American Civil Liberties Union, and he grounded those planes so he thought, with two orders, except they weren't grounded and the planes kept going. This entire case that we're talking about in this segment is about the 250 people plus not named Abrego Garcia, who are in El Salvador and what the rulings are about them and what this judge is doing about it now. At first, after he made his rulings and then ultimately found the Trump administration in contempt or probable cause for criminal contempt, an appeal happened about it. It went to the United States Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ultimately ruled on, as Boasberg put in his own order, on a technical narrow ground, that while he, they agreed with Boseberg that due process and notice needed to be given to these people through a habeas corpus petition process, that that should be done more likely where the people were located prior to be loaded into the planes, they didn't talk about the orders being violated and whether that was contempt or not, although another appellate court stepped in and said, well, let's get to the bottom of that before you start finding this administration improbable cause, contempt, criminal contempt. So that happened. So what? So what did ACLU do? They then filed on behalf of these people in the various jurisdictions like the Northern District of Texas and different places in Texas, Oklahoma, New York. So it's spread out to all these lawsuits and they started getting winning cases, except they got a ruling from the 5th Circuit they didn't like. They got a slow foot drag from a judge in Texas they didn't like and the planes were fueling and all of that. So they ran, ran, ran, and finally convinced Boasberg that he should certify a class. Ultimately, after another Supreme Court ruling that he should certify a class and let the habeas petition, habeas corpus petition rights of those class members, the people that are in ccot, the Max Supramax prison in El Salvador, who were not given due process rights, were not given notice and are still there that they needed to be certified in one class. He did that. He certified that class after finding Ben that, and this has now been proven by the actions yesterday of the Trump administration, that the Trump administration had constructive or other control over the El Salvador in prison all along. Once he found that he was able to certify the class and has given them, the Trump administration, until next Thursday, this coming Thursday to file a notice with him as to what they are doing. And here's the watchword of the, of the podcast today, what they're doing to facilitate the return of those 250 people to get them back to be compliant with Supreme Court precedent now established under this Trump administration that they must be given a notice and proper habeas corpus due process rights in the United States. So that happened. Yeah. And then, and then when we, after we talk about Zinnis, we can talk about what the return of Abrego Garcia means for those two cases.
- [15:52]
Ben Miceli
So let's talk about the bond requirement, though. So in that class action order, Boasberg had the opportunity to and we've lots of federal judges would waive the bond requirement and say you don't need to post a bond requirement because it's against the governmental entity or you're indigent or whatever. But he's, he analyzed the factors and he said, I want to do a 1,000 doll. I mean, a $1 bond. In another case, Judge Ramos, another federal judge in a case involving the Department of Education, where the Department of Education was found to be unlawfully impounding its funds and not giving the funds to the schools it was supposed to give. And Judge Ramos ordered, you know, ordered that they give the funds where the funds are supposed to go. That was a case brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, along with 15 other states. And New York paid a $1,000 bond. And it was just an interesting thing because at the hearing, the New York attorney general really flagged that issue for Judge Ramos and said, look, I just want to remind you that the Republicans are trying to divest this court of contempt power. And then the judge is like, are you talking about the big beautiful bill they're calling it? And then the lawyer for the AG's office, who is the same lawyer who prosecuted Donald Trump in the civil fraud case, said, yeah, that's what they're calling it. But we think we should post a bond because that obviates any concern that we have that you'll be divested of contempt powers, even if ultimately that does or doesn't make its way into the final budget bill or regardless of whether I think it's an unconstitutional provision, even if they put that into the budget bill. But, but Popak, talk about Judge Zinnis for a second because that leads us into the Abrego Garcia conversation and we don't necessarily have to get to yet on this portion of the show Abrego being returned, although we'll get there. But there was a lot of pressure being applied on the Trump regime in all of these cases we had. They all were being teed up for sanctions and then really kind of heading towards criminal contempt. And what I think was happening here was that the DOJ lawyers who are on the front lines, they're worried that they're going to lose their bar license and they're worried that they're going to be held in criminal contempt because they keep being told different things, false things by the Trump regime. And they have an obligation as the lawyers to find out if it's true before going to the judge and saying and making false representations. So I think that what's really been going on behind the scenes is the DOJ basically saying, look, we're going to lose all of our lawyers because no one's going to work for us if one of our lawyers starts to be held in criminal contempt because they keep peddling these ridiculous lies. So just, just bring the guy back, indict him. But these things are all teed up for sanctions against our lawyers, and our lawyers are going to get in trouble. I think that's what was happening.
- [18:56]
Michael Popak
I would have agreed with you, but people like when sometimes you and I respectfully disagree. I haven't. I may have agreed with you before I read Drew Ensign's filing right after the return of Abrego Garcia. And not to, and not to tease out the, you know, the cliffhanger, Abrego Garcia got brought back yesterday. And it has a domino, cascading impact on both the cases that we're now talking about. But the pressure to bear came from Judge Zinnis, who has remarkably kept her foot on the gas and her foot on the neck of the Trump administration empowered by a 90 ruling by the United States Supreme Court. Not just 90 ruling. There's also been a 7 to 2 and a 6 to 3 all around the same thing. And when you synthesize the United States Supreme Court's ruling, even though we're going to talk about them siding with Trump about Doge later, when it comes to due process, habeas corpus notice and Fifth Amendment rights, they seem to be relatively unified that Donald Trump has to. He can try the Alien Enemies act, he can try these deportations, but they are entitled to habeas corpus, due process rights in the United States before a federal judge in our adversarial process. And that's just the way it is. So not, not to keep people on the edge of Their seat. Well, I'll read from the Drew Ensign filing. One of the guys you're talking about who may or may not be worried about his law license, although there was just a filing with the Florida Bar against Pam Bondi and they rejected the grievance complaint against her and her bar license for all the crazy things that she's doing and to violate the Department of Justice, Manuel. So I'm not so sure. The remaining group that's left here, they are the Kool Aid drinkers. They are the true believers. And I think Drew Ensen, who fired the guy who was a friend of his, who, who, who made the, the mortal error of telling the truth to Judge Zenis originally when he said, yeah, Judge Brago Garcia had an order of, of non removal to El Salvador, ICE knew about it and put him on the plane. Anyway, once he admitted that that guy's no longer with us, I mean, he's maybe, I think he's with us, but he's no longer with the Department of Justice and Drew Ensign fired him. Wait till we get to that. But how do we get to the pressure campaign since April 10, at least, when the Supreme Court ruled for Abrego Garcia and. And supported Judge Zinnis in Maryland, in which they said, you, I'm paraphrasing you. Do you. You made the right decision. You're administrating justice properly. In this case. Due process is important. You need to protect it. Notice is important. You need to protect it. And we're okay with you demanding back to our watchword that the Trump administration facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia from the jails of El Salvador. You said something about effectuate that we didn't like. We don't know what effectuate means, but facilitate, we're fine with. And make sure you stay on top of the Trump administration and get reports about what they're doing to comply with our now affirmed order. That's where we start. On the 10th of April. We are now almost the 10th of June. It is two months of cat and mouse, or as I like to say, a pissed off cat in the form of Judge Zinnis and a mouse in the form of the Trump administration. She at one time used that analogy. She said, I feel like I'm a cat in this hearing and you're just, you're just yanking the ball of yarn away from me every time I ask a question. So we knew she was on the precipice of finding them in contempt. She's letting the Abrego Garcia side, represented by the ACLU and by Quinn Emanuel law firm. Bring the motion. Although she has inherent authority I've talked about this in hot takes. Judges have inherent authority to find contempt when orders have been violated. They don't need somebody to the file a motion. But she wants to make a record. So she's letting the motion be filed. She just I thought the story coming on the Saturday today was going to be that she just got totally fed up with the Trump administration and said file your motion for contempt. In other words, inviting a motion she's surely to sign. That happens on Thursday. She also strips away some protection about some sealed public filings because the Trump administration in the continue with our vocabulary today in an Orwellian moment, every time they say we're transparent, you know, they're opaque, they don't let you know anything. So they've been filing all these things on the docket. 14 media organizations brought intervene in the case and said we can't do reporting if you keep letting sealed things end up on the docket. And she also stripped that in a number of documents away. So that was the one, two punch. Then Boasberg certifying the class on the other people, the other Abrego Garcias. And as we lead into into Friday. So that's the I do agree with you that there was tremendous pressure that they had gone as far as they felt they could go in disobeying ultimately the United States Supreme Court, that this was a losing hand, but they were only going to do it under the ruse of having filed in May. A you and I caught it, but it was so ridiculous that we didn't really spend much time with it. But now we know that what the gambit was file an indictment in the middle district of Tennessee in Nashville against Abrego Garcia, claiming that he's a human smuggler of undocumented people for like since Trump's first administration. According to the indictment, of course, nowhere mentioning that he's a murderer or a gang banger, whatever that is, or anything else, just that he had eight guys in a car, got picked up at a traffic stop, you know, between a Home Depot and a construction site. Okay. He was again, never gave it a ticket, never, never indicted for anything prior to this one in May. And now you've got the return. So I'll turn it over to you now.
- [24:47]
Ben Miceli
Well, that's going to be an interesting case when because Abrego Garcia is going to have the best lawyers and you're going to bring up that police officer who pulled over Abrego Garcia, back in 2022 when he had eight other guys in the car. And I could just imagine that cross examination, you've studied all the signs of trafficking and you've done all of this and you let him go with the warning. You let him go with the warning. You, you would have, obviously, if you thought there was something serious going on, you would not have let him. Right. I mean, I could just imagine how the Trump regime is about to put even the local Tennessee Highway Patrol and everybody in a really difficult situation.
- [25:22]
Michael Popak
So before you, before you go on, we always like to put ourselves into, into a courtroom. Think about the cross examination of the, of the chief of the criminal division who quit over the indictment. We'll talk about that and think, and they got up, they pulled a really great judge, which I'm sure is driving Trump back to apoplexy.
- [25:41]
Ben Miceli
I want to remind everybody about the Legal AF YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe. It's on its way to 1 million subscribers. Legal AF on YouTube. I also want to remind everybody about Legal AF on Substack. Check out Legal AF on Substack. Both are rocket ships. And Michael Popak has started a new law firm a few months back. It's called the Popoc Firm. They handle catastrophic injury cases. The consultation with Michael Popak is free. So if you have a catastrophic injury case, a trucking accident case, a car accident case, a case involving sexual assault, malpractice, you name it, or wrongful death, if you know someone who was killed in an accident, if you or somebody you know has a case, Michael, where can they reach out to. To you?
- [26:26]
Michael Popak
Yeah. Thanks, Ben. I'm working with, with our team of nationally recognized trial lawyers around the country, dozens and dozens of Legal AF audience members on their matters that fall into the categories that you talked about, the things that really turned your life or those in, in your, in your, in your, your loved one's life, topsy, turvy, upside down, those, those types of auto accident and impersonal injury type cases, medical malpractice and the like. And they can reach my team at www.the popoc firm p o p o k firm.com go right to a free case evaluation form and somebody will get right back with you again. We don't take a fee unless we recover. That's another thing I want people to know. And then we made it Easy on the 1-800number. If you want to talk to somebody instead. 1-877-popak-AF.
- [27:20]
Ben Miceli
We'll be right back after our first quick break of the show.
- [27:23]
Michael Popak
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- [30:34]
Ben Miceli
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to our pro democracy sponsors. The discount codes for those sponsors are in the description below. Shout out to my younger brother Jordyn for negotiating great discount codes for all the legal A effers and all the Midas mighty out there. All right, Popak, what I wanted to share with you and the legal A effers was that disastrous press conference, and I want to hear your reaction to it that Pam Bondi held. After Abrego Garcia returned to the United States, the corrupt gestapo Department of Justice under the Trump regime was waiting with a trafficking indictment for him. And Pam Bondi was ready to hold this press conference, and she starts talking about things that aren't in the indictment. The indictment alleges trafficking and conspiracy to commit trafficking. And to be clear what the trafficking allegation is, the only specific allegation was that sometime in 2022, Abrego Garcia was in a vehicle with eight other Hispanic males who were going somewhere, and they were pulled over. And Abrego Garcia was driving the Suburban. And the Suburban looked like it was slightly modified to remove any space for the trunk so it could hold more individuals. A trooper pulled them over and said, what are you doing? And they said, we're going to work. And the trooper said, all right, I'm going to leave you with a warning. You can go on your way. So that's the only, like, specific allegation that's there. I think the Department of Justice claims they have some informant who used Abrego as a mule, as. As a driver. Not for drugs or anything. I mean, literally just to. To help. To help. To be the Uber for migrants to go from a location to location. That's what they mean. That's the only allegation there. There's nothing about drugs smuggling. There's nothing about child sex trafficking or sex trafficking. There's nothing about murdering or being a gang banger. None of that is in there. But Pam Bondi, the attorney general, mentioned all of those things in her press conference and accused Abrego of that. And it's not in the indictment. Here's what she said during the press conference. Let's play it.
- [32:48]
Michael Popak
Too. One's on topic, one's off topic. Maybe I misunderstood you, but you were mentioning, you know, that he had some involvement in these, in a murder, you know, or was connected to groups that had, you know, involved with this other smuggling ring. But to be clear, the only charges he's facing right now are the like, you know, human smuggling charges. Just this, that's the one offense. But the other things that you have talked about are not actually in the indictment. No co conspirators alleged that and we were clear to say that he is charged with it's not only very serious charges of alien smuggling.
- [33:27]
Ben Miceli
And then she goes on in the press conference to talk about MS.13 gang member that is unrelated to Abrego. And then she's like, then there's this MS.13 gang member in Virginia who's the leader, who. And they're not related, but they're Ms. So they must be involved. Popak, as soon as she did that press conference, you had that guy, I think it's Ben Schrader on LinkedIn. He did a LinkedIn resignation ahead of the criminal division for the Tennessee district for the Department of Justice. You know, because he said I'm just my time. It's not why I joined the Department of Justice. I worked for Trump's first administration, Obama, I worked for Biden and he was still working for Trump. And he's just like, you're not going to force me to do stupid cases like this that aren't real cases so that you could go around and disgrace our justice system. So I give Ben Schrader a lot of credit for doing that very public resignation. Popak, talk to us about Abrego coming in. What's the fall? How does that relate to the case that's going on before Judge Zinnis? What do you make of all?
- [34:35]
Michael Popak
Well, first of all, her press conference, let's just I said on a hot take I did recently, I haven't seen a human being blink that much outside of a hostage video. You know, when, when she's uncomfortable and she's not telling the truth, her tell is she just has this weird affect where she blinks incessantly for questions that she knew had to be coming. I mean you would have thought that she didn't, that she caught this, this, that question caught her flat footed about where is it in your indictment now to be, to be not fair, to be complete. I have the indictment. There is mention of narcotics in the indictment and it is referenced and reincorporated when they get to drug to human smuggling. But that's just the way, like in paragraph 16. Oh, sorry, paragraph 20. In paragraph 20 something or other, I'll find it while we're still doing this together. They talk about firearms being distributed and drugs and narcotics being distributed by Armando Garcia. But then when it gets to the counts, even though they reincorporate those provisions, it is for unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens. It has the one paragraph of the only thing that we know for reporting is that when he got picked up three years ago in Tennessee carrying eight other men without luggage, the state trooper looked into it, talked to the FBI and they let him go because they said, yeah, he's going to a construction site with these guys. And the fact that they've now alleged through this confidential informant this elaborate scheme since 2016 in Trump's first administration. Because wasn't he president then? Yes, he was of MS.13, which also, by the way, undermines the whole argument of the use of the Alien Enemies act. Because in order to use the Alien Enemies act to have sent him away in the first place, you have to show that it's like an imminent incursion akin to war footing. Well, how is something going on in 2016, an imminent incursion that allows a president in 2025 to issue his proclamation. That's one inconsistency that will help trip up the Trump administration. So you have the press conference and she mentions Virginia, which is where she, within four days of that press conference, she dismissed the charges against that particular guy and that indictment, I don't know why she's continuing to use that as a justification, but again, they want to. It's a shell game. They don't have enough evidence against Abrego Garcia. They violate their Department of Justice manual and their prosecutorial ethics, which is why this guy, the head of the criminal division, resigns upon the indictment. Because he also knew, it's obvious he also knew what the, what the two step trick was going to be. Right. And that the trick was going to be not just to indict. I'm sure he was in on conversations about what they were going to do next. Well, well, he's in El Salvador. Well, no, we're going to use this indictment to bring him back eventually. I mean, that was obviously discussed and left him disgusted. So now you've got Abrego Garcia back. So what happens next? Well, you've got, I said on a hot take that something is going to happen immediately in Judge Zinnis courtroom, who presides over all things of Prego Garcia. And right on cue, they filed late last night, signed by Drew Ensign, the pinata of the week for the Trump administration. They filed two things. A letter, and they filed a notice informing the judge that they, hey, we've complied with your preliminary injunction. It's all better now, right, Judge? No more contempt. We brought him back. Here's what they say, and then I'll tell them why this doesn't solve the contempt problem. This proves the contempt, they say. On April 4, 2025, this court, Judge Zinnis's court, ordered defendants to facilitate the return of plaintiff Armando Brago Garcia to the United States. Side note, they then went off to two levels of court. Lost at the 4th Circuit, twice lost at the United States supreme court, all within six or seven days to got a 90 decision against them that they were wrong and Zenis was right. So that's what happened there. Defendants hereby provide notice that they've complied with the court's order and indeed have successfully facilitated Abrego Garcia's return. As the Attorney General recently announced, as we just showed the press conference, the return to the United States today to stand trial on criminal charges in the middle district of Tennessee. Considering this development, the court's preliminary injunction should be dissolved and the underlying case is moot, and we should have a stay of all deadlines. Love and kisses, Drew Ensign. All right, there's a problem with that. And then he writes a letter to the judge about, we're never going to tell you what we did. We're never going to tell you why we did it. We're never going to tell you why we waited two months or any of it. Because we're going to claim state secret privilege, attorney client privilege, and executive privilege. And here's our letter brief that says exactly that. Yeah, Nya, we brought him back. That doesn't work. For the same reason that Judge Boasberg continued to find the Trump administration in a probable cause for criminal contempt even after his underlying order was modified by the Supreme Court. The judge reminded them at the time, so they know in real time that this doesn't work. What they're trying to do, he said to them in the Boasberg case. No, the case law says you are not allowed to operate with impunity as if, you know, I'm going to be reversed one day. And that gives you the right not to follow my orders. We have a word for that. It's called contempt of court. You're in contempt of court. And the fact that you later got a change in some of my analysis, that does not help you and get you out from under contempt. Same thing here. They have been in contempt of court as far as I'm concerned. And anybody's fair minded since April 10th when the Supreme Court ruled 90 to facilitate and to provide Judge Zinnis with all the information she needed to administer that case. And they told her to go pound sand. They told her to go F herself. You know what I mean? They told her, they taunted her. And the Supreme Court, you're never Pam Bondi actually had a press conference where she said, he's never coming back, full stop. That was a month ago. You know, they took the New York Times headline, posted it, I'm sure it's a Stephen Miller special, posted it on the White House social media page, you know, editing with a red pen the New York Times headline, we're never going to bring him back. Then they brought, purposely brought Bukele from El Salvador in this taunting kabuki theater pitch and catch thing in the White House where Bukele says, I'll never bring him back. I would never smuggle in a killer or whatever he said he was. Trump never would ask you to do that. Just taunting, taunting, taunting. In the meantime, telling the judge, Marco Rubio, I'll never tell the judge what I know. All right, well, now, this does not help them. This shows for me, Ben, and I'm sure you too, that they've had the ability, as Judge Boasberg pointed out in his case, to control what happens in El Salvador since the very beginning. And the fact that they did it on their own timetable, waiting for all the ducks to get in a row in Tennessee before they brought him back does not stop them from being found in contempt of court. We are going to have either through her inherent authority. If I were her, I'd be like, screw the motion. I got enough now on my, if I were the judge, I would already like Monday, after a hearing, find them in contempt of court and get the process started up to the appellate court into the Supreme Court. I know she's very judicious. She'll probably continue with the motion practice, which will play out over the month of June and then it'll end up in D.C. and back at the Supreme Court. But this did not help them solve the problem of getting out from under the contempt of Judge Zinnis.
- [42:25]
Ben Miceli
And it didn't solve the problem, although the Trump regime probably thinks it does, of what's happening in Judge Boasberg's. Court facilitate the due process rights of everybody in seekot that you sent there unlawfully at this point. Now, what the Trump regime is trying to do here is they're saying, well, the only reason we've been able to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia is because of this indictment and under our extradition powers that once he was indicted, we then formally petitioned under international extradition law to be able to get Abrego Garcia back. And that's why we can only give Abrego back. But what the Trump regime is going to say, so for all of the other people who are there, we can't facilitate it because we don't have any indictments of them, which backfires in their face. And this is why they don't think two steps ahead, because then they're basically admitting that everybody else who's in seekot is innocent and hasn't committed any crimes at all. And thus there's nothing to even charge them with in the United States. You know, the thing is, whether it's been El Chapo drug lords, some of the most violent international criminals, America never wanted those individuals to go to other courts. If America could extradite and try and charge these people in the United States, we have super max prisons here in the United States that are far more secure than other prisons throughout the world. And so we would want the worst of the worst prosecuted in the US we would have no fear that out in the past, ever Democrat or Republican administration, that our administrations, that the justice would be dispensed in a way that would not lead to the right outcome, such that we need to send people to concentration camps in foreign countries, whether it's El Salvador or Libya or all of these places. And then justice would be dispensed. So the interesting thing is now that we see Abrego being returned, I think it's a stronger argument in Bozberg's case for everybody to be returned as well. And clearly it could be facilitated. Clearly Bukele can do it. I wonder what the Supreme Court's going to do. In our next segment, Popak, I want to chat about the Supreme Court's two decisions because really, except what I would what I call kind of the outer perimeter of authoritarianism, the, you know, which is like just the most outright overt authoritarian acts. That's to me, where the Supreme Court has drawn a line where they say they're going to push back on Trump, where Trump sends somebody to a concentration camp in a foreign country and they'll say, you know, you got to facilitate their return. You know, things like that is where Trump will lose in front of the Supreme Court. But to me, the kind of balance that this far right wing Supreme Court is how they're approaching it, everything that's not in that final outside perimeter that they're going to give Trump the win on, I mean, the liberal justices are always going to, you know, dissent to it. But I think those other areas you're going to see the Supreme Court hand Donald Trump wins, you know, and that, and they'll do it through the shadow docket by granting basically stays pauses of the district court's order, which essentially allows Donald Trump to do what he's going to do anyway. And the Supreme Court right wing justices justify it. Just we just made a procedural ruling. That's all we did. We just state it so that we can then see what happens when the case, you know, in a year and a half, two years works its way back up. Maybe we'll grant certiorari or something like, you know, but maybe we won't, but let's see where it goes. But the issue when they do that as we see as well, well, now you've just handed over our Social Security information over to Doge and to people who shouldn't have the information. Now you've just allowed for people who should be leading agencies to be fired during the pendency of litigation. Now you've, you know, now you've allowed Donald Trump to remove the temporary protected status of half a million Cubans and Venezuelans. So he's going to deport them and they're never going to get back. So they're, so the case is going to be moot by the time it goes back to the Supreme Court. So that's kind of how they're justifying it. If it's the most egregious authoritarian move, they're going to say, we're going to say no, Donald. Everything else I think they're going to be okay with with a 6 to 3 ruling with the liberal justices in the descent. But I want to hear what you have to say. PoPo a reminder, subscribe to Michael Popak's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel. It's on its way to 1 million subscribers. I really would love to see that channel at 1 million subscribers this summer. I was going to say exactly by the end of this summer. Subscribe to the Legal AF substack where Michael Popak posts a lot of the legal updates there. And also the Popoc firm, if you or someone you know has A catastrophic injury case, wrongful death case, a bad car accident, a dog bite case, negligence cases, sexual assault or harassment cases. Reach out to the Popak firm. It's a free consultation with Michael Popak's team. Where can they reach you? Popak?
- [47:55]
Michael Popak
Yeah, I'm not sure about the dog bite case, but the rest of the catastrophic things are definitely a part of our bailiwick. We got a great team of trial lawyers. Two ways to reach us. I made it really easy. The website www.thepopocfirm.com takes you right to a free consultation form. And everything's free, including our, you know, no fee unless we obtain a victory for you and obtain a result for you that's favorable. And then the 1-800-number-1877 popak af p o p o k a f pop.
- [48:29]
Ben Miceli
I bet you the lawyers on your team would take a dog bite case. It's strict liability. When I was, when I was, when I was handling, when I was litigating cases and defending cases, I had dog bite cases that resolve for millions of dollars because they would. You have dog bite cases where caused severe injuries and you didn't in California. In many states, you don't have to actually prove the, the negligence. The owner is automatically responsible for the dog bite.
- [48:57]
Michael Popak
I'm on for dog bite cases now.
- [48:59]
Ben Miceli
Okay. I convinced Popak to take dog bite cases. We'll see if that. All right. Anyway, we'll be right back. We'll be right back after our last.
- [49:05]
Michael Popak
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- [51:51]
Ben Miceli
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to all of our pro democracy sponsors. We are grateful for them. The discount codes are in the description below. Supreme Court cases is, you know the Supreme Court does these things where they'll make some terrible rulings and then they'll dump in unanimous rulings the same week. Like they'll they'll dump like a few 9 to 0 rulings and be like see, we all get along. This is pretty normal. And then they'll make like a ruling. This week everybody's Social Security information goes to Elon Musk immediately. You know Doge gets everybody's Social Security data forthwith. That was one of their rulings. And then the other ruling they made was severely limiting the public's right to get discovery from Doge. And when you read the Supreme Court's ruling, first off they like con, you know, they convert a emergency stay request into a petition for certioraries and for those what it means. Like they treat it as though this is one of those Cases that have taken seven years to get to the Supreme Court going through all of the like, we'll just take, we'll convert, okay. Like a scientist, we're going to convert this emergency request to simply pause discovery into Doge as if this case had been taking place for many, many years into a writ of certiorari. And we're going to find in favor of Donald Trump on a six to three basis. And they didn't say you can't get any discovery of Doge. But when you read the ruling, I don't know what's left of the, of the ability to get, you know, they said you must, you must definitely think through the strong interests of the executive branch to assert executive privilege. The way I read it, you really can't get any discovery of Doge, even though they try to pretend like there's some carve out for things. So Popak. Yeah, those were the two rulings. Number one, your Social Security data. Yes, it goes to Doge. Number two, you don't get discovery really into Doge or it's very limited. So you don't even know what Doge is or what they're doing with your data. Those the 1, 2. But then they said, all right, we'll give you three 9 to 0 rulings. You still like us, huh? Yeah, that's, that's what they did.
- [54:08]
Michael Popak
Yeah. And, and I, and, and the two decisions on Doge are inconsistent with each other because if DOGE is a legitimate agency that is allowed to look at your and my most private and confidential personal, medical and financial data, then why aren't they an agency for the purposes of Freedom of Information act, public records request? I don't know how you can sort of do both of those things at the same time. And one comment. He is in our ecosystem. I do like him, but I don't like the shorthand I saw in Josh Gerstein that we put up there. Three libs dissent. First of all, I wouldn't consider the three members that dissented to be liberal in that traditional sense. I like calling them moderate or the democratically appointed wing of the Supreme Court. But I don't want to use the shorthand of our adversary, the libs, you know, the lib tards and all that. It just. Okay, so Katanji, Brown Jackson is doing a great job at calling out the failings of this United States Supreme Court, six to three majority. And to put it in context, the Supreme Court has complete control over the timing of all of its process and procedure when it allows cases to go forward, the timing of them, the order of them, oral argument, when opinions are going to drop as they're finishing up through the end of June this term. Now, mixed in with the decisions we've been waiting for since some, some on emergency petition and some on full briefing. Got a mixed bag here. We're still waiting on decisions that have to do really with the Biden administration and issues that were raised then interspersed with these 16, 18, 20 emergency applications that have been filed. And the emergency applications are being exploited, let's call it out, by the Trump administration since day one is their strategy, I'm sure, led by John Sauer, the number four in the Department of Justice, Stephen Miller and the rest, to try to, through velocity and ferocity, to stampede the Supreme Court into making ideological decisions without an appropriate record, without oral argument, without deliberation, and the deliberative process that they're used to. You and I, when we went to law school, God, I can't even remember a case that was in one of our textbooks that came up through the shadow docket. I didn't even really know what the shadow docket was in that way from law school training. Okay, Every case in our book, or you're younger than me, your iPad was a case that was properly proper record. Below three briefs, oral argument, maybe supplemental briefing, deliberation, exchange of opinions internally with, you know, with law clerks over late night pizza and drafts and vote changing. And then, boom, we got a decision that's gone. Trump administration figured if we, if we make, as it was called out by Ketanji Brown Jackson, if we call everything an emergency. And the emergency for her is, I don't understand the emergency. You just don't want to be what every other litigant needs to be, which is to go through the proper process. What's the emergency? Like you not being able to get your hands on all of our Social Security information. What's the emergency? Why can't you go through a normal process and get a ruling six months from now that then gets adjudicated? If you're delayed a year in trying to reform Social Security, what's the loss really to, you know, to the American people? So that, that's her calling out. So the reason I mentioned that they're in charge of everything and the exploitation that's going on is that they've come to a head now with all these summer rulings. So John Roberts obviously gave out the order three days ago to drop in sequence all the 9, 0 Kumbaya moments. And, and I'm, I'M sorry. I'm very callous about all of this. And I found it to be slightly insulting that the three decisions that came out. Nine zero were written by Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor, and Kagan. One each. Reverse discrimination. A white person who is straight can sue now for discrimination if their boss is LGBTQ and they have an allegation of discrimination against them. And that was written by Ketanji Brown Jackson for a nine zero court like, okay, Catholic Charities. If your state gives a tax exemption or an unemployment exemption for a. A religious organization, they can't pick and choose which religious organizations they're going to give it to by claiming, well, the Catholics don't. Don't proselytize. They don't try to convert people. They just evangelize. So that's not the type of religion that we're giving exemptions to. No. All right, so that gets written by Sotomayor, a famous Catholic. And the last one is. The last one was written by Kagan. Has to. I forget what the last one's about. I'll come up with it before we're done. So we got those three nine zeros, right? Then Doge drops. Boom, boom, one after another, both on emergency applications. And the six to three split happens on both of them. Katanji Brown Jackson could have just dusted off what she wrote a week ago because she wrote the exact same thing. The two rulings, as you said, Ben, one in Social Security Administration against or with AFSCME being sued by the. The largest federal workers labor union. A labor union in the country. That one has to do with DOGE being granted access to all of your. My most personal financial information, medical information and the like that's buried inside of the Social Security Administration. All the people that have looked at it have said, why can't you get stuff that's anonymous? Why do you have to know Michael Popo's personal file in order to root out whatever you're rooting out? And this is all under the Treasury Department, but it implicates the Privacy act of 1974, which keeps this information out of the hands of people who, unless they have a real need to know, and they're inside the government. So Jackson put it. She had a great metaphor for this, she said, in attacking the emergency application process. She said, in essence, the urgency is on page two of her dissent. The urgency underlying the government stay application is the mere fact that it cannot be bothered to wait for the litigation process to play out before proceeding as it wishes. And then she takes on the court, she said that the Once again, this court, meaning the six in the majority, Roberts and Amy Cody and Amy Cody Barrett included, dons its emergency responder gear like firefighters, rushes to the scene and uses its equitable power to block the, to block the lower court's decision to fan the flames rather than extinguish them. The fireman who, who starts the fire instead of puts them out is what she says. And then she goes through the entire case and she says, I just don't understand why with a 9 to 6 decision by the en banc panel of the lower court and with this lack of urgency and any irreparable harm, why we are granting a stay and I therefore dissent. And she then gives her fear on the bottom of towards the end of her decision, she says the court opts instead to relieve the government of the standard obligations, jettisoning careful judicial decision making and creating grave privacy risks for millions of Americans, in the process throwing away well established laws that are on the book. She's basically bemoaning what trial judges are thinking, which is what are we supposed to do? We're issuing the rulings and every time we issue a ruling just because it's an emergency application, the Supreme Court is tearing it down. Two weeks ago I said to our audience that it was about Trump was running about 50, 50 at the Supreme Court even though he was losing 90% plus at the lower court level. Now he's winning three quarters with these new decisions, three quarters of the decisions that are being brought to the Supreme Court only emboldening Donald Trump to continue with his strategy. It is, it is reinforcing his emergency application strategy and the inconsistency. I'll leave it on this, Ben. Between trying to reconcile these back to back decisions on Doge, the one that says, well, we don't really like the way the trial court analyzed whether Doge is an agency or quasi agency for purposes of public records requests. So we're going to send it back to you, but with such tight instructions about the unitary model of the presidency and deference being of course, we got to, we have to give more deference to the Trump administration on this. So go look at it. I'm not saying you won't be able to find a way for Doge to have to give public records and FOIA responses, but we don't like the way you did it now, so go away and here's the stay, same six to three split. But these are inconsistent for me because I don't know how you can say that Doge has the right as an if they're not an agency that has the right to look at my privacy data, then what are they? And if they are an agency that gets to look at my privacy data, then why don't I get to find out about it in a Freedom of Information act request? And what we're watching, finally, Ben, is this struggle. I think I end up in the exact same place you do when you started with. I think if it's like a major abuse of power, they won't. If it is, I think it's this battle over the unitary presidential model. And now we've seen the voting. Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett are more likely than not to side with Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Alito and Thomas. And on unitary presidential model, giving the executive branch a load of deference when it comes to his policies. I had a little hope that on occasion, and maybe on occasion they won't, Amy Coney Barrett and Roberts would sort of stay in the middle and pick and choose their moments. But I don't like the results in the Doge decision. There's one last case that you and I need to keep a close watch watch on involving Doge and Judge Chutkin, which has not been decided by this. There's a dozen other cases out there. But the one that I'm most focused on and ties back to the Musk Trump spat is the case that she just granted or denied motion to dismiss and said that 14 attorneys general can bring a case to argue that Doge and Musk was improperly appointed under the Constitution, which would make null and void all of their actions. That was not before the Supreme Court yet. But once that got up to the Supreme Court, based on what you're seeing, what do you think the court's going to do with the Chutkan case?
- [65:17]
Ben Miceli
Well, I mean, I think the Supreme Court going to the unitary executive theory give Donald Trump what he wants. I think on the Chutkan case, I think that anything other than act like an outright dictator and eliminate the courts, I think the Supreme Court on a six to three basis will generally side with Donald Trump. And it goes back popak to their absolute immunity ruling. That was their big tell where they really were. And the tension between the right wing justices and I call them the liberal justice people call them liberal, I call them the pro democracy justices. But for those not, you know, who use the traditional conservative liberal kind of framing, you had the three pro democracy justices basically saying, of course Donald Trump's going to act like a dictator and then you had John Roberts saying, no, I'd look, I don't think that's going to happen. I'm worried that if we have these limitations on the executive, they're going to be chilled. We think that the president will act in good faith. And then you have the liberal justices or the pro democracy justice thing. He's not going to act in good faith. What are you talking about? He's not going to act in good faith. You can apply a normal framework of the presidency to the times we're living in. And then John Roberts saying, yeah, we're just going to treat it like this is. Like these are normal times. And we think that the president should have all this power because they'll exercise it in good faith. And only when Donald Trump then takes that power, he's like, watch me do everything. Then the Supreme Court basically goes, you know, we still need courts. We still need courts. Facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia. I mean, it's just so completely, utterly pathetic. I think the Supreme Court always does the wrong thing. And look, this is what I want to close on, you know, and I said I would if we had time for a bonus round. We really don't have time, but we'll, we'll make time for it. Quickly, Donald Trump called NBC earlier today, and he warned Elon Musk there will be serious consequences if he were to fund Democratic candidates. If he does, he will have to pay for that. There will be very serious consequences. Trump didn't say what it. What those consequences were, but that's the language of a dictator. You know, these are the, these are the fights we see in Putin's Russia when Putin, you know, jails oligarchs and threatens. This is exactly what we see in authoritarian regimes. And then you have Elon Musk making all the posts that Donald Trump has Epstein connections and that, and that the reason that the DOJ is not releasing the files is because Trump's covering it up. And Musk says, I will apologize profusely as soon as Trump releases the Epstein files, because Trump's name is all over them. And so we have that going on. And then the other sideshow is after Donald Trump and all of the magas keep praising the proud boys and the Oath Keepers and saying they're hostages and political prisoners. What do the proud boys do? They file a $100 million lawsuit against the United States and they quote Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. Even the top officials in our government say that we're hostages and that we were prisoners, taken unlawfully there. So we want you to take judicial notice of what the president says. So we should get, why even have a jury trial? We should just be paid a hundred million dollars right now of taxpayer dollars. And this is, as Donald Trump has settled cases with other insurrectionists, what he paid Ashley Babbitt's family $5 million of the taxpayer of taxpayer money. And so this is what the regime is doing. This is how our tax dollars are being spent. It's, it's utterly pathetic. And we're going to call it out here on Legal AF every step of the way. I want to remind Everybody about Michael Popo's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel. Let's get them 1 million subscribers by this summer. So subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Also. Legal AF is on Substack. Get Legal AF on Substack, go to Substack and then search Legal AF and then Michael Popo's law firm, the Popoc firm, as we established in the last break, they do dog bite cases now, apparently, and they do catastrophic injury cases like trucking accidents, car accidents, sexual assault and harassment cases, any negligence cases. If you or someone you know, wrongful death cases. If you or somebody know has a case, the consultation is absolutely free. In fact, the whole process is free unless there's a recovery and then it's on a contingency basis. So you don't pay anything.
- [69:49]
Michael Popak
One comment because because if you're going to trust me with your most sensitive legal matters, you should also think that I can hold concepts in my head straight. And I did. Remember, with a little prompting from our producer, the third case, that was nine zero was written by Kagan denying the government of Mexico from being able to maintain a suit for gun dumping from American manufacturers in Mexico. That was the other 9.0popoc.
- [70:15]
Ben Miceli
Where can they reach out to the Popoc firm?
- [70:17]
Michael Popak
They can. Right now that I've established my bona fides, they can go to the popoc firm.com and every road leads you to a free case evaluation form and details about the law firm myself. But the collaboration I'm doing with the trial team and the rest. And then you can, if you'd rather just speak to somebody now directly. 1-877- POPOC. That's P O P O K A.
- [70:42]
Ben Miceli
F. Thank you everybody for watching Legal af. We packed a lot into this episode. Hopefully you've left more knowledgeable. Knowledge is power and we will keep you updated every step of the way. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers, drivers here. We'll see you. Next time on Legal AF.