Loading summary
Transcript36 lines
- [00:01]
Michael Popak
Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into sign up for your $1per month trial@shopify.com SpecialOffer this episode.
- [00:30]
Karen Friedman
Is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [00:57]
Michael Popak
Everyone's loving Family Freedom from T Mobile we'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com FamilyFreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte $829.99 Eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel Contact T Mobile Legal.
- [01:27]
Karen Friedman
AF Midweek is live and on the air. Michael Popak Caren Freeman iffalo here's the list, Karen. Here's the rundown. We're letting the audience program tonight's show. I already got off of Blue sky and some Legal AF social media. Some amazing questions. I got them right here. We're gonna pick up some more as we pick up steam in the episode from the chat. And here's the broad strokes. It's like I said the other day, it's like a word association game. Karen, for our audience. I'm going to say something and you, you, you splurt out the first thing that comes to mind. Epstein. Exactly. We're going to do a whole Epstein segment from the Wall Street Journal not taking any crap from Donald Trump even after they he filed a $10 billion suit against him to three different judges having to deal with the grand jury testimony and whether it's going to be released. But that's not even the Epstein files. The Epstein files are the quote unquote truckload of documents that Pam Bondi identified in March that she said that people were working round the clock, searching through. That's what we want to see, the ones that have Trump's name in it, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. We'll talk about grand juries and all of this. And also to remind people something that kind of got missed in the whole grand jury story. There is a set of grand jury material that's already been out for over a year from the state of Florida prosecution of Epstein, about Epstein and others. That's already in the public domain. It sort of gets missed in reporting. We'll talk more about it today. Then we're going to have a hubba block. I barely got that out. We're going to have a hubba block because something bad just happened in New Jersey, my home state, where the Trump administration has thumbed their nose at a decision by 17 federal judges pursuant to a statute in which they followed it to a T in order to try to get Alina Haba her job back as acting interim U.S. attorney. And they're going to do it. And this newest scandal, which I'm hoping groups like Democracy for Democracy Now, ACLU and the rest are getting ready to file the case against the appointment of Alina Haba as some sort of special attorney under the Constitution, acting as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey. That is coming. This is their workaround. And we're going to expose it here tonight on Legal aaf. We got a lot of new rapid information coming in about Abrego Garcia, the man, the myth, the concept of somebody who's denied due process, who was kidnapped in the middle of the night and sent to El Salvador along with 250 other people that were then human trafficked to Venezuela by the Trump administration, all under the watchful eye of two judges, one named Zinnis. One name, or actually four judges, one named Zinnis in Maryland, one named Boasberg in DC One named Crenshaw in Tennessee, and his magistrate colleague, Judge Holmes. Brand new developments. He's coming to Maryland, everybody. Maryland, man coming back to Maryland with Abrego Garcia, Tulsi Gabbard. I was wondering why they were keeping that crash test dummy around. Now I know why. It is so that she can be trotted out to say that she found something in the 3,000 pages of investigative reporting about the Russia interference with the with the 2016 election that five different bodies and two different prosecutors never found, including the Senate Intelligence Committee led by Marco Rubio. But she found a seditious conspiracy, maybe dating back to Obama, and she's making a criminal referral I got some questions from our audience about wasn't there a little thing called a Supreme Court case about immunity and why wouldn't that also apply to Obama even if he did something wrong? We'll talk all about that here on Legal af. And then lastly, now is the time with the Stephen Colbert getting fired for taking on his corporate parent and probably the late night host to be named later in the settlement, which was coerced by Donald Trump and his FCC with the Paramount parent company of the Colbert show and Comedy Central and Jon Stewart and and then meet the media, the mainstream media backbiting and attacking themselves. Another talking head on CBS went on CBS Morning News to to attack Colbert. I mean, I've never seen such a thing. But it demonstrates the importance of independent media not tied to a corporate parent. And shout out to and chef's kiss to Stephen Colbert, who I've loved for over 25 years, telling Donald Trump to go F himself. We do that almost every day, every hour on Midas Touch and on the Legal AF YouTube channel. But he did it a little bit more spectacularly. Karen's traveling, but she's landed. Let's bring her in. Hey, Karen.
- [06:39]
Michael Popak
Hey. It's so good to see you. Popak I we didn't see each other last week.
- [06:43]
Karen Friedman
Right. I was sick and overseas and you were sick and at home and we turned the reins over. I thought they did a nice job. Dina Doll and Lisa Graves. You thought Dina Doll and Lisa Graves, they did a great job. Put it in, put it in comments tonight because that helps us and helps them and, and all that good stuff. And we're going to be looking at comments closely tonight, Karen, because we've turned over some of the programming to our audience on the live show and I've got my hot little hands, a series of questions from some of our ardent followers on Substack to kick it off, which I'll kind of weave into our, our Q and A. Well, let's jump into Epstein. Yeah. And why it matters. You know, the article is just running right now in the New York Times how the Democrats are eating the Republicans lunch when it comes to the Epstein pedophile scandal that's enveloped the Trump administration mainly because, well, people just generally don't like people in positions of power who are directly connected to a pedophile being seen to be covering it up. And now we got a couple of new things that came out. Right, Karen. We've got the Wall Street Journal speaking of fu to Donald Trump. Two days after, three days after the lawsuit for $10 billion gets filed against them in Miami because they ran an article, a truthful article about a leather bound scrapbook containing a handmade arts and crafts birthday card by Donald Trump that was reviewed by the feds, the FBI, the Department of justice as part of the evidence package for the Maxwell Ghislaine Maxwell case and, or the Epstein case. And they reported on it because it mentioned not only the kind of an obscene cartoon, but it mentioned the secret life of Jeffrey Epstein and him being an enigma with a lot of secrets, which is not a great place to be when you're Donald Trump saying, I didn't know he was a pedophile. And now we've got the new Wall Street Journal article out today talking about the truckload of documents that were reviewed in March and what Pam Bondi told Donald Trump in May about his name being in it. Why don't you take it over from there? By the way, I got a dinner bet with Michael Cohen riding on this. He was on the show with me the other day. He said, pol Pac, you're wrong. The, the Wall Street Journal's gonna bend. They're gonna write a check. I said, I don't see that happening. No, they miscalculated. I said, I'll make you a dinner bet. Let me see what you think. Go ahead.
- [09:18]
Michael Popak
Well, what's astounding is that the Wall Street Journal published this at all because of who owns the Wall Street Journal. Right. It's Rupert Murdoch. So it's astounding that he would greenlight these series of investigative reportings and these articles and that it's coming and appearing. There is Eye itself, number one. And number two, it just, it looks like the articles are just coming out. More information, more information, more information. And, and it's all some of the other stuff we're talking about later today, like Tulsi Gabbard saying Obama. I don't even know what she's accusing him of, but what you know or I know what she's accusing him of. But I can't even put it into words because it's so preposterous that he did anything wrong and that he is treasonous to this country. But it's all an attempt to deflect away from this Epstein nightmare because it by all accounts, this has derailed the White House so much so right Popak, that Congress, an entire branch of government, shut down early just so that they can stop this train wreck from happening. Because subpoenas are getting issued, hearings are being called, and literally Mike Johnson shut things down just so that they can go home early for recess and not have to deal with this, because it is spiraling out of control. No matter how hard the White House and Trump and Pam Bondi and Tulsi Gabbard and all the other people out there who are willing to do Trump's bidding for him, that are going out and trying to put these other stories out there. And people aren't buying it. They're just not buying it. Because when it comes to things like pedophiles and sex trafficking of young children, which is essentially what was happening here, that's not a bipartisan. That's a bipartisan issue. That's not a Democrat issue or a Republican issue. That's something that the American people can get behind. And so everybody is demanding to know what is happening there. And this sort of throwing, you know, throwing ice into. It's like ice in winter. This. Oh, you know, we already released certain things or we're going to try to get the grand jury minutes released. That's like a red herring because. And let me explain something about grand jury minutes and grand jury testimony. So what the grand jury is in a criminal case is it's a body of 23, approximately 23 people. It's between 12 and 23 people. And they sit and they listen to evidence. And it's a very, it's called a prima facie case. It's not a trial. There's no cross examination, there's no judge there. It's literally a prosecutor and a witness where they present evidence. And it's just enough evidence. It's just bare bones, enough evidence to charge someone with a crime and to get an indictment. That's what a grand jury is. So a witness can testify and they raise their right hand and they swear to tell the truth and they give testimony. Now, what's interesting in federal court and federal grand juries, which is different than many states, including New York, is hearsay is allowed. So for example, in New York grand juries, that testimony is actually, if this was a grand jury presentation in state court in New York, this would be a chock full of rich information in that grand jury testimony. Because in order to get an indictment, they have to have live witnesses. Every single witness who charge who is accusing someone, all the, all the victims, the investigation, every person who has information to give has to give it directly. Hearsay is not allowed in federal court. It's very, very different. It's all hearsay. And so typically, what they do in federal court is they will call some FBI agent or homeland security agent or whoever's leading investigation to testify in the grand jury. And it's usually someone who doesn't have anything to do with the case. They just read the file. And they read the file essentially into the grand jury. And they do it that way because since this person has nothing to do with the case, they're never going to be called to the stand to testify to be cross examined. So if they got something wrong at the regular trial, when they're going to be cross examined, that person's never going to be cross examined at all. Grand jury testimony doesn't usually see the light of day. If you're a defense attorney or anybody else. It's secret. It's secret for a reason, statutorily secret by law. So even if these grand jury minutes get released, as I said, it's ice in winter, it's going to show us nothing. It's not going to be any list, it's not going to be anything else. But let's talk for a minute about what this truckload is that you're talking about. Because grand jury minutes is secret and because they are sealed, they. There's litigation going on in both Florida and in New York to try to unseal these minutes and whether or not a judge is going to find that there are unusual enough circumstances because there's a. Normally they stay sealed, but there's a tiny sliver of a time when something is of great historical import. Like for example, if someone had prosecuted someone for the Kennedy assassination and there was grand jury minutes, that is great historical import. You can imagine unsealing that for historical purposes. Current political interest is not listed in the statute, in the unsealing statute, nor is it in any case law saying where that that is a reason to unseal the minutes. But let's see, who knows if they'll unseal the minutes or not. If the, if the federal judge will ultimately decide to do that. But the fact that they are asking that they be released and somehow dangling that as a carrot, as a red herring, as sort of a here you go, American public, we're going to try to get these grand jury minutes released. And if the judge doesn't do it, it's not on us. We tried. Don't fall for that. Okay? That is absolutely a complete red herring or just something that you don't want to fall for because they are not going to be substantive. But there are tons of records. In fact, a truckload, as Pam Bondi said, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of records. There are terabytes worth of records. That's how many records are going to be in a case like this. And how do I know? Because I'm a criminal defense attorney, I am on the receiving end of discovery in federal cases. I know what comes when they give you discovery or give you the files. Right. And it's terabytes worth of data. Okay. For example, you know what? They could release that. They don't have to get permission for that. They don't have to get a judge to unseal all of the FBI. They're called 302s, which are every time an FBI agent interviews somebody or does an investigatory step on the case, or goes and issues a subpoena or gets surveillance video or talks to people or whatever they do on a case, they have to do a 302, which is like a piece of paper, essentially a report on that activity. There must be thousands of 302s when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, because that was a huge case with a lot of information and a huge investigation spanning. It was not like a crime that happened, you know, a robbery in an alley that happened in 20 seconds. And that's the whole crime and that's the whole investigation. This is years and years and years of criminal activity, of grooming young children, of bringing them in to Jeffrey Epstein's orbit of sexually assaulting them, and in multiple locations in different countries, all over the place, all over the United States. Airplane records, search warrant records, medical records, all kinds of things that are. That. That they have in their file. Right. For all the victims, etc. Any local law enforcement, investigative records, if local law enforcement ever was involved in some of these investigations. Cell phone records. I'm sure they have all kinds of cell site data and cell phone records, flight records, other witnesses that would corroborate what happened. Right. Housekeepers or other individuals who might have seen something, security guards, et cetera. And so there's a lot of records that they could release if they wanted to be transparent. And instead, what they're doing, and we know this is what they're doing and why they're doing it, is they're shielding it, they're hiding it, because as the Wall Street Journal reported today, Pam Bondi told Trump that his name is all over those files. So instead, they're deflecting. They are meeting in secret. Well, not really in secret, but they're meeting behind the scenes with Ghislaine Maxwell because they're going to have some kind of deal cut with her to either clemency where they reduce her sentence or pardon altogether so that she'll come clean and say something or not say something. And look, someone once said to me, be careful because a drowning man will save any, will say anything to save his life. And that's exactly where she is. She is a woman in her 60s. She is in prison. She's got basically the rest of her life that she's going to spend in prison unless she says the right thing. And there's only one way out and a one way ticket out. And that's if she says that Donald Trump wasn't involved, it was only Democrats or whatever else she's going to say. But whatever she says, you're going to hear. It's. This is a carefully crafted, choreographed.
- [19:01]
Karen Friedman
Well, we know it.
- [19:01]
Michael Popak
We know it now.
- [19:02]
Karen Friedman
Pardon me. We know it is because her lawyer is David Oscar Marcus, who was the mentee for Alan Dershowitz, who is connected, who is a friend of Todd Blanche. They've appeared on their podcast together. They've been giggling buddies for a long, long time. Todd Blanche does not go into prison to visit Ghislaine Maxwell unless he got a proffer from David Marcus, the Florida lawyer representing her, in which he told him what she's going to say. It is obvious she's going to exonerate, if that's not quite the right word, but she's going to exonerate Donald Trump or they wouldn't be going through this kabuki theater of going in to visit her. At the same time, Marcus is lobbying publicly for a pardon. So as you said, a desperate person will say anything. She'll sing for her supper. She'll say that he was not in the files, even though we know they were or that he was not on the planes or he was not. No young women were set up with him in order to have, you know, in order for there to be a sexual misconduct or pedophilia, she'll say something like that and then he will pardon her. Now you got that going on. Then you've got, as you said, they're conflating purposely in the public's mind. What are the Epstein files? I feel like I'm on the X Files. And the Epstein files for the public is all the things that you outline, plus some other things. Search warrants executed on Jeffrey Epstein. Michael Wolf is going to be back on Legal AF tomorrow with more original reporting about his interviews with Jeffrey Epstein in 2014. The safe that he saw of Epstein, the photos of Donald Trump with young women that he saw and where is the safe? Where is the hard drive? Where is the data from? And Maxwell too. Ghislaine Maxwell too. Where's the search warrant? Well, we know where it is. It's the quote, unquote truckload of information that according to reporting in the Wall Street Journal, dozens and dozens of FBI agents worked 12 hour shifts to go through, which resulted in a one page joint undated, unsigned memo from the Department of Justice and FBI that said nothing to see here. I don't know why Pam Bondi said there's a client list on her desk. We don't have a client list and you know, we don't. There's. And that's it. And we. Here's the video. He wasn't murdered while he was awaiting trial. That's not what the people wanted because that's not true. And now we've got the new reporting and I love that it came through the Wall Street Journal, which was a big fu to Donald Trump, who once again stood behind the rigorousness of their reporting about what they reported. And now the new reporting, which was Donald, as you said, Donald Trump was briefed in May and he denied when ABC asked him in an interview. Mr. President, Mr. President, were you briefed by Pam Bondi and told that your name was in the files? No, no, no, I was never told that. That's a lie. That is a lie. She told him he was all over those files. In fact, at least 20 very powerful men, according to victims lawyers who know what's in the files are in that file. Now, that may not be a client list, but that's a list of guys that are in those files that need to come out. Now, the judges that are handling this are doing it in different ways. You got three judges now that are dealing with the federal grand jury, what Donald Trump calls the Epstein files, which is not, which is how you described it, the grand jury transcripts. You got Judge Berman in New York, you and I know well who is handling, who took, who was presiding judge over the Epstein case when Epstein died. I'll leave it at that, awaiting trial. So that's a 2019 grand jury that was impaneled. And they're trying to get those, but they're not really trying. They, they made the request. Judge Engelmeier is handling the Maxwell 2020 grand jury because he took over after Judge Nathan got elevated to the Second Circuit. So both of them issued their orders kind of similar, that by August 5, they want a few things. They want the government to go through the transcripts, at least up there and show how they'd redact them to make sure, as Judge Berman said, how the 1,000 victims or more are going to be protected and unvictimized again. So they want the government to go through that exercise, which the judge will review privately. They want statements from the estate of Epstein, apparently, and from Ghislaine Maxwell. Marcus says, I'll give you a statement, Judge, but I want to look in the grand jury testimony. And of course, his buddy, right on cue, Todd Blanch said, no objection. So we got that whole bullshit going on with their review. Now we move to Florida, where the original Epstein prosecution took place, which is. That's the one that ended with him copping. I mean, sweetheart deal is not even the right. I don't even know what this is. Just criminal. Criminal deal that he had a deferred prosecution and he copped. He copped the charge to a state charge to soliciting prostitution from a minor. And that's signed by Alex Acosta. So for the conspiracy theorists that have their bulletin board at home with all the red ribbons, red, red yarn, Alex Acosta, who, who struck that deal with Epstein as he continued to rape girls, got promoted and became Donald Trump's labor secretary of all things. So that set of files is under the auspices of Judge Robin Rosenberg, who I know well, who sits in the West Palm beach division of the Southern District of Florida. And she said, look, I looked at Rule 6, the criminal rules, and nothing that you're telling me allows me to open up the files of the grand secret grand jury. You haven't hit any of the factors that are required for rule for Rule 6e. And you admitted Department of Justice that you don't meet any of the factors or the 11th Circuit precedent. So I'm not. And it's over. I'm close. I'm moving all these motions over to a new case number assigned to a new judge. But no, you're not getting the Florida Epstein files from the grand jury either. But again, just to round it out, that's not what people want. Let me just read to you, Karen, you can answer these questions. So from our audience, Suse, Marcy, Shaka and Deborah all came up with a similar set of questions. Who is behind the Wall Street Journal slow reveal of the Epstein articles? And do you think the Wall Street Journal will drop more? What do you think?
- [26:08]
Michael Popak
I think that there are clearly some insiders who are talking. It could be people who've recently been fired from the Department of Justice who have worked on the these cases. It could be anybody. But I think they clearly have some insiders. I don't think they would have published what they have said if they weren't 100% sure. And sometimes mainstream media journalists, it can be a little frustrating for people because especially really reputable journalists, unless Something is corroborated 10 times over, they're not going to publish it. And so for the Wall Street Journal to publish what they did, they have some insiders and they have some inside information. So I think yes, there's going to be more coming out because I think whoever's talking is just got started and they we're going to see a series of articles. That's what I think.
- [27:02]
Karen Friedman
I agree with you. And I think Rupert Murdoch and Michael Wolf's going to be on Court of History Legal AF tomorrow. And I know one of the things that he believes, well he said that Rupert Murdoch thinks that this is his reporting. Rupert Murdoch thinks Donald Trump's an asshole, has always thought that publicly. He said he wants to make him a non person. He thought that the January 6th would end his career. He's surprised that it didn't and he wanted it to. And of course he's pissed off they had to pay $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems because he decided to get into bed with Donald Trump and the big lie about the election being stolen in 2020 and pushed it and pushed it and pushed it until he had to pay up almost a billion dollars to Dominion to settle it. And I think that is always stuck in the craw of Murdoch. Nothing gets published in the Wall Street Journal and the Fox of this nature without the Murdoch's signature, without their approval. And I don't see them bending the knee. I mean if Michael Cohen was right then they would stop reporting about the Epstein, not do daily hits like you said, coming out probably from an insider. And then of course now that's given the permission structure to the New York Times to do it. Now if you look back on it, the only media entity that's been consistently reporting on the Epstein thing since before it was a story is Midas Touch and Ben. I mean they were hitting this story so hard and so accurately. You know, we joke that other than Julie K. Brown who brought down Epstein as an intrepid Miami Herald reporter, there's nobody that knows more about what's happening and what should come out and be the focus of the public right now than Ben. And so we're pleased to have him there when we Carol, when we come back we're going to pick up with Alina Haba Got some good questions for the audience about Alina Haba, what happened there. And of course we'll continue with our lineup with Abrego Garcia and Tulsi Gabbard and then talk in general, including with our audience, about the media and what corporate media is doing before our very eyes and why it matters. But first, we're going to take our first quick break. For our sponsors, there's a number of ways to support and to keep us on the air. Be frank, our counterparts in mainstream media are under attack and or getting fired. Colbert is not the only one that's going to get canned. And we have people on our network like Katie Fang that ultimately got canned for a point of view that didn't match with corporate ideals and the rest. And so the way to support us, you don't have a paywall. It's Hit the Midas Touch subscribe button free. Come over to Legalif, the YouTube channel. We're doing a dozen new videos every day at the intersection of law, politics and defense of our democracy. We've got about a dozen contributors. I'm adding them, you know, every month I'm adding another one or two or three contributors on there. And hit the subscribe button, the reminder button. Help us continue to grow that community. It has a related substack, Legal AF substack, where we're posting the filings, the orders, the rulings, commentary around it, videos around it, all on Legal A of substack. Again, did I mention it's all for free? Just hit the subscribe button and I'm going to talk about something else when we come back. But let's take a break. For our Pro Democracy sponsors, Physio, chiropractic and massage therapy are all great resources for when you need them, but going to these appointments every few months does not give me the ultimate results I'm looking for. When it comes to my well being, it's taking daily, even hourly opportunities to move my body that makes the biggest difference. This has only been made possible for me with this episode's sponsor, Uplift Desk. Uplift Desk is at the forefront of ergonomic solutions promoting better posture and and health through adjustable standing desks designed to help you live a healthier lifestyle. Plus, they have all kinds of accessories to keep you moving throughout the day, even if you work for only a few hours at your desk. For me, I love the Bamboo Motion X board. It makes me feel like snowboarding without waiting for the lift. Standing while I work gives me the room to move and helps me get the creative juices flowing. Moving throughout the day helps me focus and stay productive and I'm way more alert when I'm using my standing desk and I have more energy. A desk should fit the user, which is why Uplift Desk has a lot of customization options so you can build your perfect workspace with more than 200,000 configurations. Uplift Desk allows you to tailor your workspace to perfectly suit your style and needs, empowering you to create an environment that inspires productivity and creativity for me. I built the custom standing desk of my dreams from Uplift for my Pope POC Media offices where I make a lot of my hot takes and content for Legal AF and so I went all out with a heritage oak top and their advanced angled keypad for the lift part. Make this year yours by going to upliftdesk.com legal AF and use our code legal AF to get four free accessories, free same day shipping, free returns and an industry leading 15 year warranty that covers your entire desk and an extra discount off your entire order. That's U P L I F T d e s k.com legal af for a special offer and it's only available at our link start 2025 right stand move Thrive with Uplift Desk so I went to my 40th high school reunion recently and while many of my classmates were excited about retiring or have retired, well, I brought my infant daughter to the reunion and I won the youngest Child contest hands down. But that means that when most people's working is winding down to match their body's energy levels, I need to ramp up to keep up with my baby daughter. I believe one of the best aging breakthroughs of the last decade is Qualia Senolytic and here's why. Qualia Senolytic is at the frontier of what is currently possible in the science of human aging. Senolytics are a science field research revolutionizing human aging. A big culprit behind that middle aged feeling can be senescent cells, AKA zombie cells that linger in your body after their useful function, wasting your energy and resources. Let me break it down. The accumulation of zombie cells can lead to less energy, slower workout, recovery, joint discomfort and basically, well, feeling old. Qualius Analytic is a groundbreaking clinically tested supplement with nine vegan plant derived compounds that help your body naturally eliminate senescent cells, helping you feel years younger in just months. Here's how it works. You take it just two days a month, helping your body naturally eliminate zombie cells to age better at the cellular level and Qualia's breakthrough formulation is vegan, non GMO and tested by leading scientists. Since taking Qualia Senolytic, I felt like I've turned back the clock. I got higher energy, less soreness after exercise and a big boost in productivity. It's made me feel more youthful and energized as I have the energy level to nurture my baby daughter the right way. Experience the science of feeling younger. Go to quality of life.com legalaf for up to 50% off your purchase and use code legal af for an additional 15%. That's qualy of life.com legalaf for an extra 15% off your purchase. Your older self will thank you and thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. And we're back. I can tell when I've lost weight based on ads that I've done in the past. As we come back on the air, Columbia University decided to bend the knee and kiss the butt of Donald Trump. They're going to pay $220 million and turn over things like faculty hiring and other things and root out anti Semitism on, on the college campus in response to Donald Trump's threats. That doesn't bode well for Harvard, although Harvard continues to fight it out in, well, in the court system up in Massachusetts. So let's get to, I think we're going to do haba, I think, based on the order of operation here.
- [35:45]
Michael Popak
So by the way, that's disgraceful, what you just said, that Columbia University is.
- [35:50]
Karen Friedman
Disgraceful, you know, and it's a trade off. So they got $400 million that was blocked in funding and brought them to their knees about three months ago. They're going to get the 400 million back by giving back $200 million. And now they're not going to have billions of dollars of other research money in jeopardy. I guess it's a way to deal with the Trump administration. It's just so disgusting that Donald Trump is just running around instead of helping average Americans or any Americans, he's running around worried about what the Washington football team is called or worried about, you know, the next big grift that he's going to be doing with Rudy Giuliani's son in the, in the FIFA World Cup. He put, would you believe he put Rudy's son in charge as executive director of the FIFA World cup. And now he's going to do a meme coin for FIFA with the line his pockets for the World Cup. I mean, it's just so disgusting what we're watching. The good news is, though, the American people are not somnambulant. They're not asleep and they're watching. And the polls are showing that everything Donald Trump is doing is registering poorly in his polling.
- [36:58]
Michael Popak
I mean, but do you know how nefarious that is? Just what you just said about Rudy Giuliani's, what you just said, just think.
- [37:05]
Karen Friedman
About Andrew Giuliani running the World Cup.
- [37:07]
Michael Popak
Yes, but listen to this. Andrew Giuliani is going to run the World cup and as a result, he's going to get lots of money, Right? And he's going to get rich off of this and off of this relationship and then he'll take care of his dad, who's lost everything to those lovely ladies in Georgia, Ruby Freeman and Seamus, who he owes millions and millions of dollars to. Right? From, for, from the defamation suit that they won against him. He's just gonna, he filed bankruptcy. He's old, doesn't matter. Right? So his son is going the way Donald Trump is paying and not have to get the money to Sheamos and Ruby Freeman is to pay his son and to give all these perks to his son and so his son can ride off into the sunset and get rich and, you know, give and continue the legacy and, you know, can, can let his father sleep on, you know, sleep in a spare bedroom in his mansion. I mean, that's how nefarious this is and what's going on and there. Nobody should allow that to just continue to go on and not call it out. So I'm so glad you mentioned it.
- [38:16]
Karen Friedman
Absolutely. That's on the front page. We also have a new report. As long as we're doing live updates here, we've also got an appeals court which I'm going to try to get at the next break. I don't know which one. Maybe one of my producers will tell me. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals out of California, which would have been the affirmation of Judge Kofanor in Washington State's original decision. It was, it was temporary restraining order number one, finding that birthright citizenship could not be changed by executive order. The Ninth Circuit has, has upheld that as being unconstitutional. Now we're into the merits, we're into the subject matter. The thing that was up at the United States Supreme Court a couple of months ago that drove us batty, is their ruling that, well, we don't want federal judges to make nationwide injunctions only we can declare nationwide results. You know, you got to do class actions and temporary restraining orders or injunctions and only do nationwide injunctions under the rarest of circumstances. And we're not even going to tell you what those rare circumstances are. That's what that was all about. And they went out of their way of saying we're not going to touch birthright citizenship until it comes up the right way through appellate decisions. Okay, we've got the right way appellate decision now the 9th Circuit and I'm sure every circuit that's going to look at this, except maybe the fifth and there's no case in the Fifth. The first, the DC and the Ninth is where these cases reside. And they're all uniformly going to say no on birthright citizenship, change by executive order and the 14th amendment is sacrosanct. And then it's going to be up to the United States Supreme Court not over the summer in the first term in October to make that ultimate decision. But you know, the, the arc of history is bending towards justice and this is another bend towards justice, which is a good thing. Speaking of injustice, we've got Alina Haba, of course, appointed acting interim U.S. attorney for my home state, the guard state of New Jersey, and spent the last 120 days destroying morale of the 130 people U.S. attorney, Assistant U.S. attorneys in that office, the fifth largest in America, destroying morale, making people want to run and leave prosecuting elected officials, dismissing, arresting and then dismissing charges against a black mayor of Newark, going after the governor, going after the attorney general in order to turn the blue state red, which she self confessed that's what her job is, she thinks. And so it was no surprise that being blocked by the two states, the two senators of New Jersey who are both Democrats, Senators Booker and Kim, she's not getting her blue slip that's required under Senate protocol to take her out of the judicial. If she even went through a confirmation process to get her out. She doesn't have the votes to do that. They don't override the blue slips for obvious reasons. They don't want to. When they lose the House, the Senate and the presidency, the Democrats, they want to be able to continue to block judges. So they don't want to set that precedent. So she's, she knows she's toast. So she, under the statute that relates to a vacancy, if she can't get approved in 120 days, the judges, the federal judges of that district pick the new acting interim until the president can come back around and pick somebody else either to put in the job or get confirmed. And that's what they did. They picked a longtime career prosecutor Republican and they picked her for the temporary position of acting interim. She was already in the office. She was the first assistant deputy assistant to Alina Haba. But that's not what Donald Trump wants and that's not what he wants for his office wife and his political hack. He wants her to get the job. And so Pam Bondi just did something. Talk about what Pam Bondi just did and what you think they're going to do given the precedent of what they just did in the Northern District of New York in terms of trying to appoint Haba for the job.
- [42:24]
Michael Popak
So as you said, Popak Haba was appointed as an interim United States Attorney, which happens a lot. And usually during that time, you go before the Senate and you get Senate confirmed because they are required to be Senate confirmed to be the United States Attorney. And she wasn't going to get it. She couldn't get onto the Senate floor. And there is a congressional statute that allows the judges of the district to install their own United States Attorney. And they've done this before, multiple times throughout history. And sometimes they do it with the person who is the interim and convert them into the U.S. attorney. They've done that in New York and in New Jersey in the past. And she was hoping to get that same treatment here. But The, I think 17 judges, the district court judges in New Jersey all unanimously said no way, she's not qualified. And she's not, I mean, look, she's never been a prosecutor or a defense attorney other than representing Donald Trump failing miserably. But she has no prosecution experience and she certainly has no business leading such a prestigious office that does such important work. So she had her number two was a woman who is a career prosecutor who's worked there. She was a Republican and worked there for I think more than a decade. And she was Alina Haba's number two, her chief assistant. And they elevated her to that position. And by all accounts, she was qualified. And so the judges said, no, we're not going to give it to you. Alina Haba, your term expired, either expired yesterday or it expires Friday, depending on when the 120 day clock starts. She was nominated 120 days from yesterday, but she wasn't officially appointed and sworn in until it would be Friday, would be the 120th day. But so they all unanimously voted that this woman, her name is Desiree, I can't remember her last name, that she is going to be the United States Attorney. And so she, I believe, was United States Attorney for a brief period of time. And then she was fired. And she was fired by Pam Bondi. And so that leaves potentially the District of New Jersey with no United States Attorney. And because of that, a lot of criminal defense attorneys are wondering, okay, we're going to move to dismiss all 1200 cases. And I think the federal defenders are working to do that right now to move to dismiss all the cases that are pending before there, because there is no United States Attorney there. Now the question, though, is because that, because this woman was appointed by the judges, can Pam Bondi fire her? And it seems clear. And I, so I did a little research into this because it's coming up in our cases about what it is. And so I wanted to know the answer to this in detail. And the question is, can, can the Attorney General fire a court appointed United States Attorney? And that's really the question. And what seems pretty clear is that the President can. And that has come up in several cases in the past. So just to go over the law really quick, so an Attorney General does not have the power or authority to remove the U.S. attorney appointed by the Court pursuant to 28 United States Code Section 546. However, 28 United States Code 541 provides that each United States Attorney is subject to removal by the president. So in 1979, the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel published an opinion concluding that presidents can remove court appointed U.S. attorneys. And the opinion states that usually the power to appoint carries with it the power to remove. But 20 USC Section 541 is an exception because Congress specifically delegated that to the President and gave them the power to remove United States attorneys. So it seems fairly clear that Bondi can't do it, but Trump can. I assume she had his permission, and so that's where we are. But right now we're kind of without a U.S. attorney, so I don't know what's gonna happen. I know your theory is that Trump's gonna elevate her and make her kind of like special counsel, almost like what? Jack Smith was right at the special United States Special Attorney General. Oh, he did.
- [47:12]
Karen Friedman
Oh, no, no, no. I don't mean he did it here. He did it with a judge.
- [47:15]
Michael Popak
Oh, yeah, yeah. He did it with the guy from the Northern District of New York.
- [47:19]
Karen Friedman
Correct, Right, right.
- [47:20]
Michael Popak
Coney or his name.
- [47:21]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, yeah. So they've already done it. I mean, they just did it two weeks ago. So what? Just to get out of the shorthand world for our audience, there's a provision. Yeah, I'm saying there's a provision for the for in the Constitution that the Attorney General can appoint other types of attorneys, they call them special attorneys. Generally, that's been seen as something like a special counsel that doesn't require Senate confirmation. The irony here is, of course, that the Trump administration argued that that Jack Smith was not a special attorney, as that term is used, and had to go through Senate confirmation. And somehow, of course, got Eileen Cannon, the judge down in the Mor Lago case, to agree with them. First time in 200 years at the special counsel, pardon me, a judge declared that they had to go through Senate confirmation. But Senate special special attorney means something. And so what they've determined it means is that they can appoint somebody a special attorney indefinitely with all of the powers of a U.S. attorney and then put them back in their position to avoid Senate confirmation and the rest of the we also have a recess appointment issue coming up here. So I'm not sure whether they're going to do that or they're just going to shove her into that job with a recess appointment and just claim it's an Article 2 power of his. When the when now that the Senate and the House is going into recess and she would stay in that position on a recess appointment until the midterms. And there's a whole bunch of people he's going to have to try to shove through. We're going to see a whole bunch of recess appointments. He hasn't gotten one federal judge confirmed. He hasn't gotten one U.S. attorney confirmed in six months. So and even though it's never been used before in the history, a recess appointment to appoint a judge to a position because it's supposed to be a lifetime appointment. Watch. He'll try to shove Emil bovey into the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, his former criminal defense lawyer, and have him sit there for a year and a half and then see what happens at the midterms just to stick it to America, America and the Constitution. So we haven't heard the last of Alina Haba. I mean, right now they haven't filled the position. Although when you and I wake up in the morning, that could be, you know, that could be, of course, changed. So that's where we are with, with Alina Haba. That was a question also from Blue Tinks in our sub stack who said, please give us a good update on Alina Haba. And I think we just did. Good. So let's talk about the Abrego Garcia matter as we come into the home stretch here for Legal af. And just to remind everybody, he got brought back to the United States from the dark recesses of the seacot supermax prison in El Salvador at the last minute after they, the Department of Justice, conjured up a phony manufactured indictment that looks like they're going to walk away from. For human trafficking. Not human smuggling. Human trafficking. I'm sorry. Human smuggling. Not human trafficking. And there is a difference. There's no real coercion in smuggles. I want to be smuggled. Please smuggle me. Trafficking is coercion. I don't want to be kidnapped and trafficked. And so smuggling was like a whole bunch of people in a car. That's smuggling. And so. But nobody really believed this, including the judges in Tennessee, where they brought him back and put him in a federal detention center. He had been. He's been sitting in a federal detention center, basically protect himself and be protected from the Trump administration, who has already said, although not. They can't seem to get their act together, that they are considering maybe removing him to another country not named El Salvador. But they. They don't want to tell the judges where it is or was it could happen. And the judges are all fed up. You got Judge Crenshaw in Tennessee. He was the Article 3 judge. You got Judge Holmes, his magistrate, and you've got Judge Zinnis in Maryland, and you've got orders now, where it looks like they're cooperating. I'm talking about the judges and working together. It's sort of like the velociraptors on Jurassic Park. They're starting to work together. And, Karen, you want to outline what Crenshaw slash Holmes and Zinnis just did about Abrego Garcia, because he's coming home.
- [51:52]
Michael Popak
Yeah. So there's. There's, as you laid out, there's two cases. There's the criminal case in Tennessee, and then there's this immigration case in Maryland. Okay. And so these cases are going on side by side with each other. And the criminal case is the one that they created in order to have something to hold over his head so that they can deport him. This is. This criminal case happened a long time ago, many years ago, and it's based on a traffic stop. They never brought a smuggling case against him then. All the evidence is from back then. But while he was accidentally, mistakenly, whatever you want to call it, taken to El Salvador, and they refused to bring him back, saying they didn't have the authority to do it, despite the Supreme Court and everybody else saying you have to facilitate his return. They literally did a colonoscopy on his life. They found that there was a traffic ticket. They did this whole huge investigation and put together this case, and it's charged him with human smuggling. And so that's what they used to bring him back. And, and they brought him to Tennessee. And as a result, there was a bail hearing. Right? Because the, the, the law basically says there's a presumption of release. Unless you're a danger to society or you're not going to come back to court or you're charged with a violent crime, there's a presumption that you should be released. And that was a huge shorthand. It's obviously more complicated than that. But, but they had a bail hearing, and at the hearing they called a witness, and at the hearing, they kind of kicked the tires on the case. And the judge ruled that he will come back to court, that he's not at risk of fleeing, and he's not a present danger to anybody, despite all the things that the government tried to, to basically drum up about him. And so the judge ordered his release. And what was so ironic is the reason he might not return to court, the reason he's a danger to not return to court, because that's one of the things that goes into whether or not to release someone is are they going to flee? The reason that they gave saying that, that he should be held in and that he's not going to come to court is because they are going to deport him. That's why. And the judge basically says, no, no, no, that's not the standard. This is. He wants to come back to court. You're the one government making the decision to attempt to deport him. And so you can't hold that against him because he wants to come back to court, he wants to stay in this country, he's not going to, to flee. So he was ordered released. The magistrate judge gave a stay for about a month while they figure all of this out and work out the logistics, partly because there's this other case going on, right? You've got this case in Maryland in front of Judge Zinnis where there was an emergency motion to return him to Maryland after he's released from Tennessee. And the court granted that emergency motion. This was brought by Abrego Garcia. And this way, because what Judge Zinnis says is basically what the law is, you have to put him back into the same place he was before you mistakenly deported him. You have to put him back in the exact same position he was in, meaning he's not detained, he's here lawfully, et cetera. And the order specifically says when he's released in Tennessee. You are prohibited from taking him into ICE custody in Tennessee. You must restore him to his ICE order of supervision in Baltimore. And if you are going to initiate third country removal proceedings, you must provide 72 business hours notice to him and his counsel. And so what they're basically saying is we're putting him back to where he was, the same position he was in, and you are going to give him due process. And that is what is going on in Tennessee and in Maryland, and that's where we are. So he's going to be released at some point and we'll see what the government does because they're not even sure. At the hearing they were basically like, well, we're not really sure. We don't know what we're gonna do. We think we're gonna, our present intent is what their words was, was to deport him to a third country. But we really don't know what country and what we're doing yet. So. But that's a judge.
- [56:45]
Karen Friedman
Yeah, Judge Zinnis took him into protective custody effectively in Maryland so she can keep a watchful eye on him. Doesn't mean the Trump administration isn't going to try to remove anyway and defy her. And at the same time, I'll just touch on Judge Boasberg in D.C. who's handling a case about the 250 people not named Abrego Garcia, primarily from Venezuela. They were effectively just human trafficked, and that is trafficked by the Trump administration in a horse trade that they negotiated with two dictatorships, one in El Salvador and the other one in Venezuela, to have these people who never got the due process they were entitled to in the United States and are still under the jurisdiction of Judge Boasberg. They got shipped off to Venezuela to the Maduro Regiment, which the Trump administration has said is a killer regime that's at war with the United States. It's the foundation of the Alien Enemies Act. But they're, but we're okay to trade with the, with the enemy and trade human beings. So the 250 were sent there and 10 prisoners, including some Americans, came, came, came out. It's not okay. You know, they're the Trump, Trump world. Like, we got the 10 out. You traded the life and the liberty of 250 human beings that you had no right to send to El Salvador in the first place. And no, the ends don't justify the means. And that's what Judge Boasberg is trying to get to the bottom of. He scheduled a status conference, pulling everybody Together because in the filing that he was given, the person from ice, one of these removal directors, she said, well, we'll bring him back the 250 if you want us to. If we, if we're, if we're willing as a United States to facilitate it. And, and I'm like, what are you even talking about now? It's going to be up to you whether you're going to bring them back to a federal judge for their due process rights. And the aclu, which is handling the case, was like, that's not an answer that, you know, will they bring back these 250 for their due process abs corpus rights in this courtroom, yes or no? It's a or no question. And the judge is pulling everybody together to talk about that because all these things are related right in this, in this domino effect. The JGG case, the Abrego Garcia case and the, and as we'd outlined, the criminal case that's happening in Tennessee. So we're going to take another. Our last break for the show hit the subscribe button for the Midas Touch Network. Some amazing reporting going on right now on Midas Touch every hour of the day. And we've got 12 new videos that go up on the Legal AF YouTube channel. Take a minute. If you haven't checked it out yet, now would be a great time. We just crossed, I think 730, almost 730, 000 subscribers in just since September. We crossed the 200 and I think we're up to 220 million views of our work over there. All a testament to the fervent support of this audience. But we need your help. Let's be frank. We don't. It's not ratings, it's. And mainstream media. You see what's happening there. You want to keep us on the air. It's simple. Subscribe Midas Touch, subscribe Legal Layout. Come over to Legal Layout the substack. Do the exact same thing there. We got a new Instagram as long as we're there, New Instagram for Legal AF as well, that we just, that we just put up with a lot of shorts and other amazing content with a number of our contributors. And we've. I think we're up to about 10,000 in a week on the Instagram. So we're plowing through that and these are the ways to support what we do. And then of course, we've got our pro Democracy sponsors and here's our break with them. This episode of Legal AF is brought to you by Moink Box. Did you know four companies control over 80% of the US meat industry and that the largest share of US pork is now controlled by China. These meat giants use mobster like tactics to crush American family farms, flooding our food supply with sketchy additives and low quality meat. So what can you do about it? Here's where Moink comes in. Featured on Shark Tank Moink is standing up for family farms and your food security. Their meat comes from animals raised outdoors like nature intended. Their farmers get an honest day's pay and Moink delivers straight to your doorstep at a price you can actually afford. This is real American meat. Born, raised and harvested it right here in the usa. Moink is helping save rural America. I love it and you will too. Join the Moink movement today. Support American family farms and join the wait for it Moink movement today@moinkbox.com legal af right now and get free bacon for a year. That's one year of the best bacon you'll ever taste. But only for a limited time. Spelled M O I n k box.com legal af that's moinkbox.com legal af hey, I gotta tell you, I'm officially obsessed with laundry sauce. Honestly, laundry used to be the worst chore but now I actually look forward to it because my clothes smell amazing all day long. My personal favorite is the new Mojave peach set. Bright mandarin, warm cinnamon and that juicy sun soaked peach note just screams summer vibes. It's like a mini getaway every time I open the dryer. Plus these pre measured pods take all the guesswork out of laundry and the scent lasts for hours. I've gotten so many compliments on how fresh my clothes smell. Friends even ask me if I'm wearing a new cologne. If you want to level up your laundry game, here's the deal. For a limited time, our listeners get 20% off your entire order when you use code LEGAL AF20@laundry sauce.com that's 20 off your entire order at laundry sauce.com with promo code LEGALIF20. After you order, they'll ask you where you heard about laundry sauce. Please tell them that we sent you. Make laundry day the best day of the week with laundry sauce. And we are back on the live edition of Legal af. Tulsi Gabbard, National Intelligence Director. I never thought my mouth would have to form that sentence. 17 different intelligence agencies. I thought she was gonna be fired after the Iran. The Iran bombing. She wasn't in the room. She was called on the carpet by Donald Trump. But they seem to have kept her around for a reason. Karen, why don't you report on what is going on with her? Having reviewed the files of five different investigative agencies and found something. I meant Donald Trump attacking Barack Obama.
- [63:38]
Michael Popak
I mean, look, this is the reddest herring of all red herrings. This is. They are throwing a ball to distract the golden retriever. And this is just an absurd, ridiculous claim that she is now saying. Look, she released, she basically says that Obama has manufactured this entire Russia thing as a witch hunt against Trump, which is just so ridiculous. And as you have said multiple times, I think there was five separate different reports that came out of people who investigated whether or not Russia interfered in the election. What they did and what she found was that Obama wanted, when they were looking into this, whether it was the Mueller report, the Mueller investigation and all of the other various entities, whether it was Congress, et cetera, who looked into this, she found in there that Obama wanted this to be done and be completed before he left office. And so he put pressure on the intelligence agencies to work quickly. That's it. Work fast. Because we want this done, if possible, before we leave office. And that's her big smoking gun, at least from what I can. This is so incomprehensible that it's hard for me to understand the crazy that she is saying, but that's what I can glean from what I'm hearing that she's trying to say. If I got that wrong, please correct me, Popak, because I don't speak crazy maga. I don't speak Tulsi Gabbard, but that's what I think she's coming up with here. But basically accusing him of treason and all of this stuff. So it just seems so ridiculous that I. That, you know, as you pointed out earlier in the show. Yeah, but as you pointed out earlier in the show, who cares? Because guess what? Trump v. Us. He's immune. So you're making a criminal referral for what? But anyway, go ahead. Better than I do.
- [65:46]
Karen Friedman
And that's what Alana, one of our substackers or one of our Blue sky people said, like, who even gives a crap about this with the immunity decision? Even if Obama did, of course he didn't.
- [65:56]
Michael Popak
Exactly.
- [65:57]
Karen Friedman
But you've got the Mueller report, the Durham report, the Senate report, all Senate reports signed off by Marco Rubio, who's now the Secretary of State because he was the head of the Intelligence Committee, the Intelligence Assessment report, all looked at all of the evidence about this and the Inspector General's report for the Attorney General, including bipartisan you know, even when MAGA was in and back in 2020. And so, and all of them said the same thing, that there is no collusion with the intelligence community or with the Democrats, certainly not Barack Obama to do what and, and it's again, as we said at the top of the show when we were talking about how you define things. Things. Everybody, everybody knows that the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians until they were recently bombed, have been working overtime through social media, artificial intelligence, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok to put each other, put Americans at each other's throat to make us weaker. And the beneficiary of that, I'm not saying he was in. He's. He's working with the trolls directly, but he's a, he's what we would call in the law a third party beneficiary of their activities. They're rowing in the rowboat in the same direction because the Russians and our enemies, our other enemies, they want, want to undermine America and make Republicans hate Democrats and Democrats hate Republicans because in that seething cauldron they win because we're weaker as a people by the mind games and the mind are we on late night of the of our this is, this is brainwashing and mind games. This is the Manchurian Candidate. It and people don't realize it because they're clicking around so many things. It's like oh, here's here's a new you know, whatever. And oh, look, look at that. Look at Obama in jail and and a fake AI Hillary Clinton saying something or, or, and and they can't just discern real from fake. Like right now, Midas Touch is running a deposition video. I think it's got to be from the what came out of the Florida Epstein files, but a deposition where he took the 5th a 5th amendment and against self incrimination when asked if Donald Trump hung out with him with young girls and during his deposition in a video. But if you're clicking around the the you the, the metaverse and the and the Internet that looks like anything else that's up on Tick Tock that's fake or not fake fake. And our enemies exploit that and Donald Trump is the beneficiary of it. And they want Trump to be the president of the United States because he creates such division and hatred that they could never dream of creating. He does more for their cause in Russia than they could ever do on their own. And so it's not collusion in the traditional sense like I believe there's although it could be operatives within the Trump world who are working and meeting secretly in Gorky park with the Russians to kind of. That's not that. It's that they are trying to put us at each other's throats and that's Donald Trump's key to success as well. And so that's what we're watching, this other collusion bullshit. I don't speak MAGA that well, but that's Tulsi Gabbard and that's what they're going to use her for. She's a crash test dummy. So is Pam Bondi and they're going to continue to use these people as meat puppets to be propagandists for the Trump administration and for Donald Trump personally. That's all he wants around him. It's all he wants around him. That's why he wants Alina Hobbs, because they will do. They will do anything. You know, it reminds me of the old lawyer joke that I was told first day of law school by my Duke Law professor in contracts and it stuck with me ever since. I'll just get to the punchline. You know, scientists were using lawyers instead of rats for their scientific experiments and when they had to justify why they were using lawyers instead of rats, the punchline is there's just some things you can't get rats to do. Ta da. And so that's all he wants around him. The people that will do literally and say literally anything. The crap that comes out of the social media and communications department for the Trump administration and their rapid response team is eye poppingly crazy crap propaganda. But it gets mixed in to the whole news cycle. We're going to talk next about, going to talk next about that. So I guess the punchline, the upshot is just ignore Tulsi Gabbard. The Trump administration does. Nothing's going to come out of it a criminal referral. This is just ways to distract, as you said, the golden retriever tennis ball to distract from a really bad daily news cycle related to Epstein promoted by, you know, Midas touch and legal af. You want to move on to our sort of media world. What did you take?
- [71:41]
Michael Popak
Absolutely.
- [71:42]
Karen Friedman
What'd you take away from, you know, Jimmy Kimmel getting threatened, Jon Stewart getting threatened and Stephen Colbert getting fired. And why don't you pick up with that and then we can kibitz a little bit about it.
- [71:58]
Michael Popak
I mean, let me start with how much I love John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I mean, I've been watching those shows. I mean, there was a time, and I'm embarrassed to say it, but Decades ago. Basically that's where I got my news because I wanted to hear what they had to say about what's going on in the world. And they're brilliant and they've done such incredible public service and they're just fun to watch. So I am appalled at what they are doing, what's happening to them. But at the same time, the fact that CBS first started with Canning 60 Minutes and basically, you know, that was again, I'm a 60 Minutes watcher. You know, I'm a person of a certain age. I grew up watching 60 Minutes. Look forward to their reporting. I think it's an incredible show and they've done incredible pieces throughout for decades. And as soon as they, CBS basically jettisoned that. And now Stephen Colbert is just unbelievable to me. But honestly, bye bye cbs. Those are the only two things worth watching as far as I'm concerned. So I think what we're watching is we're watching the demise of mainstream media and legacy media. And Midas Touch was one of the first who really has discovered kind of what the American people are hungry for and looking for. And everybody's trying to play catch up at this point. But I can't wait to see where the Stephen Colbert's and the Jon Stewarts and everybody else lands because they don't belong in this corporate censorship that clearly is happening. So I'm thrilled in a way that it's happening. And welcome come over to us. Come over to this side. And I can't wait to see them unfiltered because if this was filtered, I can't wait to see them unfiltered. But look, it's going to start happening clearly and, and you know it's going to happen one way or another. Either they're going to get fired or they're going to die a slow death because nobody watches those channels anymore. Everybody is coming over and wants to see who is, you know, who is it that is going to tell them the truth that doesn't have some shiny glossy corporate sponsorship, right? You and I podcast wherever we are. I'm in another state on vacation right now, sitting in a room, right? And I don't have fancy microphone, I don't have. I've got my earbuds in and that's that, right? And you do the same thing from all over the place that you know, and we tell the truth, we read the things ourselves. We're live right now. I love seeing my sister Jill is in the comments. My, you know, Julie Gaines, a small business owner, she owns Fishes Eddie in New York. I see her in the comments. I love seeing that. I love the questions that are coming up and, and the people are supporting us, and they're coming here for this authenticity. The fact that we're engaging with them, the fact that we're breaking news on the air as it's literally happening. Columbia University settled while we're doing this podcast, and that's what's happening. And so they were the ones, but they were the first ones who were basically telling it like it is and telling the truth. And now they're suffering the consequences because what's happening is they're all capitulating to Donald Trump the way now Columbia University is and others have. So, you know, you're going to see a lot of. A lot of people are going to, especially with this Epstein thing, just to bring it full circle. I think, you know, the Epstein thing, I think you're going to see a lot who are the real people and who aren't and who is willing to call it like it is and stand up to. Stand up to what's happening and who is not. And I think we're seeing it play out right before our very eyes with, with, you know, with the comedians. And I love that they're all supporting each other, too. It was so great to see them in the audience supporting Stephen Colbert when he did the Go f yourself comment.
- [76:10]
Karen Friedman
So, yeah, I've loved, I mean, Colbert in particular, you know, like you said, if you're a certain vintage. I remember when he'd only been on the air a couple of years and he hosted the White House Correspondence dinner, nobody really knew who he was outside of the Comedy Central bubble. You know, we knew him as a phony reporter for Jon Stewart. And the memo hadn't gotten out, for instance, that he was really going to play this Persona. You know, I'm not talking about the Colbert show now. I mean, when he did on a Comedy Central and he just stayed in character and George W. Bush was the president that was there and he had the best line ever. I still repeat it. We knew who he was, but a lot of people in that audience didn't know who he was, including the president. And he got up and he said, Mr. President. But I don't know why people in the media are saying that your administration is sinking like the Titanic. It's not sinking. You know, again, he's supposed to be a faux Republican, pre Proto Maga Republican says it's not sinking. And everybody like, sort of like nodded, like wondering where this is going. He said, Your administration is soaring. It's soaring like the Hindenburg. And that line, which made me laugh out loud. It's like 20 years later and I still think about it sums up Stephen Colbert for me. And we need those points of view. And if Midas Touch is not the home and legal AF is not the home, we certainly are in conversation with a number of these people. They have to get off of mainstream media because corporate ownership has corrupted the ability of the subsidiary that's supposed to be a news or comedy channel to have first their First Amendment rights and freedom of the press. And you know, we just saw reporting coming on the air that Jeff Bezos is thinking about buying CNBC to go along with Amazon, to go along with the Washington Post. Another billionaire owns the LA Times. The only, the only thing that's safe right now is, you know, the New York Times that is owned by the Ox Scholzberger family for the last 170 years. And they don't give a crap and they're not going anywhere. And so that's why, you know, you can. I, I don't totally believe everything I read, but I always think it's a good place to start reading what they, they're reporting. They're driving. They successfully drive Donald Trump up the wall. Washington Post used to be owned by the Graham family. That's over. CBS used to be left alone when it was an independent company and it was, as you said, known as the Tiffany Network because they were in the building where Tiffany's was and Walter Cronkite, home of Uncle Walty and Edward R. Murrow. 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace. Done, done. And the next 60 minutes and the next nightly news is not on corporate owned media. It's on Midas Touch. It's on legal af. It's on substack. Like we have a legal AF substack with live reporting going on there. Because you and I never look over our shoulder. Nobody tells us what we're going to say. We don't get debriefed by the brothers after a podcast. Like, well, did you really have to go that far on that last comment? Nobody. We barely know what we're going to say on an episode, let alone clear it with anybody. Who would we clear it with? And the first day I'd have to clear it with somebody before or after is my last day on the channel. Well, I don't have to worry about that illegal af, but on Midas and it would never happen. And that's the safe space that we've created. But now more than Ever. We need. This is that pitch there, right? We need to stay on the air. And the only thing we ask for is your thumb to hit the subscribe button on Midas, on Legal AF the YouTube channel, and Legal AF the Substack. And then we've got this podcast, this thing that started it all for us called Legal af and Legal af, the podcast started. God, it's like a garage band, right? And now, and now look where we're at. Top 20 in YouTube rankings in the United States regularly. Top 50 on the audio version. But we could, let's be frank, we could use some loving. We could use a little, A little bellows, a little oxygen, more downloads on the audio side, five star comments and reviews, that kind of thing on the video side. This is where you're at right now. For those that are watching us live record, we could use people joining us, watching us, watching the YouTube, listening to the audio, going back and forth. It matters. We're not done with building because the day that we stop, it's like a shark. The day that we stop moving, moving and growing is the day that we die. And so we'll do our part. We just need, frankly, the help on the other side of the glass. And we know you like the content because we know it from the comments and from the rankings and the ratings. So this is your opportunity. Go out and hit those buttons that we so desperately need to continue to bring you what, what you like and what you enjoy. On Midas, touch an illegal AF in it. And as Karen said, I mean, I've. I don't know, maybe in five years, I probably missed, I don't know, six shows, maybe eight. Karen, the same. You know, we bring in a doll when one of us gets sick or we're in transit. We're just on a plane. We just can't. Short of being on a plane or sick. We're. We are behind the microphone, wherever that may be. I did hours of podcasting while I was on holiday overseas with my family till I was plus 7 hours from my normal time zone. And I was working till 1 o' clock in the morning to keep the content coming, to commune with this community that we vibrate on the same frequency because it's so important. So do you. You, you, you're running a. Lord knows if people saw what we look like one minute before we went on the air or where we were, they'd be amazed at what we were able to pull off for a show. And it's all a testament. We do it for the audience. Because we're so in love with, frankly, with the audience. Right, Karen?
- [82:22]
Michael Popak
Yeah, no, it's the best. I've been sitting here reading the comments and during the show, and it's just while you're talking, I am also listening to what you're saying, of course, but I'm reading the comments and it's just. It's what keeps you going right at the end of the day, just to know that we're all part of this amazing community. And I just look forward every Wednesday to being here and being with all of the people who are here with us live tonight and being with you, Popo. So, yeah, it's just really, really great.
- [82:52]
Karen Friedman
So why don't you guys light it up? Hit that heart symbol so Karen and I can see it. Hit those hearts. It's really. There she is live and live and in person. And we got great content. We're doing some great things. I've got a new podcast on Tuesday nights called the Intersection. Midas brothers finally threw me the key and said, here, you want to show? Here you go. Tuesday nights at 8pm and that's a new community that we're building there on this Midas Touch YouTube channel as well. So we've reached the end of another, hopefully entertaining and fascinating episode of Legal af. As we sit at the intersection of law, politics, and the defense of our democracy, one of my good friends, Karen Friedmann McNifolo. I'm Michael Popak. Shout out to the mic. Midas. Mighty and illegal. A Erskine.