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- [00:01]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
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- [00:29]
Michael Popok
And Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other. When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a 4 liter jug. When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping. They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip. Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool. Whatever you were made to outdo your holidays. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to travel everyone's loving family.
- [01:00]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Freedom from T Mobile we'll pay off.
- [01:02]
Michael Popok
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 16 128GB 8999 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. Oh, you've reached the rapid fire edition of the midweek edition of Legal AF with Karen Friedman, Igniflo and Michael Bobach. We have so much to talk about. I'm not even going to do an introduction. You're here. You've been with us for five years. We vibrate on the same frequency. You know Karen, world class former prosecutor, defense lawyer. You know me, Major Kipitzer, used to be a lawyer. Play1 on YouTube. You know, we get together at least once a week, talk about the things at the intersection of law and politics and the defense of our democracy that matter. And let's get to it. Karen. Speed round Epstein. This is like word association, Rorschach test. Epstein Donald Trump's accidental confession about why he's pissed off at Epstein at the time and why he stopped having a relationship. I'll give you a hint at how to do that. When he with the fact that that Epstein was poaching the young girls that Donald Trump wanted to have work at his Mar a Lago. That's the reason that does not help him. I will ask the former prosecutor what she, what she thinks about this. When he was out of gas in Scotland and he, and he gave this statement about he was stealing young girls from me at Mar a Lago and why that doesn't help him in the COVID up of the scandal because that is swirling around and stenching around his administration. Then we're gonna put together right after that this Boseberg, Judge Boasberg, Alina Haba, Emil Bovey, the Bovee Boasberg Haba segment and what it ultimately means. And then I want to talk about a really great topic you came up with when we were doing the formation of the show. Redistricting. Cause it's something that really matters. There's not enough attention paid to it. And we're going to end the episode on redistricting. And you have a great idea about your old office, the Manhattan DA and Ghislaine, Ghislaine Maxwell and the Manhattan. I want to talk about that as well. So why don't you. What did you learn in the last 72 hours in this rapidly moving story that is Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump's inability to solve for the equation of how do I get the F out of this Epstein scandal? What have you learned?
- [03:45]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
I mean, first of all, the more he talks, the more he just digs his own grave. It's like he just can't help himself. And he was the fact that he was talking about the fact that they were, yes, they were best friends. They were thick as thieves, both in New York and in Florida. They had all sorts of social, there's all sorts of pictures of them together at various social activities. In fact, they were so close that Donald Trump, as reported by the Washington Post and now is the subject of a $50 million legal battle that he's suing Rupert Murdoch for. He also participated in his bound birthday book where he hand drew a drawing of a naked woman and then signed his name in Sharpie where the pubic hair region would be. That's how close they were. Those are supposed to be his closest friends and family. Well, obviously that's a problem for Donald Trump. And, and people who have seen these files, the quote unquote Epstein files that there's all these fights over have said Donald Trump is all over the place, up and down those files and those folders, all over the place. So he's squirming, he's trying to get out of it. He's Trying to make excuses. He's saying, oh, well, we had a falling out years ago, hadn't seen that guy in a long time. And apparently that is apparently true, that they had lost. They weren't as close in recent years. But he says it's because that guy was a creep. In other words, he knew that he was a sexual predator. He knew because he was stealing employees, young employees, young women employees from Mar A Lago's spa. First of all, what does that say about Mar A Lago and their spa? That they have all these young girls working there. But in any event, that's apparently what the falling out was over. What's troubling to me is what happened after that. So, okay, they have a falling out for whatever reason. I think it's pretty clear it was over a real estate deal and they were bidding on the same piece of property in Florida, that it wasn't about young girls. But be that as it may, what Donald Trump has done since then, I think is beyond atrocious. He has engaged in this whole Epstein file, talking out of both sides of your mouth, and he is just digging a grave for himself. That, thankfully, is even the right wing MAGA people who want these files to be released. Thankfully, they're not giving up on that. And so what's happening now is the Senate Democrats moved to compel the Trump administration to release Epstein material. It was led by New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who's the minority leader, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, and plus seven other Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. They sent a letter to the Department of Justice based, basically saying, asking them to turn over the files. And this is something called the Senate Rule of Five, which is what it's colloquially called. It's a statute from 1928, believe it or not. I love that the Democrats are invoking these old laws that aren't used very often, just the way the Trump administration likes to do. And this law basically gives government agencies they have to comply if there are relevant information, if there are five members of a particular committee, which is the chamber's chief oversight panel, if they request it. So this is a little known rule, and there's one in the House, there's one in the Senate. I think the House actually requires seven members, and for the Senate, it's five. And Chuck Schumer got that. And it's caused this huge rift within the Republican Party. In fact, it was so dramatic that, as we've talked about over the last couple weeks, that Mike Johnson, he shut down the House early to go to recess and we'll see what ends up happening. Look, both parties have invoked this special law that can get all these files if they ask for it, but it's never gone all the way up to the Supreme Court. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes. But it's really interesting that they are invoking this. This is the Statutes 5, United States Code 2954. It says the executive agency on request of. And then they insert the Committee on Homeland Security and the Governmental affairs of the Senate or any five members thereof shall submit any requested of it relating to any matter within the jurisdiction of the committee. We request the full and complete Epstein files as identified by the DOJ and the FBI. So it's a great letter that Chuck Schumer wrote with these requests. He basically puts in Trump and Bondi's language about what there is and that it exists and that I'm going to release it, but now I'm not. And it's really going to push this issue, at least in a really big way. So I, I'm, I'm really excited to see how this plays out.
- [08:46]
Michael Popok
Yeah, that's on the Congress side. And then we've got the people finally waking up to the the relationship between Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyer and Todd Blanche, which I reported on last week with the exact same clip. Politic Politico woke up this week and found the clip that I found last week of a giggling Todd Blanche on a little watched podcast, although I watched it, that is what was run by David Oscar Marcus, the lawyer for Ghillen Maxwell, in which they were giggling like schoolgirls and obviously have a close relationship. Neither one of them are transparent about their relationship, which is obviously a part of this cover up in conspiracy. Now the mainstream media woke up and said, wait a minute, these two look to be buddies. Yeah, they're buddies and there's a lot of buddies involved in this. Dershowitz and Marcus are buddies. Dershowitz got accused, although she eventually retracted it, got accused by Virginia Joffre before she killed herself in April of being part of the whole island of, of Dr. Epstein and the problems there. And he's best friends with Marcus from their days at Harvard. Epstein repression. Dershowitz represented Epstein and got him that non prosecution agreement in 2008 in the Southern district of Florida that if they didn't get that it would, it would have they properly prosecuted him. Maybe hundreds if not thousands of women and girls would not have been sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein. So that's on Dershowitz now. Dershowitz is turning around without revealing to the public that he was involved and represented Epstein to get that non prosecution agreement that Ghislaine Maxwell is using at the United States Supreme Court in the last several days to get her out from under her conviction. Even though she's not named in the non prosecution agreement. She's not named, she wasn't a signatory, she didn't participate, she didn't sign, doesn't deal with the Southern District of New York. Notwithstanding all of that, Dershowitz never reveals his relationships to any of these people, which is also part of the COVID up. And now you've got the questioning that I did a week ago coming in. I just saw a video on one of my quote unquote competitors who said, oh, maybe the conspiracy started when they fired James Comey's daughter three weeks ago. Who prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell. I said, yeah, maybe they did. I said that three weeks ago. That was the start. You get rid of the line prosecutor who knows everything about the case first. Because I'm sure the conversation, if we ever get the records between Blanche and David Oscar Marcus, the lawyer for Ghislaine Maxwell, happened sometime. Like we got to get rid of the prosecutor. I got to be able to go into this alone without any knowledge. This is Blanche's thought process. We got to get rid of her, you know, oh, it's good she lost part of the Diddy case. Good. That'll be the people think it's over that let's get rid of her. And he goes in to meet with. You've been a prosecutor goes in to meet with on an immunity immunity that Trump signed off on of a convicted child sex trafficker for two full days and doesn't take any of the prosecutors that prosecuted the case along with her with him. He doesn't know the case well enough. He doesn't want to know the case well enough to be able to catch her in a lie, which is part of the immunity deal. But of course you know that that gets ignored. So this Dershowitz Marcus, Blanche connectivity gets ignored by mainstream media, although we've been talking about it at length on the Midas Dutch network and on Legal AF and what it means for the overriding cover up. And it's the Dems. You and I actually talked a couple years ago about the Gang of Five, the rule of Five, because that's what you got to do when you're out of power. When you're out of power and you can't get the committee chair to sign off on your subpoenas. You gotta do something else. Unfortunately, there's these other ways of large groups getting together and forcing the issue. And this is what you got. This is the playbook. When you're out of power, when you're a party out of power, trying to get back into power, it's one of the problems that Democrats are having in their kind of reputation right now. I mean, I wasn't shocked when I saw 36% of America would trust the Democrats. With the government almost, if not a little bit lower than Trump, it's because they're out of power and it's very difficult to see what they're doing. You know, there's only so many times you can take to social media, so only so many times you can interview Jamie Raskin or Cory Booker. I love them. There's only so many things you can do about, you know, what they're doing to challenge. Oh, you know, I object. I strongly, I strenuously object. Until we get back into power, making real change for the American people's lives is more difficult. And so we have to deal with that. Talk about your thought process about what your old office could do related to Ghislaine. Ghislaine Maxwell.
- [13:44]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Yeah. So just for, you know, the heck of it just batting around in my head, could the Manhattan DA's office open up an investigation and subpoena materials and really look at this case as well, and, you know, there's, there's, it's an interesting exercise to go through in your head. There are some logistical hurdles. One of them is double jeopardy, because there are final adjudications. In both the Epstein case and the Maxwell case, she was convicted and sentenced and he was abated. His case was, it's called, abated by death because he's dead. So anyway, what are you going to do? You can't prosecute somebody who's not alive. So the question is, what could they do? Could they then issue subpoenas and try to get evidence and, and see what is out there? There are some tricky aspects to that, not just because of double jeopardy, but because of discovery laws. When you prosecute someone, let's say they do get a third party, somebody else who had sex with an underage person. There's depending on the age, et cetera, and trafficking and rape laws in New York, it could happen from a statute of limitations period, even though it was a while ago. But there's discovery laws that require the D office to be able to turn over so many Documents that I don't know that they could have access to because the feds would refuse to turn it over. So there are some logistical problems with prosecution. But there is one thing that I think the Manhattan DA's office can and should do. And I say the Manhattan DA's office because some of the allegations were here in Manhattan and they can open up a grand jury investigation. If you remember in Georgia, for example, Fani Willis did a grand jury investigation first and then there was a report and a recommendation and then the criminal case. Then they assembled a new grand jury and brought an actual criminal case. And that can happen in New York too. And in fact New York has always issued grand jury's investigations. Not a lot, but maybe one or two a year. And it's over some issue like this, frankly, something to figure out. Why did Jeffrey Epstein get such a sweetheart deal in Florida despite all of the things that are going on? What did people know like Donald Trump and others and just what the extent of the abuse was here and whether there are any other third parties, meaning other people who also engaged in these acts with underage, underage girls. And so if they were to do that, what they would do is they would open up an investigatory grand jury, they would issue subpoenas, they would call witnesses and at the end they would issue a report. Again, it's not a prosecution, but it's a report on the issue, on the matter, on the situation on the case. So there are things that if they wanted to, they could do. But I don't think anyone should over promise because there are some limitations in based on what we just talked about. And frankly Ms. Defendant Maxwell is saying that when Jeffrey Epstein received a non prosecution agreement that that should apply to her too. So she's trying to stretch that, which I've never seen something like that apply to a co conspirator. But that's what she's trying to do. That the sweetheart deal that he got in Florida where he pled to like a misdemeanor or something crazy like that, and in exchange everything else got forgiven, that she's now making an application before the court saying that should apply to her as well. But I've never seen that before. I've never seen a co conspirator or a co defendant also get swept up into an umbrella of a deal.
- [17:44]
Michael Popok
Well, the agreement does have a mention that the co conspirators and there's four that are named and then other co conservation conspirators that are not named won't be prosecuted by the Southern District of Florida. So maybe, maybe that is a little bit different than other NPA non prosecution agreements that you entered into.
- [18:01]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Was she one of the ones named?
- [18:02]
Michael Popok
No. And you'd have to, in order for her argument to hold water, you'd have to believe that the lawyers for Epstein, including Alan Dershowitz, negotiated a narrow non prosecution agreement for their client, meaning only the Southern District of Florida. But for the, the co conspirators who were not their clients, they got them a national bar to prosecution anywhere in the United States. Who believes that?
- [18:28]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Yeah.
- [18:28]
Michael Popok
How is that even possible? So I get, I get the coconspirators couldn't have been prosecuted in Florida. I just don't get how that backs up on a, somebody who didn't participate, even though they're a co conspirator in the Southern District of New York and the Supreme Court is, I'm sorry, they may want to, they might love Donald Trump and want to bend over backwards on the executive unitary executive theory and give him all the powers, superpowers that they can. But child sex trafficking and somebody that's not the President of the United States. I just don't see this. And to be clear, because you and I talk a lot about in the courtroom experience because we both have it. She's not arguing, I want to make this clear to people. She's not arguing that she's not guilty. She's not arguing that she didn't get a fair trial. She's not arguing any aspect of her trial went awry. She's not arguing that evidence came in that shouldn't have that evidence should have come in that didn't. That there was jury tampering, witness tampering, prosecutorial misconduct. The indictment shouldn't have ever been brought. Grand jury problems shouldn't argue any of that. She's arguing I got convicted. However, I should never have been prosecuted because I was an unnamed co conspirator for this agreement from 20 years ago. And the government should stand by its deals and Donald Trump's the ultimate dealmaker, therefore, by the transitive property, Let me out of prison. That's her argument. I just don't, I just don't see the Supreme Court finding that remotely interesting. Yeah, right. But Marcus is looking. He's got a client. We all have clients. We all have, you know, we know people that have clients and we know he's doing his level best to try to get her that pardon, you know, and he's working it. You know, I joke in every one of my hot takes about it when there's a bank of, a bank of microphones, even if it doesn't involve his case. There's David Oscar Marcus in the last several days. If you didn't know him before, it's hard to miss him now. And he's just campaigning. And she's basically said, well, I got what I wanted, I might get a part. You want me to go to Congress? Oh, no, I don't think so. Unless I get a full immunity and probably a pardon, you're never going to see my, the backside of my ass is sitting in Congress or I'm going to take the Fifth. And she will, because her number one goal right now is not to die as an old lady, a convicted sex trafficker in jail. That's her number one goal. And she's trying to figure out through David Ostremarkus whether Donald Trump's intent to save his own ass is greater than how immoral it would be for a president to save. To grant a pardon to a convicted sex trafficker, you know, that would be political suicide for anybody else. But the fact that he still hasn't ruled it out, he's just level, like, told the American people, I may do a lot of crazy things you don't agree with, but I would never pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. He won't say that because he's trying to figure out politically and strategically how it helps Donald Trump. And that's what he will do. And somebody will tell him that from the political calculus, it doesn't matter. You're ironclad, you're Teflon, you can pardon her or this guy or that guy, no matter what their crimes, and it will never back up on you. And if he believes that, he'll pull the trigger on it, and if he doesn't, he won't. And that's. And that's where. Only if it helps him. Only if he believes it helps him. So, Karen, when we come back, we're going to talk about Trump more. We'll talk about how the retaliatory judicial complaint that's been filed against Judge, the Chief Judge of D.C. circuit Court or federal Court Judge Boasberg by Bondi, just days after he is making a referral of DOJ lawyers for disciplinary proceedings, including maybe losing their bar licenses in the cases involving immigration and removal. We'll loop that into Alina Haba and all of the. I thought Gumby was flexible that what she is doing to keep this job, I would be embarrassed. I would be like, you know what? I can't I'm not getting this job. No, not her. There's no level beneath which she will not grovel in order to get this job. And we'll talk about a new filing that just happened, including Alina Haba. And then, you know, it had even earlier than I thought because I thought it was scheduled for Thursday. Emil Bovey is failed up criminal defense lawyer for Donald Trump, or as Todd Blanche calls his former law partner. He is the most principled person I've ever met and he's Donald Trump's DOJ warrior. He's now a 3rd Circuit Court of appeals lifetime appointed judge after a vote. And what does that mean for the 10 other federal judges that are up? What does that mean for recess appointments? We got a lot to talk about in that arena. Then I want to end it with something that is so important. Is redistricting coming off the 2020 census and how the Republicans are trying in red states to rewrite the maps in a way that completely disenfranchise Democrats. California's trying to do something similar, but the Republicans are really trying to do it in places like Texas. And we'll talk about that. But we've got great news for everybody. Five years into this experiment, we have sponsors who know what we're going to say. There's thousands of episodes of Legal af and yet they. Not yet. And knowing what we're going to say and knowing our audience, they're here for it. We just got some great news. We're in the top 20 for YouTube rankings of podcast of any genre. It could be, you know that 8 year old that unboxes toys, you know Rachel, who my daughter loves, you know he gets 700 million views of her singing.
- [24:09]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
That's Ms. Rachel.
- [24:10]
Michael Popok
I'm sorry, Whatever it is. I just want to know if she has an entire closet of blue overalls and pink shirts. I'm sure she does.
- [24:19]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Ms. Rachel is actually incredible. So she's 700.
- [24:24]
Michael Popok
You and I talk about our rankings and reviews. She gets 700 million views on the wheels of the bus go round and round. I love that.
- [24:33]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Yeah.
- [24:34]
Michael Popok
But in all that ranking of she doesn't have a podcast yet. Of all that ranking top 20, not bad for legal AF. So there's ways to support the show. One is the sponsors. If you've got disposable income, you find these products interesting. We've already vetted them and test them. I don't know exactly what's coming up next, but whatever they are, we've tried them out. We like them. Jordi helps us Curate them. That's one way. Then there's the podcast. Podcast always needs love. It's like a plant. It always needs attention and love and light. If that's the kind of plant, it needs water and fertilizer. Got to move it around the room so you find the right spot. That's our podcast. Audio downloads really help because that. That's on the audio side. So go over to wherever you get audio podcasts from, download, listen, reminder, all that good stuff for the Legal AF podcast, and leave a review. We still love our reviews. We read our reviews and they're important. Five stars and all that good stuff. Then you got the YouTube version, and we have clips of the YouTube version. And we need to continue to grow our YouTube audience. And you can help us with that as well. We've got a legal AF YouTube channel where we put up 10 to 12 new videos every day. I curate along with other contributors. It's Legal AF mtn, the MTN Signals that were collaboration with the Midas Touch Network and the brothers come over there. We just crossed 730,000 subscribers, 220 million views. And we're not. We're not even a toddler yet. We're not even a year old. But with your help, we need some love over there as well. We got a Legal AF substack that's a companion piece for that, where we post all of the filings and all of the complaints and my own analysis and other people's analysis and contributors all over them, all over the place in law and politics, all on the Legal AF substack. We launched a new Instagram, Legal AF Instagram, where we have shorts and videos and other interesting things. So these are all the ways where people say, how do you support this? And of course, the Midas Touch network hit the subscribe button for them because they're the mothership and keeps. They're the oxygen that we all breathe. So that's how we do things. But now we've got a word from our sponsors. Right now the headlines are chock full of data breaches and regulatory rollbacks, making us all vulnerable. But you can do something about it. Delete Me is here to make it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. As someone who spends a lot of time online for Legal af, I know how important it is to protect your personal information. I've gotten those emails. Your data has been compromised and it's frustrating, even scary. That's why I use Delete Me. Delete Me does all the hard work of removing your personal data from hundreds of data broker websites. 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I want to talk about Bozberg. I want to talk about Haba, I want to talk about Bove. We're going to do a pick them. You pick the one that you want to talk about first and you leave. Which one you want to talk about first?
- [30:26]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Well, I'm really outraged by what's happening to Judge Boasberg, I have to say.
- [30:31]
Michael Popok
Boseberg, you're on.
- [30:33]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
That's the one that just really irritates me that Judge Boasberg is the Chief Judge in D.C. he's a great judge by all accounts. He's being jerked around by the Trump administration in his various undocumented immigrant cases. And frankly, the Trump administration has already violated his orders and he's initiating contempt proceedings as a result. And he went to what's called the Judicial Conference, where this is the Judicial Conference of the United States. It's a national conference of judges. And not all judges get to go. I think it's one per circuit, not even one per district. And then it's like the chief judge in a circuit and then the chief judge of the appellate level and then the, the supremes. So it's a small, it's a small conference. And this is a conference that serves as the policy making body for the federal courts. So it convenes twice a year and they consider administrative and policy issues affecting the federal court system. And they make recommendations to Congress concerning legislation involving the judicial branch. This is something that has gone on for long periods of time and it's not public. It is a private meeting of judges where they can discuss policy issues, they don't Discuss individual cases, etc. And it's a, it's a real opportunity to, to kind of get together and, and come up with, you know, talk about concerns and things that are going on. And Pam Bondi filed an official complaint against Judge Boasberg, which, I mean, think about this. This is the attorney general of the United States filing a, an official complaint against, against a federal district judge, which is kind of outrageous and basically said it had it because it's against, against him. They filed it with the D.C. circuit. It went to a judge there. I don't know how to pronounce his name. Srinvazan Srinivasan. And this basically said that Judge Boasberg made, quote, improper public comments about President Donald J. Trump to the chief justice, meaning John Ro of the United States Supreme Court and other federal judges that have undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. Now, what's this about? On March 11, she says 2025, Boasberg attended a session of the Judicial Conference of the United States that she characterized as. Which exists to discuss administrative matters like budgets, security, and facilities. Well, if you look at online what the Judicial Conference of the United States actually is, it says it's a conference that makes policy for federal courts. It's not just about budgets and facilities and security. This is about policy. And so that's just complete false, the way she tries to characterize it of what this is. And the complaint goes on to say that he attempted to improperly influence Chief Justice Roberts and two, two dozen other federal judges because he expressed. What he said was that there are judges, his colleagues, who are of the belief that the Trump administration will disregard rulings of the federal court and trigger a constitutional crisis. Now, again, this is perfectly appropriate. He didn't talk about a particular case. He didn't talk about a preconceived notion about anything. He said, this is what the jud. My district are saying, that they have a concern about this. And he wanted to bring it up to the court. Well, to the chief justice in this private setting that's supposed to be private and confidential and a free place to discuss issues. So she just went off and is accusing him of trying to influence the chief justice, saying that he's violated his canon of ethics, that a judge has to uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary, that. That he has to act in ways that promotes public confidence, that he shouldn't make public comment on the merits of any matter. He didn't do any of those things. This was absolutely a private conversation. These were not public. This is leaked information from someone who was there. And these were comments relaying concerns of his colleagues. It wasn't anything about preconceived notions of his own. So, you know, it's really an attempt to intimidate Judge Boasberg and other judges so that they don't do things like enforce orders. And, you know, frankly, another thing Pam Bondi said is, oh, the Trump administration always follows court orders. Well, that. We know that's not true. We've covered numerous, numerous times where they actually haven't done that. In fact, there was a, I think 40 something page rule decision that Judge Boasberg had done basically essentially spelling out how they violated his order by sending 150 members of a gang that they're alleging are trend Aragua, who are Venezuelan to El Salvador. And that's what this whole thing is about, is that in fact that they aren't listening to his order. And so these are concerns that I think are perfectly appropriate to discuss there. And this is absolutely not a problem whatsoever. It would be like saying if a judge is in chambers talking to his clerks about an issue and they're sort of going back and forth on the issue that somehow if somebody leaks that or overhears that, that that was made public, that's ridiculous. So it's not, it is not a public statement. And certainly he didn't express that he had any preconceived notions if the reporting is accurate. You know, obviously we weren't there, but it was about his colleagues and concerns and what should they do about this? Because no attorney general or president in the history of this country that we know of has overtly defied court orders. In fact, Emile Beauvais, who were, who you teased already, that is the, was the criminal defense attorney who, who represented Donald Trump in the Manhattan DA case, they got a conviction, of course, was just elevated to the Third Circuit as a lifetime appointment for a judge, despite the fact that the numerous whistleblowers, I think for four whistleblowers, have come forward to talk about how unqualified he is for the job and the fact that he himself said that they are going to basically ignore court orders and use the F word in describing what they're going to do with these court orders. So there was a reason for, I mean, he was the number two in the Department of Justice up until yesterday when he was given this lifetime appointment. So there is reason to believe that they might in fact defy court orders because A, they have said they would and B, they have done it. And so it was perfectly appropriate thing for him to raise in the forum that he raised it. This is an absolute ridiculous, frivolous accusation that's going to go nowhere. It's ultimately going to be dismissed. And frankly, if Chief Justice Roberts had a problem with what Judge Boseberg said to him at this conference, he would have said something then and there. But he, there's no reporting that he did say anything. This is really just an attempt to delegitimize the justice system, the judicial branch, and frankly, chill judges and chill others from making difficult rulings for fear of retaliation. This is just more bullying on them.
- [38:37]
Michael Popok
And the complaint itself is retaliation because it comes on the heels. On last Friday, it was 72 hours after Judge Boasberg had before him Department of Justice lawyers in the JGG case, which deals with the 200 people that were sent in the middle of the night over his court orders, which are also the subject of his probable cause to find criminal contempt. That's been held up by two Trump judges at the D.C. court of Appeals, the circuit court, the appellate court for the D.C. federal Court, by Judge Rao and Judge Katzis, who have been just sitting on it since April. Just sitting on it. They state his contempt proceedings and just sitting on it. And pardon me, you know what's interesting.
- [39:18]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
About this, while you cough and clear your throat is, as I think about this, what if the judge holds a hearing? What's he going to do? Call Chief Justice Roberts to the stand? I mean, he's the, you know, he is the witness. Like, it's crazy to me, this whole thing anyway. Go on.
- [39:33]
Michael Popok
No, no. So the retaliation is so people know the timeline. Thursday, Boasberg calls into his courtroom all the lawyers for the Department of Justice, including the ones who had been outed on the one of three so far, whistleblowers against Amel Beauvais, including Erez Reveni, who worked under, well, ultimately under Bove as the number three in the Department of Justice, but really under Drew Ensign in the Immigration Litigation Division, and said in a March meeting that that's where Amel Bove told people, you are to tell federal to go f off and go f you. If they ask you anything about the Alien Enemies act and the Trump. Trump's orders to deport and remove people. You are not to give them information. You are not to tell them the truth. You're to lie to federal judges. That's. And what Boasberg said out loud on Thursday, this is three days before, in retaliation, this complaint was filed against him as he said I may not be able to move the probable cause for criminal contempt proceeding forward. And people are frustrated because I'm waiting on the appellate court, but the lawyers in front of me, he always talks about the lawyers in front of them. It's not the first time he's lectured the lawyers like Drew Ensign and others in the DOJ and said, you only got your professional reputation. You've only got your license. You know, you better be telling the truth. You better not be misleading the court you better not be suborning perjury or being contumacious. He's warned them before. And now he said this whistleblower that's come out, and that was just about Eros Reveni. There's been two more since then. He said that only strengthens my fact finding about the criminal contempt proceedings. But now I'm looking at you guys and I'm strongly considering making a recommendation, a referral to state disciplinary bar associations for disciplinary proceedings against your bar licenses, meaning getting disbarred. And then three days later, Pam Bondi citing something that happened in March. This is almost August, right? It happened, whatever it happened, it happened in March. Now they're going to try to claim, well, we didn't really learn about it until we were watching Fox News. And John U. Q A law professor at USC or ucla, I think UCLA said he just found out about it from some reporting from the Federalist Society. And they actually cited John Hugh to manufacture this issue and to try to make it unstale. They said, oh, July 17th. He was on television. We saw it. Okay. The event happened in March. And as you laid out perfectly, Karen, he's allowed in this conclave of judges to, at that point, four months into the administration to point out the obvious is that do we have. He questioned it? Do we have an administration that is disobeying and being disobedient to federal courts? And if so, what do we do about it? Where else are they supposed to talk about it? You know? And, oh, and then right after that, he started issuing all of these orders. No, he expressed a. A genuine concern as the Chief Judge of D.C. now, look, he's been on Donald Trump's shit list and on his radar since he was the second half of the grand jury, presiding judge for all things Trump criminal investigation, including the case in front of Judge Chutkan and part of the case in front of Judge Cannon in Mar a Lago. And he's the one that eventually ruled that Mike Pence had to testify. And so he's been on the crap list for Donald Trump in this list of, you know, when he went into office with his long list of retaliatory things he's going to do. You know, give me that list. Bozberg's been on there from day one. And so this is all just retaliation. Hopefully, Judge Srinivasan, who's the head of the appellate court that sits over Judge Boasberg, will see through this. And what they're looking for is not just a referral, like to have him his hand slapped for violating judicial canons. They want to remove from the JGG case, of course. They want the judge that has him in the crosshairs for a criminal contempt proceeding for lying to him removed from the case. Turning the world upside down. My gut is that Srinivasan is going to see through this. He's not going to make a referral. He's going to find nothing wrong with it. It's very similar to the tactics that Donald Trump used against Judge Merchan in the criminal conviction case of his up in New York where he filed bar complaints, judicial ethics complaints against him and the guy had to get defend himself and get cleared. Related to that. We will see. And you and I will follow it very closely. Let's switch gears and go to Haba. Kind of touched on both already. Haba. So Haba gets withdrawn from her nomination, she gets reappointed. They fire the person that the 17 judges picked to be the acting interim. Desiree Lee. Lee Grace, she goes by Lee Grace, poor 15 year prosecutor. She stepped into it. She was the, she was the acting interim for like less than a day. And then Donald Trump said, oh, no, I fire you. And then I'm going to make Galena Haba her own assistant. And then I'm going to elevate the assistant. Then I'm going to make her the special attorney under the Constitution with the powers to be the U.S. like, why do you want this job if this is what needs to happen? Is that what your resume is going to say, your obituary? She was once the acting interim under an illegal illicit appointment. I mean, you want the job. So now criminal defense lawyers like you and me filed a motion of a lawyer in particular at a drug case that was going to trial like next week to have her disqualified and to have like the indictment dismissed because she's not a properly appointed confirmed U.S. attorney and because she sued because 17 judges opposed her being extended in her role under this under a statute, they were all recused and disqualified. So it got referred by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, chief judge to another judge in the circuit, the Middle District of Pennsylvania, sort of sitting by designation as a New Jersey judge. And he, he put a hold on the trial. Imagine the defense team, they're like, yes, the trial's put on hold while he considers whether everything that Alina Haba touches gets voided because she's improperly appointed. And then she had to file a brief with all her crap. Why don't you take it from that perspective? And one last little Easter egg. The Lawyer who represents the criminal client, the drug dealing client, drug person client. He rents space in Trump, the Trump building at 40 Wall Street. You know, 40 Wall street downtown pretty well. And that's where he rents space. I made a joke that he needs to start looking for new space. All right, go ahead.
- [46:32]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
I'll say the. As a criminal defense attorney, I will say the alleged drug dealer. So I'm sorry.
- [46:38]
Michael Popok
You're right. It's all alleged. I love what he's doing.
- [46:41]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
I know. What's astounding and what I've never seen happen before is all federal court proceedings throughout New Jersey are canceled. They are literally getting administratively adjourned without a date because of this uncertainty about whether Alina Haba has the authority. Authority to serve as the acting U.S. attorney, different than an interim U.S. attorney, which. Her term as interim expired. And so it's really convoluted and really difficult to understand what it. What this is. But essentially, there is you there. There are different ways to become U.S. attorney. There's being appointed by the president officially and then being Senate confirmed, which is the normal way. It happens. Oftentimes, though, presidents will appoint the person that they are nominating as the interim so that they can get the hit the ground running while they go through the confirmation process. And that gives 120 days while you're in the interim. Well, her term expired, and Trump then had nominated her officially to be the U.S. attorney. And so she was no longer the interim. And so what happens next? The 17 judges in federal district court went to go vote and decide because they have the authority to do this, who's going to be U.S. attorney. They could have voted for Alina haba, but all 17 voted against her because or didn't vote for her, voted for this career prosecutor who actually has experience, who Alina Haba had enough respect for and the Republicans had enough respect for, because obviously, we know Alina Haba is not the ultimate decision maker. She's more of a MAGA puppet, if you will. They approved of Desiree Lee Grace, and she was by all accounts, a respected federal prosecutor. Whether she's Democrat or Republican, it shouldn't matter. It doesn't matter, because you're supposed to prosecute without fear or favor, which is what all prosecutors are supposed to do. You're supposed to be blind to politics, to parties, to all of that. It's just about whether the person committed the crime or not. And so she had the respect of Everybody. So all 17 judges voted for her, and they made her the interim United States Attorney or The United States, the acting United States attorney. Well, what does the Trump administration do? They fire her and then make instead they make Alina Haba, which she was the acting, which is different than interim. This gives her 210 days to be acting. And so but the argument is not over yet because there is a statute that says you can't be acting if you were also nominated by the president. And they're saying, oh, but he withdrew the nomination so that she can be acting for 210 days, which they did to try to play games here. But according to various legal experts who know about this sort of thing, what they're saying is it doesn't matter. It's not that whether you withdraw it or not, she was still nominated. And so you can't use this to get around the Senate confirmation process. And so the judges are saying, look, this is not, this is a, this is not non frivolous. And so as a result, because we have to pursue this, because I don't know, we have to, we have to kind of, we have to litigate this. We have to put everything on pause while we figure this out because otherwise everything that is done by that, by that office, by Alina Haba who signs every single indictment and has to sign everything that goes out, you know, she's the one who has the authority to prosecute, obviously to prosecute someone to take away their liberty. It's the ultimate power that somebody has. There's, you can not just anyone off the street can do that, obviously. So if her appointment is not legitimate, then anything she does will have a waterfall effect and not be legitimate. So they have it on pause while they litigate this issue. It's a very, very serious thing that's happening. And criminal prosecutions at the federal level in the state of New Jersey are on hold because it, that's, that's the.
- [50:48]
Michael Popok
Big I have not heard that reported that way. And I that that's one of the great of many attributes you bring to legal AF and to briefing our, our audience is that kind of nuance because I've seen a lot of people like oh abba, they focus on the Alina ABA drama part and they don't focus on the impact on the criminal justice system in New Jersey, the fifth largest U.S. attorney's office in America, and its deleterious impact of playing games with trying to get your office wife to be something that she can't be. I'll leave it on this in her filing that she just did to oppose this motion that I just talked about, she actually acknowledges on page two that there's something better than her. A Senate confirmed U.S. attorney because she said, well, regardless about me, this case should go forward with this alleged drug dealer because they were indicted by a grand jury and a Properly Senate confirmed U.S. attorney. I was like, well, that's self confessional. I agree with that. There is something better than you and stronger than you and I would. But then because she's so stupid, she doesn't even know. The other thing I loved about her filing, it was there was actually an exhibit where in the same letter, not even two different letters, she said, I resign from the office of Acting Interim U.S. attorney. Next slide. I look forward to serving as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey. I was like, couldn't you at least do that in two letters? I mean, it's so hokey and so half smart. It's just ridiculous. Well, we got to put our brain power on because when we come back from our next break, we got to dive into redistricting. And I don't want the audience's eyes to glaze over when we talk about voter disenfranchisement, the Voting Rights Act. I mean, I just learned, for instance in Miami that the roles have been purged of over 250,000 Democrats and only 40,000 Republicans based on things like signature and registration issues by the Republican head of the county, the county clerk, who's responsible for all these things, who's a Republican operative. And that's what's happening. You may think you're registered, but you're not registered. And if you live in a red state or a purpley state, depending upon who the person is responsible, the Secretary of state or others, go and make sure you are registered to vote because you don't want to find out and scramble on the day of the election that you get there, sorry you were taken off the rolls. That's what they are doing behind the scenes. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about redistricting, which, which is making the districts for congressional representation. How many seats are we going to have in the House come the midterms as Donald Trump tries to steal the midterm election before our very eyes. We can't let them do that. We're going to talk about all that now. We're going to talk about the ways to support the show. You know it Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Hit the free subscribe button there. We're doing some amazing work there. 1012 new videos every day. This podcast, top 20 on YouTube podcasts. You can you can help us by bringing more people to this audience? Come over to the audio version. We could use a little love there. We're in the 50 to 90 range in terms of ratings. It matters because we don't have a corporate parent, we don't have outside investors, we don't have a paywall. So this is it. As I joked recently in a hot take, if only like 10% of the people that watch my hot takes would just hit the subscribe button, we would, you know, I would stop having to ask. You know, it's like pbs. 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- [55:47]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
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- [57:15]
Michael Popok
Welcome back to the midweek edition of Legal AF with your co anchors Michael Popach and Karen Friedman McNiffalo redistricting, gerrymandering, things that come off the census, the acts of the Republicans in red states to make them redder in places where there are Democrats and blue dots in red seas trying to go after their seats are all coming to a head. We're watching it play out in Texas where they have rolled out a new map that eliminate five Democratic seats. Just eliminate them or make them so Republican oriented that they will be eliminated, increasing power in a state that Donald Trump only won. I say only by 54% because that wasn't bad. We're getting, we're getting closer in Texas. And of course, Donald Trump doesn't want us to get closer in Texas. He doesn't want it to be purple. He wants to be baked in red for a long, long time, especially at the midterms. So the fight is not for this hypothetical, you know, 16 months, 18 months from now, fights now over things like losing seats in Texas. Sure, we may gain a couple of seats in California. You know, New York, unfortunately, unfortunately, New York screwed it up and brought in some sort of, you know, this, this is why Democrats sometimes are bringing a knife to a gunfight. Sorry for that analogy these days, but they're not playing with sharp enough elbows and we're getting steamrolled by the Republicans who have their act together and are able to bring to bear in their states. They have no problems and no qualms about steamrolling Democrats, Democrats are always like, well, why don't we get an independent map maker? Why, why do we need to do an independent map maker? We need to gain as many seats in blue states as we're going to lose in red states. That's how this works. And I know it's, people get squeamish about that, that like, well, aren't we the better party? Yes. Aren't we above that? Yes. But that doesn't mean we're going to let them, you know, steal our lunch money every day on the, on the bus stop. I mean, it has to end or we're going to end as a party and the two party system is going to end. So there's a guy, Karen, particularly in Texas, that I learned a lot about in preparing for today, who's responsible for all of these maps. This guy. Who I'm going to find his name in a minute. This guy, Andrew Adam Kincaid, who I never heard of, is the executive director of the National Redistricting Republican Redistricting Trust. I don't know, they put the word trust at the end of it, make it sound better. He's the map maker. They're spending a lot of time and money making maps. And they've got a Department of justice and the Civil Rights Division with Harmeet Dhillon, who is doing Donald Trump's bidding by not opposing and not finding a violation of the Voting Rights act by anything the Republicans or Andrew Kincaid want to do or Adam Kincaid want to do. So everything, anything he draws, she's like, looks good to me. Looks like it won't violate the Voting Rights Act. So if the DOJ isn't going to do what they did under Merrick Garland and others, they're not going to defend the Voting Rights act, then that means public interest groups are going to have to go run into court and argue against redistricting with, with an opponent being the Department of Justice. This is the ramifications of elections and why elections matter. So, and then J.D. vance, why don't you pick up with J.D. vance maybe blowing the case that will eventually be filed and your own comments about this redistrict redistricting issue in Texas.
- [61:07]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Yeah, he put, he put up a tweet that he then had to take down and redo because he kind of showed his hand. One says the gerrymander in California is outrageous. Of their 52 congressional districts, nine of them are Republican. That means 17% of their delegation is Republican. When Republicans regularly win, 40% of the state Republicans in Texas are right to fight back. Well, Obviously, that. That wasn't. That was kind of an admission, essentially. So then he changed it to. The gerrymander in California is outrageous. So there are 52 congressional districts, nine of them. Wait, what did he. Hold on.
- [61:41]
Michael Popok
No, he had. How can they.
- [61:42]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Oh, how can this. Yes, exactly. How can this possibly be allowed? Exactly. Sorry. They took out the. Texas should fight back and add. How can this possibly be allowed? Which is, you know, clearly, clearly an admission that, look, the whole thing is screwed up. I've always thought you. Gerrymandering is wrong, frankly. And if there's anything resembling close to stealing an election that Donald Trump keeps saying, it's stuff like this. Right. It's ridiculous how they go through and they literally look at, okay, where are the black and brown people, where are the white people, where are the Democrats, where are the Republicans? And they stretch these boundaries to essentially isolate and contain people so that they don't have a voice. And it really just disenfranchises minority groups and doesn't represent the United States. But when you're deliberately. So, the way it's supposed to happen is every 10 years there's a census. And that's when states typically go through and say, let's look at who has come into our state. Where are they? And how do we give them representation? And you're supposed to fairly draw these maps, these lines, so that people are represented in federal elections. And that's, you know, there's the Voting Rights act, there's all kinds of case law that interprets this, including Supreme Court precedent. But gerrymandering, I think, is very problematic because it's political and it disenfranchises so many people. And here it's just blatant. And the fact that they're doing it not every 10 years, this is halfway through, this is five years. And they're doing it so that when the midterms come around, they. They can make sure that the Democrats don't regain any House seats. And why can they do that? Because the Constitution says that the time, place and manner of elections is up to the states. So states get to do stuff like this. And Texas, because Texas is. Is historically a red state, they love this. And so their laws allow for this. And other states like New York and California, because they care about things like fairness, because it is inherently unfair. If you were to talk to a kindergartener and say, is it fair to literally go and take a crayon and draw a map where you put certain people together just to get an advantage, is that fair? That wouldn't pass muster for a kindergartner. Imagine trying to do that in elementary school. It is so preposterous. But somehow we have come to accept this ridiculous way of living and of voting. And so we have this. And the Democrats, though, in blue states are like, you know what, this is fundamentally unfair. And so we, because we believe in things like fairness, even if it means we lose sometimes, we're going to pass laws in our states that say no, you're going to have things like independent commissions or we're going to take certain things into consideration. And so as you said, the Democrats are constantly bringing, I don't even know if they're bringing a knife to a gunfight. They're bringing just their fists to a gunfight. And we keep losing at 20 ways to Sunday. But this is the way, this is one of our biggest vulnerabilities is the fact that most of the state legislatures in this country are red. They're Republican led. And because the Constitution gives the time, place and manner of federal elections to the states, this is how one, one of the many ways they are going to potentially create issues. It's not fair, it's not right. And we have to fight back, as you said.
- [65:25]
Michael Popok
Yeah. And this is the way, you know, this is that portion of the show as we, as we end the show.
- [65:30]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
That's opinion.
- [65:32]
Michael Popok
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Action, action time. It's fists up, elbows up. People always ask me, what can we do about it? Okay, there's lots of things you can do about it. I mean, I just got invited and I'm going on Thursday to a town hall in a very red district in Miami being held at the Coral gables Congregational Church, 7pm on Thursday. By the, I mean, it's hosted by the Democrats, but I mean, all the Republican elected officials, including Congress people have been invited. I'm not sure who's going to attend. They may be tried in abstention, but I'll be there. And we're going to talk about voting, voting registration, the purging of the voting rolls in Miami of 250,000 Democrats versus 40,000 Republicans. What we can do about that? Now we know one of the, one of the benefits I think, of this show is to give you knowledge and power now so that you can do something about it. There's an old Chinese adverb or a proverb. Sorry, I've been working all day about when is the best time to plant a tree. It's 30 years ago. When's the second best time to plant a tree? Today. Today. And not worry about what you didn't do. Just lean forward, not back. And so we can't go back and fix the 2020 census. We can't go back and fix the election that just happened. We can't fix Harmeet Dillon being ahead of the Civil Rights Division. We can't fix the Supreme Court maga, right wing, totally emasculating or undermining the Voting Rights Act. We can't fix that. We have to work within the rules and the cards that we've been dealt. And so what we do is on the ground and on the street, we make sure that our people are voting. We make sure that we vote in important elections that aren't just presidential or general, that we make sure that we regain state houses. Because that's where it starts, right? They were smart, the Republicans, and they worked on the state houses and getting the boards of education and getting the local government positions and the Secretary of state positions. And we were asleep at the switch a little bit. We got to wake up. Gotta. We gotta wake up. And if we have. If we. If Trump hasn't woken us up, then I don't know what will. You know, he's like, you know, I won't say it, but offline. I will tell you what I was thinking. So get involved. Find your local, whatever your party affiliation is. If you're independent, that's great, too. There's ways for you to help with voter registration right now. There's ways for you to vote on call banking, you know, calling into senators and the rest to help with some of the things that are going on at the Senate level and to reinforce and support the Democrats who are working hard for you and leadership but need us. There's no greater. There's no greater position in America. It's not president, it's not congressperson or senator. It's citizen. Our framers and founders knew that and we know that, and so we're in this together. I don't want people to ever walk off the show and going, oh, this is just one terrible story after another. It's empowerment. It's about speaking truth to each other first and then taking that and putting it into action. So we're at the end of our show. Karen, last word for you on legal af. Before we sign off for our shout out to our Midas mighty and our.
- [68:49]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Legal afers, another one bites the dust. Popak Brown University settling with the Trump administration to unlock funds. And there's words that Harvard is making noises that they might settle to. So my last Words are Harvard, stay strong, don't capitulate and do whatever you have to do, but don't capitulate to the Trump administration. Those are my positive words.
- [69:12]
Michael Popok
Bad things happen when you bend over for Donald Trump. And I appreciate you calling out the Harvards. And now he's going after one of my alma maters, going after Duke and Duke Law. The new one is like, oh, the Duke Law Journal. Let people on for dei. I'm like, are you effing kidding me? Don't you have, don't you have a day job? Aren't you protecting our national security or economic security instead of running it all to ground?
- [69:39]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
I am told that hospitals are being told that you are not allowed to put your pronouns in your zoom name. You have to remove all of that. You have to remove all dei, everything from anything that you have, including things like that. If you don't, they are incentivizing people in the institution to be whistleblowers, and they are financially incentivizing them. And they are. It is outrageous.
- [70:13]
Michael Popok
Set up a bounty of your own employee, basically.
- [70:17]
Karen Friedman Agnifilo
That is what I am being told is happening across this country. It is unbelievable to me. And it's because of so much federal funding for research, for science, and everybody's so worried about it.
- [70:29]
Michael Popok
We saw it. We saw the red scare and what it did in America. You turn in your neighbor because you thought they were a communist. Incentivizing bad behavior and unpatriotic behavior. I mean, if people are bored over the summer, go read Roth's Plot Against America, a novel. But it will send a chill down your spine compared to what we're watching now, Philip Roth's book. But we should set up a Legal AF like an Oprah Recommendations for Books club. We'll do that one day over the weekend, do that over the summer. But we've reached the end of Legal AF midweek. Tune in Saturday when Ben Meiselas and I are back for the Saturday edition. And then we've got hot takes about every hour at the intersection of law and politics over on the Legal AF YouTube channel. My work, of course, on the Midas Touch network. And follow all of us. I think we bring our competitive advantage is you, our audience. So shout out to the Midas mighty and the Legal A effort. You say you'll never join the Navy, never climb Mount Fuji on a port visit or break the sound barrier. Joining the Navy sounds crazy. Saying never actually is. Learn why at navy. Com. America's Navy forged by the sea.