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- [00:01]
Host/Interviewer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
- [00:04]
Michael Popak
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.
- [00:29]
Alina Haba
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- [01:02]
Ad Read Speaker (T-Mobile)
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- [01:32]
Michael Popak
So how do you buy your way out of a maximum security facility after you have been convicted of sex trafficking and sentenced for over 20 years, essentially the rest of your life? Well, if your name is Ghislaine Maxwell and you're one of Donald Trump's best friends for about two and a half to three decades, you approach the Department of Justice and you say, Donald Trump. I barely knew him, but he, when I knew him, he was a great guy, very cordial, very nice, always respectful. Nothing to see here, folks. And so we finally, we've been asking for the Epstein files. Said, release the Epstein files. The Department of Justice is like, you want us to release Ghislaine? No, no, no. Don't release Ghislaine. Release the Epstein files. And so what they did Michael Popo, and we'll discuss it. They did a document dump of like tens of thousands of Epstein files. But what we're learning is 98% of it is just the old recycled court files, nothing new at all. And then in the new stuff, the 2%, it's nothing of substance at all. We'll talk about that. But then what do you do the same day? Well, you raid your former national security adviser's home. John Bolton tried to make that the story. And saying John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, was hiding classified documents. Focus on this, everybody. And then at the same time, as part of the coordinated plan, you release the transcript of that interview between Donald Trump's former criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanch, and Ghislaine Maxwell that happened like a month ago or so in Tallahassee, which shortly after that took place. Seemed that Ghislaine understood the assignment. She was moved from a maximum security facility in Tallahassee to a minimum security facility in, in Camp Bryan, Texas. Not only that, she now, like, owns this prison in Camp Bryan, Texas. If you're there, minimum security prisoner, you know you're there, you're serving a short sentence and you speak negatively about her, like one lady did to the press, you get kicked out and guess where you go. Where Ghislaine was. They're kicking out the minimum security inmates who talk negative about Ghislaine, and they're putting him where the sex traffickers go while they bring the sex traffickers into, or they bring Ghislaine into the minimum security facility. So, Michael Popo, this is how you earn your spot into a minimum security facility. And probably a pardon right here. Here's some of the audio we've got from this ridiculous interview where Ghislaine Maxwell says, as far as I'm concerned, Donald Trump is always a very caught. Jim. Hey, cordial man, they called you here. Play this clip. What's.
- [04:17]
Host/Interviewer
What did you observe as far as President Trump and his relationship with you or Mr. Epstein?
- [04:23]
Ghislaine Maxwell
Well, I just want to say for my relationship with President Trump, relationship's a big word. But I just want to say that I met him, I believe I may have because of my father in the 90s. And as far as I'm concerned, President Trump was always very cordial and very kind to me. And I just want to say that I find I admire his extraordinary achievement in becoming the president now. And I like him and I've always liked him. So that is the sum substance of my entire relationship with him.
- [04:58]
Michael Popak
I'm Mary Pop. I'm Mary Poppins. I barely knew him when I, whenever I seen him, I would not say, I would pop back. I would not say that there was a relationship at all. There was just more of like a little we, we would show up, we would have tea. Let me just show you a few.
- [05:14]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
More of these clips before you go on. I just want to say something. I just want to. I've never heard you do it's. A combination of rubric from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Ricky Gervais. It's. It's perfect. It's pitch perfect. That accent.
- [05:26]
Michael Popak
Mrs. Doubtfire. Here's, here's, here's Ghislaine Maxwell thing. Oh, he was never inappropriate with anybody. He's just a gentleman. I'm going. Let me be the more character reference for him. I'm a convicted. She's a convicted sex trafficker. I want to break the role there for a second. We're gonna break the fourth wall here. Play this.
- [05:49]
Ghislaine Maxwell
I don't recall ever him in his house, for instance. I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody in the times that I was with him. He was a gentleman in all respects.
- [06:08]
Michael Popak
Gentleman in all respects. Were you ever told that Epstein was getting any money from any intelligence agencies like the Mossad?
- [06:16]
Host/Interviewer
Did you ever. Were you ever told, you ever think that Mr. Epstein was getting any money from any intelligence agency, including.
- [06:25]
Ghislaine Maxwell
Well, I don't believe so, but I wouldn't know. I mean, I would be very surprised if he did. I don't think so, no.
- [06:32]
Michael Popak
What about the list? Is there an Epstein list? Is there a black book? Is there a. Is there a call log, anything like that?
- [06:40]
Host/Interviewer
Ghislaine, during the time that you were with Mr. Epstein and even in the 2000s when you were around less frequently, you never observed or you never saw any sort of list or black book or a list of individuals who link to certain masseuses or anything like that?
- [07:04]
Ghislaine Maxwell
Absolutely no. There is no list.
- [07:09]
Michael Popak
First off, the way the question was posed to you never, ever saw anything. Did you never see anything, Elaine? You've never seen. No, let me never see such a thing. And then the one other thing, and I'll just toss it to you and give you the biggest softball of, I think, our time together. To let it rip. She also says in the interview that Epstein was actually not a pervert, not creepy. She goes, the reason that he liked younger girls, always age appropriate. She said, though, the reason that he liked younger women is because they helped him with musical selections. Popak, you know, it kept him young so he could find out what the younger generation was listening to in terms of Spotify. This pre Spotify, it was pre I. It was pre iPad. It was, you know, just one. That's what they were doing when Donald Trump and Epstein invited 30 girls of indeterminate age to Mar a Lago together and said that there was going to be modeling VIP agencies there. What they were really doing, Pop, because we're not the stupidest people ever. What they were really doing is they were just making mixtapes of vanilla ice and MC Hammer. That's what they were doing in the early 90s. Popak. Come on, man. Come on.
- [08:23]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
So everybody woke up this morning to a exquisitely, exquisitely timed dump of the 300 pages of this transcript. Let me remind everybody, this interview was three weeks ago. They've had the. They have. They've had the transcripts the night of the interviews. So they've had them for three weeks. So why now? And it's exactly what. Ben, what you let off with is they're trying to step on various stories, right? They're trying to step on this fact that the oversight committee is about to release and has started to release documents. They did it on a Friday night when nobody was looking except for Legal F and the Midas Dutch network. And we jumped on a story within an hour of their arrival. You know, you and I know how to read deposition transcripts, especially mini scripts, pretty quickly. And we got to the heart of it very, very quickly. And so what. What I. That. So the timing of it is all based on, as you said, let's. Let's do a raid of John Bolton, because I've been trying to pay him back since 2020 when he. A book called in the Room where It Happens. And I didn't like that. And he got me that time. But I'm going to get him this time. And they must have a giant electronic board. I'm serious at the White House about bad events that they know and news stories and news cycles that they want to step on. And then things they have on the shelf that they can use to block or divert or to use a smokescreen. I'm telling you, they got it lined up. You know, the way we do programming on legal layoff and YouTube and on Midas Dutch, like, which video should we put up next? They have. Okay, what do we got? Oh, no, no, we don't need Epstein yet. Not the Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts. No, no, we'll save that for some other really big time. And then they drop it. But then it did not help them. It only helped them if they believe that the American people, which they do, are stupid and are not going to put things in the proper context. I mean, if you were just to read the transcript not knowing anything about it. And I always think it's ironic that when we do stories about her we always throw that photo up of her. That's her most wanted poster of when she was on the run and we were looking for Ghislaine Maxwell and we had to find her after the fifth safe house that she went to. That picture with her canoodling with Epstein, the other child sex trafficker. That's where that comes from. So but if you just read it, she not only denies her involvement in a child sex trafficking ring that, that had sex abuse at the heart of it, that she was convicted of 120 beyond a reasonable doubt that even she doesn't think she didn't get a fair trial because that's not the nature of her appeal. She was convicted of this, including sex abuse. I just did a live on substack for Legal AF with with Adam Klassfeld. All Rise News is with us now on Legal af. And he was in the courtroom for every day of the testimony and he, he gave the testimony of Jane and a number of other people that put her in sex abuse evidence on, on. On the witness stand. But if you just read it, Epstein was just, was. Was a normal guy that got seven, five to seven massages a day, not a week a day for which she was paid $35 million over the course of. Of just a couple of years in which he was not weird until he started. This is her testimony, until he started to take testosterone and then he got a little bit weird and there were photos around of naked or scantily clad young girls, including in his bedroom. But she didn't think anything of it. And she only recruited women, not girls from legitimate spas and massage parlors in West Palm Beach. There aren't that many by the way in West Palm Beach. And she never recruited from Mar A Lago. So she completely exonerates Epstein. She says there was no child sex trafficking. She was not a part of any child sex trafficking. At best she was his mistress girlfriend who got cheated on. And then. But then she slips up because in the second day she says out loud about Jane who is an anonymized a victim who testified, one of several who testified at the trial. She said, oh, and that person's completely false. That I'm so glad you asked me. Completely false testimony. And she said, well, Blanchard, how is it false? She said she wasn't 14, she might have been 16. I was like, stop. So he raped a 16 year old instead of a 14 year old. Well, in my country, 16. And then Blanche cuts her off. Well, let's not go there. Right. Because when he got the wrong Scripted response. He then moved her back to the script because this was all. This was all scripted. This was all choreographed. When we show a transcript like we just did as practicing lawyers, or at least me as people that have been in court, and you see a paragraph or two question that is called a leading question, where you just want to not signal you're telling the person exactly the answer that you want. And when she deviated from that with Todd Blanche, who was not acting as a prosecutor, but was acting as a defense lawyer for Donald Trump, which is what he is at base. Right. He never challenged her because he can't challenge her. He had no desire to challenge her about anything. And he used the phrases and the terminology of a defense lawyer. I know because I am one. Allegations. They're not allegations against her and Epstein, certainly not against her. They are facts that were proven in a court of law beyond the reasonable doubt. We're beyond allegations, Todd. We're into. You're talking to a convicted child sex abuser and trafficker proven in a court of law by the Department of Justice. And so we knew we were in trouble from the very beginning. When he started off with. In the questioning, were you ever interviewed by the FBI? No, I never got to tell my story. I go, oh, here we go. There's a reason the FBI never talked to her. There's a reason she wasn't quote, unquote interviewed. It's because she was on the run. That's one. They didn't need her. She was a target of the investigation, not a witness. And they had enough evidence, obviously, to convict her at trial. They didn't have a hole in the evidence that needed to be filled by the testimony of Maxwell in the Epstein matter. And Epstein died. So they didn't need to ever talk to her. They had their airtight case against her. So she's like, thank you for giving me the opportunity to finally tell my story. She had an opportunity. She passed on it with the Fifth Amendment at trial. She could have. She could have. I mean, I doubt the jury would have believed her, but in her. In her telling, she is the victim. What we were watching is the choreographed rehabilitation campaign of. Of Ghislaine Maxwell, which was coordinated by her lawyer, David Oscar Marcus, who's a good friend with Todd Blanche. And before they even got in the room, Todd Blanche knew exactly the answers he was going to get, and she knew the questions that she was going to get because that's the nature of an attorney proffer. And that I am sure betting dollars to donuts that David Oscar Marcus said hypothetically, when you interview my, he's American, I know why I'm doing an English accent. When you interview my client, this is what she is going to say. She's going to exonerate Donald Trump. She's going to tell you this about the leather bound birthday book which is at the heart of your defamation case with the Wall Street Journal. She's going to say this about Prince, Prince Edward. She's going to say Prince Andrew. She's going to say this. This he knew going in. So he crafted his questions to get to the five point checklist that he had. And his goal was rehabilitate her so that she has renewed credibility to vouch for Donald Trump because she's a convicted child sex trafficker. Have I mentioned that? Vouching for Donald Trump and then rehabilitate her in the eyes of the public so that when Donald Trump pardons her, that's all we're watching, a slow motion pardon. He can say, well, I've seen the 300 pages. There's good people on both sides of this child sex trafficking and she's one of them. And it's a confusing case. She says she's innocent and I believe her. She said nice things about me and she's got the Supreme Court case that's up there. So pardon. That is what we are watching. And the more you read the transcript and it's up on Legal AF substack for everybody to read, the more you will come away with the conclusion that she would say anything to save her ass. And the other reason, by the way, they didn't talk to her and the FBI didn't talk to her is because they had her up on perjury charges. They dropped them at the time of the trial, but they had her up on perjury trial charges because they believe she lied in the civil cases brought by the victims. And the other thing, I'll leave it on this, Ben, that was so twisted and so depraved, I literally had to take a shower after I read these transcripts is how much she, how much time she spent bashing the victims, including Virginia Joffre, in which she said, this is the part that got me. Virginia Joffrey is not here to defend herself because she took her own life in April. That's how devastated and traumatized she was by being this, this public victim at 17 of Epstein. And she, I think she was 40 when she, when she took her own life. She said, oh, in Virginia Joffre, you know, they redacted it But. But they left in enough names that you knew it was her. She was basically portrayed her as a prostitute who. Who was. Who had the. Who had the. Not skill set. Who had the talents to seduce men. That was taught to her by. And then she put in the name of the person and basically that Epstein was the victim of Virginia. Virginia Joffrey. Okay. In her biography, she says she was sex trafficked by this one guy. Okay. That she was abused and. And sex trafficked by him. I don't think she's the. She's the Lolita. Chasing after Epstein and then on Jane, who, according to Adam, who was in the courtroom for the testimony, was probably the thing that put the jury over the top. It was so compelling about meeting Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at 14 at a camp in Michigan. And that started this. The. The grooming and the predator behavior by Epstein. He finally, according to her, raped her at 14 and 15, to which Ghislaine Maxwell said it was 16. As to. As to Joffrey, which doesn't help. As to Joffrey and Prince Andrew, she says, oh, I have a defense for him too. It couldn't possibly have happened. And top Blanche said, why, knowing the answer already. Oh, because my bathroom that she says it happened in was too small. After a remodeling, I'm like, all right, this is where I literally had to get up and go for a walk and come back and do the reading. But this. What. When you have a depraved, immoral president who's been adjudged, a sex abuser who has women who have testified under oath about him sexually abusing them, more than just one. When you have that in office, you are going to get a Todd Blanche's criminal defense lawyer doing this fabricated display in order to bail out the boss.
- [20:00]
Michael Popak
I want to know how many times Todd Blanch and David Oscar Marcus, the lawyer for Ghislaine, spoke to each other before that meeting. That's what I would ask. Next time Todd Blanche comes before Congress, I'd want to know where those conversations took place. By phone, by cell phone, in person, how many times by email. What I believe likely happened is they probably met somewhere in person or at a social gathering where they knew they would be together, and then they had a conversation where they pulled each other aside. That's generally how things like that would go down, but that's what I'd want to ask. Our editor in chief, Ron Philip Kowski, wrote the following. The issue isn't that Maxwell lied throughout her entire proffer she's been lying, deceiving, manipulating people her entire life. I mean, she is a despicable, vile human being. I expect it from her. The issue is that the United States Department of Justice gave her very tangible benefits already for those lies. With more to come. There's a point in the transcript where she says certain things about Donald Trump. And then there's a break. Todd Blanche says, let's go on a break. If I was a betting person at that moment, Todd, Blanche called Donald Trump and said, we're good. And then, and then David, Oscar, Marcus and Blanche probably talk sometime right in that lunch break as well. She's doing good.
- [21:29]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
Keep it up and we'll, we'll be great, 1,000%. And for our audience, that doesn't happen in a normal deposition, but it certainly happened here. The rules, the normal rules of courtroom procedure were non existent. We were operating in another planet with another environment and another gravitational pull. I am sure at breaks, they were talking to each other on both sides. They were feeding each other answers and questions. You saw her, her lawyer jump in and answer a number of questions. And whenever Blanche, because he was there with his goals, right, he was exonerate. Donald Trump. That was about a page and a half out of 300 pages. And the hundred names of people that we were like, oh, is that the list? No, they were just people that were in business with, with Epstein. She basically exonerated everybody. Nobody had sex with Epstein because there was no illicit sex to be had. There was no blackmail. And then he had to go down the maggot. The maggot rabbit trail of Mossad. Was he in the Mossad? No. Good. Got that one. What about the, what about the album, the birthday album? Well, I made it, but I can't remember any pages in it. Okay, that's a, that's a push. Okay, let's keep going. Let's go back to, let's go back to Donald Trump in the sec, you know, and then Clinton got exonerated. So that was good. At least one thing good came out of it.
- [22:45]
Michael Popak
Here's, here's, at the end of the day, here's what we want. But the reality is that I, I don't. If Clinton's in there, let it be. If who's ever in there, let it be. I could care less who. If you just release the files, okay? It's very, very simple. If, if people are in there, they're in there. The public can be able to discern if your name is in there simply because you lived in Palm Springs. And he happened to know you once versus being long term friends like he was with Donald Trump. And the thing I want everybody to remember about this is exactly what you said. She had a trial. She could have testified at said trial. She was convicted by a jury. The prosecutors from that trial have been fired. Those were the people who would almost always, not always, not almost always be at a meeting like that before any immunity discussion was given. You would never give someone like Ghislaine immunity after the trial. And it's not an insignificant point because Ghislaine is arguing that some of these charges are all of them need to be dismissed by the Supreme Court because of a non prosecution agreement. The statute of limitations on sex trafficking are have no statute of limitations. Really. So by giving her immunity for talking about these things, she's arguing that as Epstein's co conspirator she should be entitled to the benefits of a non prosecution agreement that he entered with Trump's former labor secretary who was the United States attorney at the time. But what if there was now facts that show that she wasn't just a co conspirator but she was actually directly someone who was involved in X, Y and Z conduct. Well now you're giving her immunity so you can charge her. So you basically the Trump regime right now just did a better sweetheart deal with her than Epstein got from in 2007. And it happened in plain view. This whole thing is gross, it's dangerous. But Donald Trump's a sexual predator. He's a criminal, he's a felon, separately based on fraud. So he was found civilly liable for sexual assault. So for someone who is a sexual predator like Donald Trump, someone who engages in criminal conduct when it comes to business related dealings like he was found liable on 34 felony counts in your. This is how they behave. Like it's not a shot. Oh my God, the gangster's acting like a gangster. Really? Of course he's a gangster. That's what he does. This is. He's a bad guy. Bad guys bad. We'll be right back. I want to talk about more reminder. Michael Popox law firm. You all wanted him to start the Popoc law firm. So if you have any case, auto accident, trucking accident. If you are the victim of an accident and you've suffered serious injuries, call the Popoc firm. Their the consultation is free. If you're a victim of sexual assault, sexual harassment, medical malpractice negligence. If you know people who have been injured as well or victims of wrongful death, reach out to the Popoc Firm right now. Throw that graphic up one more time there just so everybody can see it one more time, you know. Reach out to the Popoc Firm 877- Popak AF or go to thepopoc firm.com 877popocaf or go to thepopocfirm.com Also a reminder, subscribe to Michael Popo's YouTube channel Legal AF and subscribe to his substack the Legal AF substack. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with more. When we come back, you know, as.
- [26:29]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
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- [29:19]
Michael Popak
Back to Legal AF. Great ad reads there, Michael Popak. The discount codes are in the description below. So Abrego Garcia gets released, which is the good news. He gets released after his great legal team continued to push forward. The federal judge in Tennessee said he should be released. The federal judge in Maryland said he should be released. Everybody remembers the Abrego Garcia story, right? He was in Maryland. He's got three kids, his wife's American. He was here with legal status. He would check in. He could have. If the government wanted to deport him to any place other than El Salvador, they could have done that based on a, based on the way his immigration order was structured. But he'd be allowed. He was viewed as a nonviolent guy, a hard worker. He's part of a union in Maryland, so he would just check in with the border Patrol, check in with Homeland Security once a year or whatever it was, let him know, I'm okay, here I am. They let him go. All right, go back to work. You're a productive member of society. The Trump regime accidentally, you know, or as part of their, you know, initial sweep of migrants, sends him to the concentration camp in El Salvador. He was ordered to be returned by the Supreme Court. The Trump regime said there's no way that could happen. Everybody, all the lawyers are about to basically, basically be held in criminal contempt. They fly him back, they arrest him in Tennessee for human trafficking and smuggling. Just, just go think about our prior segment that we did where a actual convicted sex trafficker is getting all of these benefits. But they charged the Brago not with sex trafficking, but human trafficking, that he was driving a vehicle back in 2022 that had other migrants and they were driving to another work site. So they said, abrego, you are a human trafficker. And then they tried to make him seem like he was like the leader of every single gang out there, which. Which he absolutely wasn't. They made those claims in Bondi and all those people made claims that he's like this gang leader and murderer and just horrible things in public. But the underlying indictment said nothing. It talked about a traffic stop in 2022. The evidence was weak. There was a hearing about whether he should be held or not held. Grego was just worried though, that if he was released that ICE was gonna basically send him back to the concentration camp or hurt him. So while there was the Tennessee federal proceedings, there was the Maryland federal proceedings which dealt with returning him from the concentration camp in El Salvador. So you had these like quasi civil proceedings in Maryland, the criminal proceedings taking place in Tennessee. And basically what the order in Maryland was is, you know, release him, but give us notice if you're going to do anything with this guy so that the judge Zenis could protect, you know, his rights. And then sure enough, and I'll throw it to you. Popac we now got a letter from one of the top lawyers at ICE to Abrego's lawyer. So Abrego sees his family hugs him. It's this incredible moment after he's been like literally tortured by the government, Nazi style tortured by the government and see caught and harassed and all these things. He hugs his family. And then the Trump regime sends him a letter and says, we're sending you to Uganda in three days. And even the people in Uganda are like, why are you sending him to Uganda for? What are you doing? Why? Why Uganda? So they picked a place just to. Just to f with him, just to mess with him. Like, they think this is funny, right? Like you can see Stephen Miller and these people in the room together. Maybe it was when they were in Union Station earlier this week where they were talking about, we're gonna go after the 90 year old white hippies. We're sending ICE to go after the 90 year old white hippie in D.C. literally was a scene. Military, Stephen Miller, Pete Hegsett, the Secretary of Defense, our military, as though they were in freaking Fallujah. I did a video popak where I showed speeches of like actual commanders on battlefields. We're going in and you're going to do this. This is going to be the fight of your life. Stephen Miller was doing that in Union Station about sending the National Guard on Americans. So maybe that's where they were like.
- [33:46]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
Let'S send them to Uganda. That'll be funny.
- [33:48]
Michael Popak
Let's send them To Uganda. So that's where we're at now, Popak, what's going on here? And don't just talk about that one. But the vindictive prosecution motions now that are being filed in courts across the country.
- [34:00]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
Yeah, I can. I'll put it all together. So we've got two major developments in Tennessee that happened Friday. Over till now. We have a federal judge, district court judge named Crenshaw, who sits over the Tennessee indictment. This manufactured indictment, it actually isn't for human trafficking, it's for human smuggling. Because Judge Holmes, the magistrate judge, made a point, point of saying in her hearing and in her filings that there's a big difference. Because trafficking, even though that's what they call him in press conferences and social media posts, trafficking suggests coercion. And a victim smuggling is a consensual agreement between two people to get somebody over a border. It's different. It's different when it comes to sentencing, and it's there. But it's not different to this vindictive Department of Justice that wants to call him, as they did today and yesterday, a drug, a human trafficker, a child predator. And I'll tell you where that came from, which is really nowhere. A wife beater, an Ms. 13 gang leader, in order to attack the judges like Zenis, who I'll talk about and attack him and convict him in the court of public opinion. Fortunately, that's not where convictions happen. They happen in the court of law. And this federal judge, Crenshaw, has, he's sitting on right now a motion to dismiss the indictment for vindictive prosecution and selective prosecution, which will be the blueprint, along with the one that Representative Lamonica McIver also filed in New Jersey, the first two that have been filed, two of hundreds that will be filed against the Trump administration before all is said and done. And I've been involved with the law for 35 years, and I've been involved with two vindictive prosecution cases in my entire career. They're very hard to get granted, but the government under Donald Trump provides the evidence for it every day. Every day, including today. And so when they filed it, which was filed by a friend of mine, Sean Hecker, at a law firm in New York, I'm trying to get Sean to come on Legal Laugh and talk to us about it. In it, he laid out all the evidence to show prosecutorial animus and vindictiveness. Up to Bondi, Kristi Noem, you know, Donald Trump, about going after Abrego Garcia and attacking him personally in a vindictive way and showing that that's the reason the indictment came out. As you said in, in March, he was whisked away to El Salvador. He then in, he wasn't brought back for several months despite United states Supreme Court ruling 90 in favor of Judge Zinnis. They then under for a cover story. They then indicted him when a, when a prosecutor, an investigator got the file from three years ago about a traffic stop where he didn't even get a ticket and he looked at the file for two weeks and out came, boom, an indictment before Judge Crenshaw. So the vindictive motion, which is now going to be set for final briefing the first Sept. 9 with an argument before the judge, final argument for the judge. And I think it's 70, 30, if not better that he is going to dismiss that indictment for human smuggling in because of how the Trump administration has given the proof, the very proof of the vindictiveness of the prosecution every and every time, including in the last day. So they had to file a supplemental evidence to their motion just yesterday in which they said, okay, we got a call after Judge Holmes because I have to add another piece here. So there's a magistrate judge that's responsible for the terms of release or conditions of release, and she's the one that would not reach detain him pre trial finding that the case was very weak and there were no proper factors in place to keep Abrego Garcia in a Tennessee federal detention center. Now, he stayed in that detention center to protect him from ICE and Pam Bondi and Donald Trump. So they stashed him away for weeks while he was under the jurisdiction of the Tennessee court to give time for the Maryland judge, Judge Zinnis, who presides over the constitutional abuse of him, the fact that he was sent and then tortured upon arrival in El Salvador by a proxy of America. So he was tortured by the Trump administration. That's the only way to put it. So she's got jurisdiction. She got, they finally got around. She got around to issuing an order that when he's released from Tennessee custody, he is to be remanded immediately to Maryland where he's from, under her jurisdiction about release and that. And, and so, so that happened. Holmes, the magistrate judge had one last thing to decide and she decided it on Friday, which was is he going to stay in jail at all based on all of these factors? And she issued her order that he is to be released, that he is to be sent to Maryland, that he is to report not immediately, but on Monday at 10am giving him time with his family. Report to ICE in Baltimore, Maryland, on Monday. Now, this is a tremendous slap in the face of Donald Trump and his Department of Justice, who vowed to the American people when they taunted the American people and Judge Zenis and Abrego's family that he would never walk as a free man. He would never see the light of day. He would be left in dark, dank prisons here or in El Salvador. He would just be removed and deported somewhere else, and he would never see his family again. Well, that didn't happen. He's spending his, he's with his family right now under the custody of his brother, who was the custodian that was appointed. He reports on Monday. And now he's under the jurisdiction of Zinnis. So all of, so all of these, he's going to be sent to Uganda over Zinnis's dead body because she's responsible for him now as she had been before. Now, what happened in the interim, this new evidence that got created is because after Holmes let him out for two days, they, according to the filing that Sean Hecker just made, they, the Department of Justice contacted the lawyers for Abrego Garcia and said, here's our deal. Okay, what is it? We're all ears. Plead guilty to the two counts in Tennessee. They're like, okay, and for that, we'll send you to Costa Rica where you'll be given immunity and you can live as a free person. And they promise not to torture you, you know, some version of that. And they were like, no. So according to the papers, the retaliation vindictiveness campaign continued. And now you've got the Pam Bondi and the Kristi Noem and the rest saying he's a child of predator, he's a wife beater, he's a human trafficker, and he's. And this is who judges like Judge Zinnis and Judge Holmes want to have on the streets of America. So they use that as new evidence for the, for the vindictive prosecution. And now on top of it, you've got the, well, you didn't take Costa Rica. Well, we're going to send you to Uganda. And again, I repeat, Judge Zinnis is now in charge of the conditions of his release. And they're not going to be deporting him or removing him without her involvement.
- [41:37]
Michael Popak
Michael Popak, a lot going on there. And it goes to the transactional nature also of Trump regime saying, look, just admit you did it. I need a win. So just tell the public, Abrego, that You love Donald Trump and that he's always right. And then we'll let you go to Costa Rica and you can live your life.
- [42:00]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
It's a hostage video.
- [42:01]
Michael Popak
That's it. And then Abrego says, I'm not going to do that. So then the Trump regime says, okay, well, you're not going to do that. Well, Uganda is where you go. And, but, but here's the thing. Abrego showing it. E. Jean Carroll showed it. Governor Newsom is showing it. There's a lot of examples. Nicole Collier, the rep. State representative from Texas who was literally held hostage in the Texas state House because she wouldn't sign a form form saying that she would be kept under 247 surveillance. If you stand up to this regime and you stand up and you fight, there's a path to winning these. When we come back, we're going to talk about Alina Haba refusing to leave the office, refusing to walk out when the judges in New Jersey said, you're gone, bye, bye, your term is over. She trump this whole regime. Their social bad. She goes, no, I'm staying.
- [43:07]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
No.
- [43:08]
Michael Popak
You know, fascism. These people are relentless because they're sociopaths. They crave the power and they get off on the suffering of the other. That's what they. You know how you wake up every day and you're like, man, I hope my family's doing good. I hope that, you know, maybe I'll, maybe I'll go for a walk today, read a good book, have a hobby. You know, just try to exist, to be, keep to myself. You know, I don't know, go to a ball game, right? I mean, just think about the things that you think about in a day. Although I know with the Trump regime making things far less affordable and people living paycheck to paycheck, it's harder not to think about all these things. But the Trump regime goes, how do we make people suffer? How do we hurt? What can I do to them? And if you stand up to these people, they're going to come back again. They're going to come back again, they're going to come back again. But you can win because they're weak and they're stupid and they're, and they're evil. But you, but if you band together with people, you can beat this. And when we see law firms stand up to them, the law firms win. When we see companies stand up to them, the companies win. When we see countries stand up to them, like Canada, the countries win. Just think about it. Of all of the countries across the world, Canada has the best. Think about this. The best trade deal with the United States is Canada right now, which is no deal. Which is no deal because Canada's standing up and they didn't bend the knee to Donald Trump. So that's what you got to do. And I think that's what Abrego shows as well. When we come back, I want to talk about Alina Haba and her refusal to leave despite the the fact that she needs to leave. But more significantly, how her refusal to leave is now impacting all of the cases in New Jersey because she's a rogue unlawful United States attorney. So all of those cases are being deemed basically as inappropriate. Talk about that. Some other topics. We'll take our last quick break. A reminder, subscribe to Michael Popo's YouTube channel, Legal AF. It's crushing it. They're on their way to a million subscribers. I love to see that hit a million subscribers soon. So go and check that out. Subscribe to his substack, the legal A of Substack, one of the top five substacks of all substacks out there. You're getting a lot of great content, a lot of great legal scholars who are on the YouTube channel also writing with you. And you go live a lot on that substack. So everybody check that out. And if you have your own legal case, if you've been injured in a car accident, trucking accident, whatever, if you've been a victim of a sexual assault, sexual harassment, if you know somebody who's been the victim of any of those things, if you know someone who's been the victim of wrongful death, please, the consultation is free 877-popak af thepopoc firm.com so call 877-popocaf or go to thepopoc firm.com reach out. Popox got lawyers across the country who he works with who can help you. Don't be shy. You know, if you're a whistleblower, if you've got any type of case, call popoc. You know, usually it's cases that involve real serious damages and injuries that they're able to take. But don't be shy. Reach out. They have a team that vets the case. Give a call. Again, consultation is free. So do that when you have a kid. Let's take our last quick break and then we'll go lightning round a lot.
- [46:35]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
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- [48:48]
Michael Popak
Welcome back to Legal af. Special thanks to our sponsors. Right there, discount codes are in the description below. Michael Popak, I wanna. Okay, when you're a lawyer, Popak, and you've been interviewed, have you ever had to say, I'm a legitimate lawyer. Just want to let you know I'm, I'm, I'm not crazy, I'm not a hack. I'm, I'm one of those legit lawyers, you know, usually legit lawyers don't need to go around. I'm not a hack. Well, here's Alina Haba. Let's play this video of her.
- [49:22]
Alina Haba
I'm not a political hack. I'm an attorney licensed in four states. I've been licensed by the Supreme Court of the United States and I have practiced law for the better of 20 years and run law firms for most of 15 that have been extremely successful, despite what the Twitter trolls would like to say. I mean, so called, this so called hack, so called name calling is kind of beneath me, to be honest. I would, I frankly would never despise somebody I've never even spoken to. But I assume he thinks he knows who I am. I'm a really accomplished attorney, Nate.
- [49:57]
Michael Popak
I'm a really accomplished attorney.
- [49:59]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
That's how I start all my interviews.
- [50:00]
Michael Popak
Name calling is beneath me. Name calling clearly beneath name calling and the Trump regime. I've never, I've never. But that's also why California Governor Gavin Newsom strategy is so effective when he shines a mirror on what they're doing and they're like, why are you calling me names? The moment you go on the offense against these people, they're all like that, right? They're all like, what you're doing. Name calling. Come on here. So, but some, somewhere along the line as an overall society, and I'm not saying our, our viewers are fighters, you know, but like at some point we like let these losers take control and it's like, why, why do we love, why have we been accepting of their behavior? It's because Donald Trump was on the Apprentice. You know, it's the craziest thing to me. But Popak, talk to us about this ruling that came from a judge from Pennsylvania sitting in designation and its import because the fact that she's remained on despite her term being expired and her term not getting extended by the federal judges in New Jersey, which she then name calls them. Oh, they're leftist. She literally like name calls them. It's now having an impact on the ability of law and order to actually be conducted. Let's talk about that then. Let's go to the Supreme Court. NIH decision.
- [51:26]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
All right, sounds great. The, the back to our audience or fighters. I caught something in social media where one of our, one of our followers fought back against being abused by a neighbor. She's an older, an older, an older audience member of ours and posted the video clip under the line. Thanks, Popak. Yes, we talk about stop taking crap and start fighting back. And I don't mean Physically, I mean, emotionally, and using your First Amendment rights. So that, that I thought was funny for Alina Haba. Let's just talk about Lena Hobbit for one moment, please. She was a little known three person law office runner in a, in a small town, not a major business center in New Jersey called Bedminster. The only business it has is the Trump Golf Course. And she and her husband ran a very small law firm, which they did what I call door law. Anything that walks in the door, she did, including parking lot and parking garage representation, which can be very lucrative. You know, people get, you know, scrapes on their cars. They leave them, you know, three extra days. They don't have the money to pay for them. But this is not what I would call consequential national, nationwide litigation of the highest order. Nobody ever heard of her. And I'm from New Jersey and I had an office in New York for years. And so there's that. Her, her, her biggest success in her life, her only true success in her life is that she made a beeline for Donald Trump on purpose at the Bedminster Golf Course, joined the golf club and then try to ingratiate herself with him and rub elbows with him and try to handle some cases for him for him, including some that she's been accused of doing unethical things. No shock that got on her, got him her on his radar screen, including a couple of settlements. And then he started just dragging her along in his, her various cases to say that for her to have to say to bowling, exclamation mark, whoever that is, some podcaster that she's an accomplished lawyer. She's not even accomplished lawyer for Donald Trump. She got fined a million dollars along with Donald Trump by Judge Middlebrooks for the case that she filed a couple of years ago in federal court. She got fined and sanctioned for discovery abuse in the New York fraud case, which we'll talk about later, in which she lost a $463 million judgment. We'll talk about that in a minute. In New York, she lost not one, but two E. Jean Carroll cases. And EG Carroll is now sitting on $100 million worth of judgments. She was involved with the team that lost the 34 felony count conviction of Donald Trump. So, so where are the accomplishments? Even for Trump, she's not accomplished. She's been failing up ever since he tried to stash her at his pack. And when that didn't work, then he decided to bring her in as a White House counselor like she was some sort of Kellyanne Conway and when that didn't work, he kicked her upstairs or across the river to put her in Jersey. And then rather than just be a temperate, professional, mature, accomplished lawyer, as she says she is during her tryout period, because there was a period where she was given the acting job, which was probably a mistake by Donald Trump, he probably just should have stashed her away, nominated her, but no, he stuck her in the job. So she got a tryout. And all she did during the tryout, back to her. Philkowski called it the six lies in one sentence. One of the lies were that she's not a political hack. That's all she did, was hack away. So first thing she does on a podcast, as soon as she gets the job is I'm going to turn the blue state of New Jersey red. Then she goes after and targets criminally the governor of the state Democrat, the attorney general of the state Democrat, the mayor of the largest city Democrat, and the. And the representative Lamonica MacGyver, who's a congresswoman from New Jersey. And that's. And she got sank. She got reprimanded by a federal judge, federal magistrate judge, for having brought charges originally against Mayor Baraka. That is in 120 days. Okay, that's, that's like the old joke about, you know, talking to Mrs. Lincoln, and she gives you the whole story about what happened, and somebody says, great, but how was the play? Mrs. Lincoln, right. That was 120F and Days. And so was there any shock when her 120 days was up by statute, she then asked free, please, can I stay in the job Longer? And the 21 federal judges in New Jersey all uniformly said no. And they, under the statute, appointed somebody who was qualified, the number two in the office, a career prosecutor. And she had the job for less than 24 hours. Because Donald Trump started this whole, you know, 16 steps to try to keep his office wife in the job. You know, well, I'm going to make her her own assistant. Then I'm going to elevate her after I fire the person that the court put in. And then, well, that didn't work. Well, then I'll make her a special attorney under the Constitution with all the powers, but not all the powers, but most of the powers of being the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, that didn't work. Oh. And so finally, one of many criminal defense lawyers in New Jersey filed a motion in his criminal defense case for a gun and drug case called Jarrod, in which he filed a motion to disqualify Alina Haba and that's, that's what we're talking about. It was brought by a criminal defendant. Now because the 21 federal judges all ruled against her and voted against her, they were all effectively disqualified from hearing this motion, the motion to disqualify her dismiss, indictments, right. Call her invalidly appointed and all of that. And we all looked at, it was like you and I were like eating popcorn, like, is this going to work? Because I'd known about some case law and some arguments about something that happened similarly. And I'm thinking that's about 50, 50. But I, I'm in, I'm in it. Whatever you're, whatever you're laying down, I'm picking up. Let's go. So it gets assigned because there's no judge in Jersey, goes up to the third Circuit Court of Appeals Chief judge who appoints somebody from within the circuit but outside of Jersey. So it lands on judge, Chief Judge Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Okay. He was an Obama appointee, but he's pretty middle of the road. You would not call Judge Brand in the middle District of Pennsylvania a fire brand, no pun intended, liberal. Okay, he gets it. He goes through all the pleadings and he says, yeah, I have the motions. Yeah, she was unlawfully appointed. Because he laid it out quite succinctly. This is what you get to do as president. You get to nominate somebody. You got 120 days to get them confirmed by the Senate. If they don't get confirmed by the Senate and their term doesn't get extended by the court, then that person is out and can't be put back in as acting interim, whatever while you go get somebody else. And the person that stays in the job until you can get somebody nominated and confirmed is going to be picked by the judges. That's it. That's the Federal Vacancy Act. That's the statute related to judge, judge, the U.S. attorney filling, and that's the Constitution. And that's it. And all this other stuff that you did where she's the special attorney, but she doesn't have all the powers of a U.S. attorney, but she does have all the powers. None of that's going to fly here. And I disqualify her. I disqualify everybody working under her. I disqualify anybody that tries to do an end run around this order. They're disqualified. And good day. Now there's complete chaos in the 5th largest federal district in America with judges like Judge Salas just yesterday said in response to a motion by one of A completely unrelated defendant to say, why am I getting sentenced by an unlawful U.S. attorney. I questioned, by the way, during that interview with Bowling what office she was sitting in. It looked a lot like an office in newark that the U.S. attorney would sit in. So she's still sitting there as the acting whatever. And the sentencing. And the lawyer said it, postpone the sentencing. There is no U.S. attorney proper. And Judge Salas, Esther Salas said, I agree. And the Department of Justice rushed in with, but no, there's other deputies and assistants. And she says, no, I'm not buying that. Go work this out. You don't have a U.S. attorney. I'm not sentencing. Those have been postponed. Sentencings have been postponed. And now what I've read and what I've heard is that they actually have to have Todd Blanche, who was her co counsel when they were criminal defense lawyers for Donald Trump, take time out of being the number two in the Department of Justice in Washington to sign motions and pleadings and indictments, even down to the misdemeanor level. So like, you know, litter, you know, criminal littering or whatever in Jersey. He's got, now she needs a co signer. He now has to co sign for her to avoid any more, many more arguments in court by other defendants that, that this is invalid and dismiss my indictment. Apparently he has nothing better to do anyway, which is actually, there's a silver lining to this. The more time he spends going on interviews of convicted sex ju predators and having to sign misdemeanors in New Jersey, it's the less time he has to really focus on his job properly and do all of the terrible things that Donald Trump, who got quoted this week as reminding everybody that he is the chief law enforcement officer because, you know about the raid, you know, the raid, the raid of John Bolton. Well, I am the chief law enforcement officer, you know. So Pam Bondi again shrinks again, confirming there is no independent Department of Justice. This is what all federal judges have observed. There is no independent FBI. And Todd Blanche is busy trying, like the boy at the dike, trying to put his hand in with all of these, all of these holes that spring up and he's not doing a very good job. But that's how bad things have gotten. As Alina Haba goes on, it's not an apology tour, the victim tour. I saw one with Hannity. I don't know if we have the a clip of it. I saw one with Hannity where she said, this is just another, you know, leftist activist judge that nobody voted for my I'm supported by the President of the United States and Pam Bondi. He got 100 million votes. I'm barely. I'm barely. This. I got. He got a hundred million votes. And we always win. This is what she said. Effing Ben legal. We always win. Just like in New York. I was like, time to insert vomit here.
- [62:31]
Michael Popak
Well, here's the, here's the thing, too.
- [62:32]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
They always win.
- [62:33]
Michael Popak
I don't think. No, they don't. But here's the thing. This shouldn't be a Democrat, Republican thing. The interim United States attorney who should be in that place is a lifelong Republican, competent, qualified person who can do the job, but that's who they've now fired and pushed out. So Alina Haba can engage in these shenanigans. We're all less safe as a result of all this stuff, of all this performative stuff. The FBI and DOJ is. They're not investigating the terrorism cases like they used to and the sex trafficking cases and the real threats to our homeland are being foregone so that they can arrest migrants and, and parking lots of the Home Depots and things like that. But here's the thing, Alina Hobbs, the bar is so low with this Trump regime that if Alina Haba just went in there and conducted herself just as a professional for that period, just went in there and behaved and just prosecuted the bad guys, people would have been like, whoa. And she would have been able to stay on. But to your point, she goes in there and just behaves like a, like a maniac because she is, I mean, Donald Trump behaves like a sexual predator, a fraud, you know, a felon and all of these, because he is like. And these people, they get into these positions. It was like what Obama said, you know, when you get into the presidency, it amplifies who you are and exposes it even more. It doesn't tamp it down. So all these people get these positions and they remind us why they don't have the temperament, moral character, decision making skills to hold these positions. Okay, super quick lightning round. Poock. I'm going to ask you to merge it. We're going to put these two cases together for this lightning round because there's some misconceptions about what the holdings ultimately were. So. And I know you've covered it in hot take, so I don't want to be redundant. So quickly tell us about the. What the New York Court of Appeals did and then merge that with the NIH Supreme Court decision. Bolt some confusion about it.
- [64:40]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
Got it. Well, we had to clean it there. That's the common denominator. There's confusion. So we've been waiting for a year for the first Department Appellate Division, which is the first level appeal court over Manhattan, to make a ruling about the appeal of the $463 million running with interest civil fraud judgment obtained by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Okay, now we're all on the same page. That's what we're talking about that Alina Haba actually was involved with. And in that case, after a 12 week trial with mountains of evidence, tons of Trump Organization people testifying and others, including experts, Judge Engoron from the bench made a ruling 30, 40 pages in which he found that she had proven the case for the State of New York, that Donald Trump and those around him in the organization, including his children, except for Ivanka, had come and Marl and Tiffany had committed what's called persistent fraud in the operation of the Trump organization for 10 years. And fundamentally, the basis of that was his inflating cook in the books on his personal net worth, his personal financial statements, pumping them up several billion with a B dollars in order to obtain favorable terms from banks, in order to run around and tell people and get, and get projects that he wasn't probably entitled to because he didn't have as much money as he said. And he did it, you know, the old fashioned way with white out in a paste and a pencil eraser. I'm not kidding. And so he, in response to that, the judge did two things. He calculated the amount of what we call ill gotten gains. That's the amount of money that he calculated that Trump and his family were obtained through fraudulent means or artifice and put in their pockets. And he calculated it project by project by project by transaction from the triplex apartment in New York to a golf course to Mar a Lago and everything else. And he came up with a number. He came up with a $363 million number plus 100 million in interest. And it's all broken down in his 40, if you want to read it, it's all broken down in his 40 pages. And then he added on to that disgorgement, which, which has been referred to in the papers as a fine. He's added on an injunction which has been sitting there for the last two years. That's how long that case has been going on, which is that there's a actual monitor, court appointed monitor. It's, it's former federal Judge Barbara Jones who sits on top of the Trump organization to this day. What peering in and watching all of the transactions and making reports on them. She. She redid the compliance department. There wasn't one. She redid the accounting department. There really wasn't one. And she keeps an eye on everything. So those were the two major things that came out of a finding and then a yes, a, a, a finding of liability of fraud by Donald Trump that went up on appeal. And there's five justices that get randomly assigned in this case there. The five justices were molten, Renwick, Rosado, Higgitt, and Friedman. Friedman was always the weird duck because he's. He's the guy that kept granting stays for Donald Trump and is the only Republican on that panel. We were, and he asked some really weird questions during the oral argument. Then we get the order, we get the decision, but there's no decision. There's five of them, and it's a split decision. There are three written opinions. No one written opinion even got a majority. So two people joined in on the decision on the opinion written by Judge Moulton, two joined in with the opinion written by Higgins, and Friedman wrote his own. So there's no there there. In 333 pages, there's very little agreement except for the following. There appears to be, at least for the purposes of the appeal to the next level, which in New York is the Court of Appeals. There's. There's four justices that think there's at least an argument that fraud was proven by Donald Trump. That's why Tish James came out with, well, court said fraud, sort of. Two judges, Justices definitely said fraud was proven. Moulton and Renwick, two judges said, we think we'd send it back for another trial, but for the purposes of an appeal, we'll certify fraud. You know, kind of a compromise came up out of that. Okay, that's. That's four. To get it to an appeal. Both. There's four people that also bailed out Letitia James because, remember, she's been attacked. And there's a prosecution going on right now led by a combination of Ed Martin and John Sarcone for Pam Bonding and Donald Trump to go after his political rival and enemy Letitia James and her office, the New York Attorney General's. There's a criminal probe right now about whether Donald Trump's or a probe whether his civil rights were violated by this case. So four justices in their opinion said Letitia James had the power. She didn't abuse her power. She had the right. In fact, they said it would have been a dereliction of Duty if she'd not brought the case based on. Here we go. Bringing it back to Midas based on what Michael Cohen had testified in federal in federal proceedings to about his boss cooking the books. How could she have ignored that and not brought. It would have been a dereliction of duty if she had not brought the case. So that was certainly calculated. They wrote this or rewrote it after seeing what's happened in the last two weeks against Letitia James, back to vindictive prosecution world again. And so, so now the. And then on the other extreme is Friedman saying, why are we here? There's no fraud. She's vindictive. There's no money here. Why is the number so big now? The number is the thing that's also been struck struck because two of the justices are like the injunction is fine. Actually four justices think the injunction is okay to keep the monitor in place. But that's all that that ever should have been. It should have been granted. As to the money, it's almost like they were rewarding the bank robber for the size of the. Of the theft. They said, well, the number is just so big, the 463 million, that it is automatically excessive and a violation of the eighth Amendment against excessive fines under the Constitution. I'm like, he gets. It's because he's. He's dealing with billions and billions and billions of dollars. So $300 million is not really that large. And why is that a defense to a. To a clawback or a disgorgement? The number's too big. But this is now what's going to. So that's why the reporting was like Donald Trump. Some. Some reported, including Trump. I won. I've been vindicated. But I still got to take an appeal. Right? You have to take an appeal to the Court of Appeals because Tish James is going to be asking for the reinstatement of the $463 million and a final real judgment by a real court, not these people who say that Donald Trump committed fraud. He's going to try to make sure that he's vindicated on the fraud at the court of Appeals and that $0 and that the are awarded and that the monitor is removed. So that's what I hope that helped everybody for 333 pages.
- [72:03]
Michael Popak
Absolutely. And then if you can popak NIH decision. I think that went there. NIH decision. People confused there as well.
- [72:11]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
All right. That. That's because Amy Coney Barrett was a swing vote on two different majority decisions. The Supreme Court. Let me give the headline the MAGA Supreme Court just validated RFK Jr. Who I now call the, the, the, the word. The most terrible Kennedy ever in his purge of science and technology and medicine from the nat. From our public health. And so he, in the middle of firing everybody, he fired not only the people at the National Institute of Health, but he defunded them by getting rid of $850 million worth of in progress research. So shut the door on medical breakthroughs, close your lab books, you know, shut down the lab in the middle of the, of the experiment because we're not going to be getting any more medical breakthroughs because it's now been defunded under DEI and MAGA Supreme Court Court is okay with it. But it was weird. Why was it weird? Because there were two major issues that came out of the judge's ruling, ruling Judge Young up in Massachusetts. One was that the guidelines that the National Institute of Health used to defund were arbitrary and capricious. That there was no reason determination that it violated the Administrative Procedures Act. They got that. Then he made a ruling and the grants that were cut, the funding that was cut was done improperly. And I blocked them. Okay. In the summer, summer, earlier in the summer, there was a case involving the Department of Education that you and I covered called the Department of Education versus California. And in that one paragraph emergency ruling, again, we're trying to like divine whatever. There was a ruling that the ruling said if it deals with funds and grants, it goes to the federal Court of Claims, not to a regular article three judge. And apparently the MAGA think that that applies to every grant cut, every defunding by Donald Trump. And so they five, five to four with Amy Coney Barrett making up the five with Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas ruled that Young did not have jurisdiction over the funding part of it. And it should have gone and it will go to the Federal Court of Claims. On another five to four within the same case, Roberts moved over with Amy Coney Barrett and said no, he had jurisdiction over the guidelines, but he didn't have jurisdiction over the funding. I mean, it's a real cluster f. This is what happens when you are a, a Supreme Court that's reverse engineering to reach a conclusion to help the Trump administration or. This is one of my favorite lines ever by, by Ketanji Brown Jackson. We, we do a lot of reporting on the Supreme Court by saying, and in dissent, Ketanji Brown Jackson said the following because she's speaking to law students, she's speaking to the history Books. She's speaking to the future and she's speaking to fair minded people like our audience, which she writes her dissents. They are important. And what she said is she looked around and she said, we're my, my brethren. My, my majority here are playing Calvin Ball from Calvin and Hobbes, except they added a new rule. First rule, there are no fixed rules. Second rule, the Trump administration always wins. I mean, she's calling, I mean, we've now dispensed with. Yeah, thank you. Or as this reporter said, the breathtakingly full of shit. Right. So, so the fact that she's now had to, to grab on to Calvin and Hobbes to call out. She also said, I did not understand this is a Supreme Court justice being honest. I did not understand how terrible a decision the Department of Education decision was until I see it now being applied in this case. I thought it was bad then. It was unmoored from any constitutional principles or any principles whatsoever. But now I see it's being used as a bludgeon by the MAGA on any funding decision. And that's not right. And so that's, that's this weird five to four that happened about jurisdiction and about the Administrative Procedures Act.
- [76:28]
Michael Popak
Popak, you actually have a Supreme Court justice in the minority becoming a whistleblower essentially right now.
- [76:35]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
Right?
- [76:36]
Michael Popak
I mean you literally have a whistleblower Supreme Court justice, the most qualified of all of the justices out there by far, saying we, this, this court right now is the most corrupt institution imaginable. That, that, that, that's where, that's where we are. And she's right. And you go back to what I said earlier, this is not a moment where you can mince words. And I think this episode just goes to show you when we highlight people who are fighting back, why we need to fight back, what we can all do, what the legal A effers can do. And so actually one of the most, one of my favorite episodes that we've done on Legal af, at least in a long time. Great audience, great seeing everybody here. I want to remind everybody, if you have a case of your own, if you've been injured in a car accident or if you were injured in a trucking accident or if you were the victim of somebody else's negligence and you have a case, you've all said, Michael Popak, why don't you start your own law firm? He did. He did it. So reach out to the POPOC firm. Go to the popoc firm.com. you can fill out the form about your case or call 877 popoc AF. A real live human being picks up the call and will ask you about what your case is. Michael Popo has lawyers across the entire country who can help you out. The consultation is free, so don't worry about paying for things. Reach out to the POPOC firm and they'll let you know if you have a case or if someone you know in your life was the victim of wrongful death, sexual harassment, sexual assault. You know, these horrible things that do happen. That's why you all said Popo start the firm and he did. And we're getting, you know, dozens and dozens of cases now at the POPOC firm and on a basically a weekly basis. So don't be shy. Lots of people are calling and he's representing hundreds of people now who are from the Legal AF audience. So reach out to him there. Also, subscribe to Michael Popo's YouTube channel illegal AF YouTube channel. Subscribe to the legal AF substack. Of course, subscribe to the Midas Touch YouTube channel. Thank you all so much everybody. It's been a great episode. Been great spending this time with you. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and shout out Legal A efforts. Have a good one.
- [79:03]
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- [80:02]
Alina Haba
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- [80:09]
Co-host/Legal Analyst
Stage and the site is live that.
- [80:11]
Alina Haba
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