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Ben Miceli
T Mobile welcome to Legal af. We've got a lot to discuss. Donald Trump has lost not just one time, not twice, not three times, but four times on the birthright citizenship issue. This follows the United States Supreme Court's ruling that many people thought was favorable to Donald Trump on the issue of birthright citizenship. Not so. We'll explain what went down. And if you've been watching Legal AF before, we told you that that Supreme Court ruling was not going to impact the district court still blocking Donald Trump trying to overrule the constitutional right to birthright citizenship. We're going to talk about Texas Democrats fighting back, both in terms of blocking the quorum, also in terms of what's going on in court there as the MAGA Republicans in Texas say that they're sending their own police forces and the FBI to go after the Texas Democrats who are both in Illinois and California. We'll talk about also what Democratic states are doing in response as Donald Trump trying to cover up the Epstein files, his connections with Epstein, what he's doing with Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker. Donald Trump has spent a lot of time this past week ordering his DOJ to go after people like Senator Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. And a grand jury is being impaneled to criminally prosecute or go after former President Obama and his administration. There are now criminal cases. These criminal investigations open into shift and New York Attorney General Letitia James. In the AG Letitia James case, Donald Trump claims that he was actually the victim and that the DOJ needs to vindicate his rights as a victim of his own civil rights violations based on her successfully prosecuting him in a civil case. We'll talk about that later. We'll give some Epstein updates as well. Michael Popak, good to see you. You and I were supposed to see each other in person, but with the mess that Donald Trump has turned the FAA into Your flights got canceled. So we were not able to do this together in person. But it's still good to do this with you this week.
Michael Popak
Oh, absolutely. We're going to get a reschedule for September. Yeah, I got stuck in that. You know, and just to touch on that for a minute, not only is the air travel in disarray, but Donald Trump just fired the head of the national the ntsb, the organization that's supposed to be an independent body to investigate air crashes. We'll talk at another break about that. It just shows you that Donald Trump is just the king of chaos and all we're watching. I think one of the themes for today's show or for every show that you and I do, every analysis that you and I do, is that Donald Trump is using what I consider to be, of course, the most corrupt presidency. He's wielding the most corrupt Department of Justice in order to go after his political enemies. He knows that the cases that you and I are going to talk about today, whether it's the Obama, the Adam Schiff, the Letitia James cases, it's not that he thinks he can win those. It's that he wanted the headline that one of which you put up, he wanted the headline of Adam Schiff criminally investigated for mortgage fraud, Letitia James DOJ opens up criminal investigation. They want the headline and then they hope that's the talking point that will distract people and give MAGA some reinforcement now because they're pretty beleaguered given the tailspin that the Trump administration is in over the economy and the immigration issues and Epstein. And they're hoping that these sort of shiny objects, which are well timed, purposely timed for political purposes. All we're watching is a Department of justice that is nothing more than the political arm of, of the, of the, of the Trump campaign, of the Trump administration. It's just there is the fact that we're going to have to talk about a Wednesday night meeting with the FBI, the Department of justice and White House officials, including J.D. vance and others, to talk about the Epstein files and what to do about and talk about firing senior people in the FBI just shows you that that the Department of Justice has, is just a sock puppet for Donald Trump. We've always said, we've always known that. But we would never have been able to report on legal a, about a Biden administration meeting between Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and the head of the FBI or a Clinton or an Obama, because those things never happened because the integrity and independence of the Department of Justice was Sacrosanct. Donald Trump accused Joe Biden of having those meetings and influencing the prosecutions because he can never, he can never accept the fact that the reason he was prosecuted, whether it was in New York or in D.C. or in Florida or he was fraudulently or his, his fraud was investigated and the civil case prosecuted, is because of his own misdeeds and, and wrongful conduct. Since he can't accept that, he has to blame the prosecutors. And I'll leave it on this. The fact that they just fired two of the most senior FBI agents because they worked on the Jan.6 task force, this begs the question, and it's a rhetorical one. What if Trump had been elected again and not Biden? What would he have done with all of the 2,000 criminals that attacked and tried to burn down our capital? He would have instructed his FBI and his Department of Justice to ignore it. The crimes that were obviously being committed, all caught on closed circuit tv. They would have just been ignored. I mean, what, they were just doing their job. You know, they didn't, they didn't lead the insurrection. But the fact that he's still rooting out and as a result, whether it's the hundreds and hundreds of Department of Justice attorneys that, in senior positions and otherwise, that have left the Department of Justice hollowing it out, making us less safe, making the rule of law less protected, or the FBI, hostage, hostage task force, domestic terrorism task force leadership, we are not safer today because these people are being shown the door and not being replaced because nobody wants to work for this administration. We are. What's the old question the politicians always ask? Are you better off today than you were six months ago, seven months ago, economically, national security, global security. The answer is a resounding no.
Ben Miceli
This has Donald Trump also posted this morning, essentially that he intends to completely take over Washington, D.C. so National Guard, military, Marines, it will, you know, again, look like a. It already does. Authoritarian regime. Trump's posters, like North Korea, right? Like military Marines everywhere. Nobody's going to go to Washington, D.C. tourists are not coming into the United States. You know, as Donald Trump says, no one's coming in through the border at all. You know, no one comes in through the border of North Korea or earlier. Donald Trump posted. Yeah. Monday, a press conference will be held, he says, essentially, to stop violent crime. But this is one of Donald Trump's schemes that we always see over and over again. Right. He claims emergencies for national security, assimilation of power. Now, I'm the executive, there's an emergency, we're under an invasion. I'M going to exercise the power of an authoritarian popak. You mentioned the Department of Justice losing all of, you know, huge portions of its smartest top staff, either because Trump fired them or they've left, they've quit. No one's working there.
Guest Speaker
So.
Ben Miceli
So you pretty much have the worst of the worst there right now. And to your point, these prosecutors, these people violating their ethical obligations, a lot of them violating the law, and the DOJ just looks like a criminal cartel.
Michael Popak
And wait before you leave that. And we're not going to touch on all this because you and I have to curate an episode, but you've got two Trumpers on the D.C. appellate Court, D.C. d.C. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or federal court who just ruled that Judge Boasberg had stepped out of line because he had been lied to in his courtroom about the 200 or so people that were kidnapped and sent to concentration camps in El Salvador. And he wanted to get to the bottom of it as a federal judge. And he was wrapped on the knuckles by two Trumpers. Thank God that they don't hold the majority on that particular court. But Katzis and RA Wrote scathing critiques of Boasberg. We've been waiting for that order. It's been sitting around for a long time. Now we know why Judge Pollard, an Obama appointee, of course, took the logical view, which is he had every right to find a probable cause for criminal contempt against the Trump administration. But that's what we're watching as Donald Trump and just as a preview because you and I will talk about it starting next week and others on Legal af, Judge Breyer holding a three day trial starts on Monday about whether in your home state whether Donald Trump violated the Posse Comitatus act by using the federal troops on domestic soil for law enforcement purposes or to support immigration arrests and removal, which would violate a long standing firewall that stops the commander in chief from turning the tanks and the troops against the American people on American soil while we, while we have that trial going on, we've got Donald Trump announcing that he's going to violate the Posse Combatant act again and he's going to use the federal troops in foreign countries without their permission to try to take out drug cartels like in Mexico, Colombia, you know, and you know, and they stand there lying to the American people because it's hard to keep track of all this information. And it's not. Part of it is they're taking advantage of the fact the American people don't follow things as closely as our audience does or we do. But he stands there and says, you know, Carolyn Levette, $50 million bounty on the Maduro on Maduro in Venezuela for the. For the information to kill or capture him. All right, Biden had a $25 million bounty. The president before that had a $15 million bounty. These bounties don't seem to be working, but, you know, it's this get tough thing. They've decided that the only thing they have for political gain besides effing with the map, so we'll talk about that later, is to portray Donald Trump as a dictator, a strongman dictator, and they think that gets them votes. So that's why we're saying, take over of D.C. we're going to send troops to Mexico. We're going to, you know, this is, this is obviously what the Trump administration and the Trump campaign for the midterms, wants to portray him as. Peacemaker. We'll talk more about that later. Peacemaker around the world and strongman at home.
Ben Miceli
You know, you just take a look at his criminal mindset, and I think it's epitomized in his criminal decision making. You know, he leaned frequently to what is the. Out of a series of choices you can make, the choice that he often makes is what's the criminal one, what's the most corrupt one, what's the most pernicious and evil? I mean, you just take something as simple as the Epstein files. I mean, whether you say it's simple or not, it's simple in the sense of people want the files released. Release the files, turn them over for Donald Trump. That turned into, oh, I'm going to release Ghislaine Maxwell. People like, why? What do you mean? That's not what we want? We said release the files.
Michael Popak
No, no, no, no, no.
Ben Miceli
I'm going to give Delaine Maxwell immunity. I'm going to move her from Tallahassee into this minimum security facility called Camp Ryan in Texas. We're going to give her all of these perks. We're going to make sure that she's treated great. We're going to portray her as a hero in all of this. And we're going to also then stop really the Congress from being able to take her deposition, because we're going to basically tell Congress to recess as MAGA Mike Johnson does. The MAGA Republicans recess, and we're gonna coordinate something to actually help the sex traffickers and help the pedo ring. And it's like, what are you doing? I did a report earlier this week, Popak, about how the Camp Bryan in Texas, which is where Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to in minimum security facility. Everybody knows that Trump and Trump's DOJ had to give her a special exemption in order to go there. They don't allow sex traffickers at this facility. Salty just showed an image of just what it looks like. You'll see picnic benches, there's no guards. And Bryan, Texas is right in the Texas A and M area. It's a college town. So if anyone lives near college town or visited college towns because it's a minimum security facility with women who are supposed to be there for a short period of time, they have all these restorative justice programs which are good for the community and good for Texas A and M until you inject a sex trafficker into the community. So Texas A and M has a puppy program where they work with the women in the restorative justice program who are, who are incarcerated for a short period of time. They raise the dogs together, they train service dogs together. There's a program where the Texas A and M students who want to go into get education degrees, the women from the prison walk over, they get taught. There's a lot of programs of working with the, the female prisoners in a restorative justice way. Well, now we know Ghislaine Maxwell, whose MO was going into Mar a Lago or places, finding underage girls or young women and then sex trafficking them. Now we have Delaine Maxwell injected into the Texas A and M community, working. She's there, you know. And then two weeks before that you had Lawrence Taylor, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 16 year old girl. He was appointed to be Donald Trump's head of the Children Fitness of the head of the Children Fitness program. So you have, you know, someone who sexually assaulted an underage girl now is going to be administering fitness tests to underage girls. So that's Donald Trump's decision making tree. And you take a listen to what the survivors of Epstein are saying, like Annie Farmer, she's like, I wanted to meet with Todd Blanche, I wanted to meet with the DOJ that they didn't want to meet with me. They're not responding. The DOJ is responding to the traffickers, the sex traffickers and not to the survivors. When the whole purpose of the DOJ is to help victims. This is what Annie Farmer said. Popa, let's play it.
Jennifer
Yeah, well. And when you ask those questions, does anyone answer? What kind of response do you get? So far there hasn't been a lot of official response. You know, to our queries, you know, even in this, you know, I reached out to the prosecutors who, you know, brought, you know, who got the guilty verdict for Maxwell, saying, you know, what's going on? And, you know, they knew so little because they have not been involved in this process. So I wrote a letter to Deputy Attorney General Blanche saying, you know, these are my concerns about what's happening and there has not been a response. So, you know, we, I know, speaking with other survivors in this case, that even though so many politicians are talking about this, I don't think anyone has actually been contacted by anyone. You reached out to the attorney deputy, attorney general, and you haven't heard back? Yes. Wow. Jennifer.
Michael Popak
She'll never hear back.
Ben Miceli
And that. She'll never hear back. And that again, upends the very nature, like, let's keep it simple. Stupid, right? That upends the very nature of the DOJ Popoc. You'll talk about it. The secret meeting they have, not so secret at the White House, which they deny. They're gonna have to help the sex traffickers. I mean, that's happening in the United States. Helping sex traffickers in plain view and normalizing sexually assaulting 16 year olds with Lawrence, you know, and other things.
Michael Popak
I just read that the only reason Donald Trump is hesitating, pardoning P. Diddy still could happen is not because, not because of what P. Diddy was accused of, but because P. Diddy came out apparently against Donald Trump politically during a campaign. And so that's making it hard for Donald Trump to make the, to make the consideration. I mean, wait till you see if you think what's happening now is bad. There's just. Donald Trump just has a thing for people have been accused or indicted or convicted of sex trafficking or sex crimes. But what else? What would we expect, Ben? We have an adjudged sex abuser from New York in the Eugene Carroll case, in which dozens of other women have also come forward, some of which have testified under oath. Besides these survivors that we just pointed to for the Epstein matter against Donald Trump in multiple trials under oath, no one was, no one was, was prosecuted for perjury because everybody told the truth about Donald Trump. That's, that's the administration that you and I describe on an hourly basis on Midas Touch and Legal AF is the administration that we knew was going to happen when you send a criminal, a judge, sex abuser, misogynist, narcissist, back to the White House for his triumphant return. This is there, I mean, nothing about what, what's happening Surprises me. Now, I will say one thing about community, about what we do here on Legal af, and I might as touch and I've been using this phrase lately, we shall overcome Trump administration. We will do it together. That's why we cover the 450 cases that have been filed against him, the couple of hundred injunctions that have been filed against him. And things are working. I know people get beleaguered about the Supreme Court report when we get there, about, oh, we're winning 90% at the trial level, but we're losing 90% at the supreme Court level. But. Right. Not every case gets to the Supreme Court, not every case gets appealed. And we'll talk about that with birthright citizenship to the Supreme Court. And there are things that we can influence Donald Trump and make him stop doing because of the onslaught of lawsuits, especially as you did a great report about Jeanine Pirro, especially when they don't have enough talented personnel in the Department of Justice to fight off the democracy forwards, the aclu, the attorneys general who are all loaded for Bayer to come at this administration, they are getting whipsawed. And that's a good thing, the Trump administration and getting stretched by all of these lawsuits. And we're only seven months in. And so good things will happen when you get an exhausted doj, an exhausted, mentally exhausted Trump, good things happen.
Ben Miceli
So I want to talk about that meeting, what took place, because there was more than just what happened with Ghislaine Maxwell there at the White House meeting. The fact that they know in the past former presidents would have these meetings to discuss war and peace. Now they're talking about how they're helping sex traffickers and cover up the Epstein files. And though it's not within the legal wheelhouse, it's worth mentioning as well. You know, this meeting that Donald Trump announced in Alaska with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump sending a real estate buddy to speak with Putin and to handle these negotiations, Steve Witkoff. And what was initially believed to be what the deal was going to be, what Putin said, you know, Putin's out there saying, well, I never said that to Witkoff. And mind you, the translator that Putin gives to Witkoff is a KGB agent and not someone from the embassy. And Putin and the Russian position ahead of this meeting, where it legitimizes Putin going to Alaska, going on the US Soil, is we basically take all of Ukraine, you know, not just the areas that, you know, are right now unlawfully occupied by Russia, but we want all of the areas highly, all of the areas where the Ukraine's really set up great defense systems. We want that, too. And, and Ukraine and Donald Trump's like, ukraine, you can't show up. Europe, you can show up. And so he just makes a mess of everything, making the world a more dangerous place, making the United States of America unsafe and frankly, gross. Like, I just want to, want to lose track. This is gross behavior. It's criminal, but it's grotesque. But he's a grotesque person. I mean, he was best friends with Gila. He's, he's lived a grotesque life.
Michael Popak
Yeah. Well.
Ben Miceli
Hold the point. I want to take our first quick break. We're going to talk about it. Michael Popox law firm, everybody. I want you to check it out. You all wanted him to start the firm. He listened. He started the firm. You've been in a catastrophic injury, auto accident, trucking accident, victim of sexual assault. Know somebody who's been the victim of a wrongful death case, negligence, malpractice. Reach out to Popak. The consultation's free. Throw that up one more time there. Salty. Call 877- POPAK-AF 877- POPOC-AF or visit the poock firm.com the poock firm.com or 877 pop AF get that free case review today. Let's take our first break. Pop oh, reminder. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel and the Legal AF substack. First break of the show. We've got a lot to discuss. We'll be right back.
Michael Popak
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Guest Speaker
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Ben Miceli
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to those pro democracy sponsors. Michael Popak, I rudely cut you off there at the end. I know you wanted to say something before we move on to close friends.
Michael Popak
And podcast partners never are rude to each other. No, I was just going to say that what Trump tries to exploit is the lack of continuity and the people's amnesia because of the news cycle. And I think that is one of the benefits we bring on the close reporting that we do on legal AF and on Midas Touch. Because just 72 hours ago, Donald Trump announced that there would be a tripartite, there would be a three way meeting that he would broker with Zelensky, Putin and him to talk about resolution of the war. That then morphed a day later into while the party's saying Putin, saying I'm not coming to a Putin, a bilateral meeting with Putin and Trump. But then with the announcement that Trump is already telling Zelensky, you're gonna have to give up the Donbas and, and Crimea and all the, and all the territory you're lost, we're going to reward, we're going to ward Putin. We're going to give him that which he never would able, that he's not been able to obtain militarily. We're going to give him that as a reward for peace. But I'm not going to bring you into the meeting. I'm going to be doing it alone in Alaska. And what we're watching is the failure of diplomacy among many failures of the Trump administration because he doesn't have any adults serving in position. We don't have a secretary of state. It is for all intents and purposes, Steve Witkoff, who's not only Donald Trump's golfing buddy, his real estate development, small time real estate development buddy, who testified in we'll talk about it later. Who testified as a quote unquote expert for Donald Trump in his civil fraud case, who also got him involved and launched the cryptocurrency business with him, with his idiot, with his son, almost said idiot son with his Nepo baby son and Donald Trump's Nepo baby sons. This is the, but that's, that doesn't make you shooting golf in Boca Raton, doesn't make you a diplomat that can go against Putin, the former KGB agent. He's, he's, you know, and so that he runs Witkoff around. Where are the grand tours by Marco Rubio to go be the secretary of state. Not, not that I think he'd be any better against Putin, but this is what we're watching. Donald Trump substitutes his golf buddy to go to go negotiate with Putin and then wonders why the terms of the deals keep shifting against the American position.
Ben Miceli
Popak, talk about these four cases. Donald Trump losing on birthright citizenship. You and the most recent one being in Maryland. Right. Everybody was saying when the Supreme Court made that ruling on nationwide injunctions, that seemed to prohibit the idea of nationwide injunctions. But when you read deeper the way we did, we said, well, actually it only prohibits it on one off cases that do not involve states or class certification. So where there is a class action or a state that is the plaintiff, the Supreme Court's ruling will not impact that. Now, there's really been no difference in terms of at least on this issue, particularly birthright citizenship from district courts, because they've just been certifying class actions. They're right for class action certification. What does that mean, Popak? And how come we're not seeing these emergency peel appeals by Trump right into the Supreme Court, as we've seen on other issues.
Michael Popak
Perfect. Thank you for that setup. So four different cases, Judge Kofnor up in Seattle, Judge laplant up in New Hampshire, a judge, his name just escaped me up in Massachusetts, and Judge Boardman in Maryland. It'll come to me. They all did the exact same things before the United States Supreme Court ruled at the end of June. Not on the substance of birthright citizenship. Why would they want to address that? But rather trying to take a tool out of the tool bag for judges about nationwide injunctions, wrapping them on the knuckles. No, you never had the power to do nationwide injunctions. That's for the Supreme Court to do unless states are involved. Or you should use class actions, do class actions with injunctions on top of class actions. Okay. I mean, that was the one area that Kavanaugh and Sotomayor both agreed. Sotomayor literally said in her dissent, like tomorrow, within hours of this decision, you guys should be running back to court with class action complaints. Same courts, same judges, just different vehicle. Just take your papers and convert them like now. And they all did it. In the CASA case, CASA Incorporated is in front of Judge Boardman. They got in within hours and filed when you file and when the judge makes her decision, it's two different things. And she just got around to making her decision today. Last month, Judge La Plant, almost identically in in New Hampshire, ruled if you put them next to each other, two orders are almost identical. Pardon me first she certified and he certified a class. And the class is of currently born babies and babies yet to be born, the born and the unborn who are subject to this executive order that Donald Trump issued in March to deny birthright citizenship to people born on U.S. soil, violation of the 14th Amendment. Because all those judges even before had all universally said, you can't change the Constitution and your interpretation by executive order doesn't do it. Now, there is another thing that got lost by mainstream media that I pulled out during a recent hot take the position the Trump administration took about the unborn. You would think an administration that spent a hell of a lot of time arguing to the United States Supreme Court to rip, rip down a constitutional right for a woman to choose, arguing that fetuses no embryos have, have rights equal to that of their born mother, would not be taking the position that they took in these cases in the definition of the class by saying unborn, unborn have no rights, unborn have no standing. How can you define the class as future to be born babies? So they are not when it's convenient to them. And the argument doesn't fit. You see how quickly they drop the argument that those that are not yet born have rights. And those were all rejected by both Judge LaPlant and Judge Boardman. The other interesting thing is where's the appeal? We already had Judge LaPlant in July give the administration 30 day, sorry, seven days to run to the Supreme Court on an emergency application. Judge laplant even said in his order from last month that John Sauer, the Solicitor General, had effectively promised the judge that they would be immediately moving for a stay or a emergency appeal at the United States Supreme Court about the substance of birthright citizenship. And that came and went. And that's the reason you and I don't talk about the Trump administration implementing and executing on their executive order, because that order and another one earlier has kept in place the injunctions and they have not run to get those removed. Now, I don't, there's, there's two theories here and I'll get your opinion. Of course. One is that they know they don't have the votes on the substance of birthright citizenship. How would they know that? Oh, I don't know. Ginni Thomas is home every day with Clarence Thomas. I mean, you know, you could do the math and the pillow talk that could happen. So either they politically figured out they don't have the votes to tear down birthright citizenship even with this right, right, right wing Supreme Court, or it's a political timing issue. They're waiting for the last decision. They want to take them all up together. And they're really waiting for maximum distraction for when they have another bad news cycle and they can then, then take the appeal on a political calculus. It's one of those two things. Which do you think it is, Ben?
Ben Miceli
I mean, look at what they just took on an emergency basis, though, to the Supreme Court this past week. They took the issue of racially profiling migrants against the Ninth Circuit injunction again. Well, there was a district court injunction in California. Then the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed it. Then the Trump regime ignored what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did. They launched Operation Trojan Horse this past week where Trump sent ICE agents in Penske trucks, 30 of them at a time. They'd pull into parking lots in California and Los Angeles where migrants were known to work, and then they would all run out, the militarized looking ICE agents and start chasing all of the people in the community straight out of a horror movie, knocking them on the ground, beating them, grabbing them by their collars, and then holding them up like, like ducks that are killed from a hunt or like a, like a trophy. That took place this past week. In the brief to the United States Supreme Court. I think Popak, they want this. They want this to go first before hitting birthright. I think they want to knock out. Yeah. And so they've argued that if people speak Spanish and have brown, this literally in the brief, they said, while it may not, like I'm almost reading verbatim, while it may not always be the case that your skin color and language is enough to find probable cause to arrest you, citizen or not, the fact that you have those qualities in Los Angeles, which they argue is known to have at least one out of every 10 people living, may be undocumented, no citation, but that's what they say. That's enough for probable cause. I mean, literally in the brief, brown skin, speak Spanish in an area known where migrants could work. That gives us probable cause. Arrest everybody. That's why we're hearing the stories. Pregnant woman arrested citizen. You know, just whoever. Just citizens arrested. Whether you're, in my own view, whether you're a citizen or not a citizen, no one should be treated like this. Animals shouldn't be treated like this. And again, this is what's going on under the name of the United States. A full fledged authoritarian regime here. And it's why, you know, tourism from Canada is down anywhere from 32 to 40%. And the rest of the world Tourism is down the same. I want to talk about Democrats fighting back Popac, but the one thing I'll mention just on the Canada front as well is that they have their own version of the Girl Scouts in Canada. I think it's called Girl Guides 60,000. It's just emblematic of everything. They're canceling all of their travel to the United States because the parents of girls in Canada don't want their daughters or sons, but in this case, daughters coming into the United States where you can, where horrible things can happen to you. And so as we start to look towards the World cup and the Olympics and America as this fascist regime, I think there's going to be a lot, a lot, a lot of problems there. And you know, and then popak the other wrinkle of this authoritarian state and the Republicans are saying it outright is we need to turn Democrats into a permanent minority. We need to get rid of Democrats, have a one party country. And the way to do it is to exploit that. Democrats operate under rule of law, independent commissions, good faith constitutional norms. But if we, the Republicans don't, then let's just do unlawful stuff and say good luck trying to, good luck trying.
Michael Popak
To catch us if we don't go back to norm on that point. That's a very, very good point. I've been starting to make it in piecing together what we're watching with the attacks on Letitia James and Adam Schiff and Obama, Clinton. What the Republicans are trying to do, what MAGA is trying to do is tear down our icons, tear down our leaders, destroy the credibility of the Democratic Party as a viable party. You do it through changing congressional maps and shrinking our ability to turn red states purple or blue or to have, or to win back the Congress and things like that. But you also do it, as you've said before, you also do it in attacking the symbols of the democracy and of our party. He's already scarring the White House. We're gonna have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fix that if we can when the Democrats hopefully take back the White House. But that symbol of the White House scarred because of Donald Trump. The symbol of the Capitol forever scarred because of Donald Trump and now going after the Mount Rushmore of leaders for the Democrats. Because it's not just about he's a sore winner, it's that he is check as, as Thom Tillis just recently said about a Trump nominee, he's just checking all the boxes. They're just all the wrong boxes. And we have to fight back both to circle the wagons and ring fence around our leaders like Obama, like, you know, Clinton, Schiff and Letitia James. That's one thing we have to do, but that's what we're watching. Make no mistake about it, we are watching them trying to put the Democratic Party and its leadership out of business.
Ben Miceli
Here's what California Governor Gavin Newsom had to say about he held a press conference yesterday with some of the Texas state lawmakers who have left the state to break quorum. Talk about that in a moment. And other Texas state lawmakers are both in Illinois and in California. And we're seeing Democratic governors step up. Here's California Governor Newsom.
Michael Popak
Let's play it.
Gavin Newsom
The leader of our congressional delegation. They are unanimous in their support moving in this direction of the speaker and the pro tem and they strong support of their caucuses and leaders of critical committees caucus are here to express support. We are moving forward. Make no mistake, California is moving forward. It's a state that's larger than 21 state populations combined. We are not a small isolated state state larger than 21 population combined. We tried to play by higher set of standards and rules with our independent redistricting and we believe in that. And we are not talking about eliminating that commission. We are talking about emergency measures to respond to what's happening in Texas. And we will nullify what happens in Texas.
Ben Miceli
You hear what he said there? Governor Kathy Hochul in New York came out with a similar statement doing that in New York. And now Republicans are saying, well, okay, well we're going to do it in Indiana, we're going to do it in Florida. In states that are already unlawfully gerrymandered by Republicans, they're now saying, well, we're gonna make them doubly unlawful. And so again, we have this system POPAC based on good faith and norms. And every 10 years there's a new census and then there could be redistricting. In the past there used to be something called pre clearance under the Voting Rights act, which was a major way to step Our lawmakers in the 60s knew this would happen. And on a bipartisan basis in the 60s they wanted to stop that. So they passed a Voting Rights act in the 60s on a bipartisan basis. Democrats and Republicans coming together, yes, far more enlightened in the 60s than when they are now. But when the outcome of fair play was the outcome that MAGA and Trump didn't want, they said, f those rules, we're throwing that out now, I hear we'll talk about Democrats fighting back, but Popak I hear a lot of Republicans now doing this gaslighting or this lying thing and saying, actually it's the Democrats who are the ones who are doing this worse. So we had to respond in an emergency basis. Well, let me just make two points. Wrong number. Wrong. No Democrat has ever done any type of gerrymandering right before a midterm, not even halfway through a census. That's never happened before. But more simply, Democrats under former President Biden introduced HR1 as their first piece of legislation for the People act, literally the legislation that would ban all of this partisan gerrymandering and unlawful gerrymandering across the country, introduced legislation to block it. You know who voted for blocking gerrymandering? Democrats. Democrats. You know who voted against it? The Republicans. Republicans said no, we want the partisan and unlawful gerrymandering so they can do just this. So don't give me the well, Democrats have done it worse. If you look in this specific state, Democrats wanted to get rid of gerrymandering in general. General tomorrow, if you put it up for a vote, Democrats would get rid of gerrymandering across the country because Democrats know if you played by fair rules on the issues, the Democrats would win if you played by the fair rules and Republicans know they would lose. So Republicans are going down this path. Popac we're seeing Democrats fight back, but I want to take our last quick break on the show because I think it's a good way to combine two topics here. Texas Democrats fighting back. But also what we're seeing with the weaponization of the DOJ and how maga, how Trump, how they're now using the DOJ to go after Schiff, Letitia, James Obama, anything to distract from Epstein and anything to further Donald Trump's retribution. Tour A reminder, Michael Popak's law firm taken cases from Legal AF listeners and viewers and might as touch viewers. Call 877 Popoc AF 877 Popocaf or go to the popoc firm.com877popocaf or the popoc firm.com if you've been injured, catastrophic injury, whether that's an auto accident, a trucking accident, you're the victim of sexual assault. If you know someone who is the victim of wrongful death, who died in an accident, medical malpractice, negligence, reach out to Popox.
Michael Popak
Sorry on that point. Just because people know I was there. I just met with the team that I work with across the country when I was in Chicago for three days. People saw my until I got a little bit under the weather and I just came back so so jazzed up about about representing our legal A efforts in our Midas mighty. These are the lawyers that obtained billions with a B billions of dollars in form of justice for people have been injured. I met some of the that work on our team, met some of the top truck accident, car accident, rideshare, Uber and Lyft accident lawyers in the entire country and they're all plugged in for our Midas mighty and legal efforts.
Ben Miceli
Home stretch on Legal AF Reminders. Subscribe to Michael Popak's YouTube channel the Legal F YouTube channel. Subscribe to his substack Legal I have substack let's take that last quick break of the show.
Michael Popak
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Ben Miceli
Thank you to our sponsors. Discount codes are in the description below of those sponsors. Michael Popak, let's get back into to it. Talk about Democrats fighting back. And then let's have you pivot to talk about what we're seeing with the DOJ going after New York Attorney General Letitia James. Now they're saying that Donald Trump is the victim. Donald Trump is a RICO victim. Donald Trump is a conspiracy victim. Violent. That's who the victim is of their case. I mean, you can't stuff up. And then they're going after Schiff for mortgage fraud. They're going after Obama and everyone in Obama's administration. They're opening up real criminal grand juries to do this. So yes, they are talking points and headlines, but they have people crazy enough and fascist enough to actually do these things. Pop, break it all down.
Michael Popak
Well, let's have a moment of silence for the Department of Justice manual because it died seven months ago. Pam Bondi put it out of its misery. It's supposed, it is supposed to be the bible by which federal prosecutors do their job. They are never supposed to open up a criminal investigation, grand jury or otherwise, especially announce it so that you're convicting the person in the media when he's innocent or she's innocent until proven guilty. You're never supposed to do that unless you have a good faith basis to believe that there is at least the level of probable cause that you will as a prosecutor, sustainability obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt for a crime. And if you don't have that, you cannot, you cannot open up that investigation. But what we just what we're watching, I'll do it in the second half. We're watching a conspiracy involving Donald Trump and his political hacks and pit bulls trying to tear down, again, to keep the theme going here, tear down the icons and leaders and idols, if you will, of the Democratic Party, try to undermine the Democratic Party, which is what we're exactly seeing in the Texas case, the narrative that the Trump administration wants. There's only a few of them. It's relatively juvenile, but you and I call it out. But it is what it is. They want to make the Republican Party the only party of law and order, a party that abuses the rule of law on purpose for political and financial gain. And they want to have the Democrats portrayed as the party of lawlessness, whether that's Black Lives Matter or civil. Civil disobedience, in protests of the streets or riots or protests that somehow turn into something else about immigration policy. We are the party of lawlessness. This is their narrative, and they are the party of law and order. We know what a joke that is, but that's what we're watching. So whenever you see a Governor Abbott in Texas going after 50 proud Texans, 50 proud Texans who have decided that the only way that they can defend the rights of their constituents is to break and bust the caucus because they're in the minority. But the Texas has a caucus rule. You have to have a two thirds of the House of the of in Texas present to conduct business. And if you're short by one or you're short by 30, 40, or 50, no business can be conducted. They can sit around and twiddle their thumbs, but no justice, no, no, no action, no legislative action can be taken. And they were in special legislative session in Texas in order to redo the congressional maps. I was at a recent forum that I moderated where one of the election experts got up and gave a very good and simple metaphor for this sports metaphor. Changing the maps six, five years after the census, right before the midterms, is the equivalent of the Democrats and Republicans go into the locker room tied at the half in a football game. And while we're in the locker room, each other's, you know, respective locker rooms, the referees come out and they change all the white lines and chalk lines on the football field. They shorten some of them, they lengthen some of them. They make the Democrat end zone short, you know, smaller than the Republican end zone. And then you come out to play the game, it's like. And they blow the whistle, like, here we go. Here's your football. Let's go. Like, what do you mean? The whole field has changed, the rules have changed. The middle of the game, that's what we're watching for the Democrats. So the only way for a minority, and it's been recognized in Texas since the 1870s, to stop the steamrolling by the majority to change the maps and undercut voting and voting rights and representation is to leave. And because of some Supreme Court rulings as recently as 2021 in Texas, they got to leave the state because arrest warrants don't go beyond Texas, as big a state as that is, and reach into places like Illinois. So they had to go somewhere. Now you've got a combination of the federal government, Trump offering the support of the FBI to locate these people. I was just in Chicago. I'll leave it at that. All right, I'll leave it at that. So FBI involved in a state issue about maps to track down legislators who are doing their job to protect their constituents. That's one, two. Abbott announces to great fanfare he's going to send out the. The Texas Rangers. Good luck. You're gonna have to get Illinois. I mean, this isn't like, you know, that old show when I was a kid, McLeod, I'm now showing my age. When the, the sheriff used to, who. Who got reassigned to Manhattan with a cowboy hat, started riding down the streets with a horse, trying to do his job. I mean, that's not going to work in Illinois and in Chicago. So there was that, and then there was the announcements by the Abbott administration and their corrupt attorney general, Ken Paxton, that they were going to start filing lawsuits to remove these people for abandoning their job, interestingly enough. And I did a live report on this with Katie Fang on the legal AF substack last week. The only person at the time that they sued to try to get them back and to declare that they had abdicated was the one Asian American Texan. Not all 50, just this one guy. I'm like, really? That's what's going on now? So they're trying that now. The Texas Democrats are firing back with their own lawsuit declaring that to have the court declare that you cannot remove me. There's a process for removal. You have to show abandonment. What we're doing is not abandonment. It's Texas Supreme Court approved majority caucus busting. Right? To have your quorum. Sorry, quorum. I said caucus. I mean, quorum can tell about cough medicine. Quorum busting. And that's been approved by the. By the Texas Supreme Court as recently as 2021. When they did it then. Now some people might be saying, what's this worth? It's worth a lot. Because in other states where this has happened. And sometimes these, these quorum busting goes on for six weeks, eight weeks, you know, or longer. It forces the majority to negotiate. And maybe instead of losing, this is all over five seats. The way the Texas Republicans redrew the maps, they eliminated minus five Democratic seats. That's a lot. That's a lot. Where we're trying to cobble together a win at the midterms to take control of the House again. To lose five in Texas is a lot because then we have to gain five or more in other places, and that's hard. So that's what we're fighting over, this congressional map to eliminate Democratic seats. So maybe it ends up being two because they got to negotiate after these competing lawsuits get played out. You want to comment about that before I transition?
Ben Miceli
No. I mean, I think you hit it. I think you hit it spot on. I mean, you know, I, I've been observing these Democratic Texas state legislators. They're in it for the long run. The way Texas maps work and the way their primaries work is that if Texas is unable to have a quorum really in the next four or five months, they're not going to be able to have the new maps in time for the midterms. And so I think we're really talking about can they hold out until November or December or so. And that should do it. But, you know, my. But, but this is not something that the Texas state Democratic legislators want, want to do. And you heard from Newsom in the clip that I showed before. It's not something that Newsom, you know, Newsom, California, iu, Democrats, people who like democracy. We, we don't. I don't want to see the gerrymandering in general. I supported the for the People act. I supported McCain Feingold's legislation to campaign finance reform. I would love our election system to look much more like Canada and Europe and elsewhere and other places where there's not money being injected into it. Where, you know, I even like the idea of snap elections. That happened pretty quickly. You can take a pulse of where the country is when these snap elections, you know, are called. I don't like our broken system. I think it's easy to fix it. I think that it's. And it's very clear in these discussions if your MAGA friend or Republican friend goes, well, Democrats, but gerrymandering it also, they're gerrymander Democrats were the ones who put forward the bill to eliminate all of this and you were the ones to block it. It's as simple as that. Shut up. Stop gaslighting me. Move on to the next issue because we want to ban it and you didn't want to ban it. So there's nothing else that needs to be discussed. Okay, Pop, let's move on. Let's talk finally about weaponization shift Letitia Obama and is this a bluff? Is this the headlines? But they put people like Ed Martin and the guy from the Northern District. Yeah, you put these people there. They're crazy enough to do it. These people do not follow manuals, do not follow rules, do not follow what the law is. And you know, they could, they can end up doing a popo.
Michael Popak
So. Well, I agree with you. I don't think it's a bluff. But they got the I think ultimately they've now put shade on Letitia James and Schiff, not among our audience, but in general because now they got a, they got a headline, you know, criminal probes opened against Letitia James, New York Attorney general, her office and Senator Adam Schiff. And some people don't get beyond the headlines. I think that's what our audience likes, that we get behind beyond the headlines and explain why sometimes the headlines are wrong or out of context. But here, right off of this Wednesday night meeting in the White House, that again, lying to the American people. You and I both did videos on this. Trump asked about it about Epstein and FBI firing of FBI and him saying, I don't know anything about this meeting. But J.D. vance is right here. J.D. is there a meeting in the White House tonight? Oh, fake news. Democrats try to distract. There was a meeting. It was attended by all the people that, that we reported on having been attended and decisions were made. And we will see the results of those decisions, such as Todd Blanche having some phony press conference where he plays edited versions of his discussion with, with Ghislaine Maxwell to try to exonerate Donald Trump on the path to pardon for her or goes on. Joe Rogan or something else like that is going to, we're going to see the benefits. We already saw the firing of the FBI agents. Now within that slipstream of what just happened there in that news cycle, they then announce the attacks on these icons of Democratic strength. Adam Schiff, former prosecutor, congressperson from your area, Senator now, who led the charge against Donald Trump in the impeachment process in the House. He's done it in the Senate and also leading the charge on January 6th. So he has been, I won't even say what. Donald Trump gave him a nickname, you know, and he's been a thorn in Donald Trump's side for a long time. Letitia James and I'll get to what's happened. Letitia James has been a thorn in Donald Trump's side, doing good trouble for a long time. She brought a successful civil fraud case against Donald Trump, proving to a New York State Supreme Court judge, Judge Engoron, that he committed, along with others in his family, along with others in his Trump organization, what we call in New York persistent fraud under a unique statute that gives the power to the attorney general, as the sheriff of Wall street, to go after financial crime and financial, financial fraud, I guess the better way to put it, she doesn't actually have much criminal prosecution powers. She has tremendous civil enforcement powers. So she brings the case. It goes on for nine weeks. You and I cover it every day. Literally every day. We have people in the courtroom, we had reporters that we relied on, and after nine weeks, dozens of witnesses, including Steve Witkoff, who is your effective Secretary of State, with no experience, running around getting his head headed to him by Putin, testifying on behalf of Donald Trump as some sort of real estate expert. And Goron concluded that Donald Trump inflated his assets in order to get out from under certain personal guarantees for banks and lower the interest rates and to brag to Forbes magazine and Fortune magazine about his wealth and deflated his assets in real estate when he wanted to save on taxes. And he entered a $458 million judgment. And we've been waiting, and this is actually a crime. I mean, I've waited for the First Department in New York sometimes, but not nine, ten months for a ruling about whether it's really, they're going to cut that 450 down to size, maybe in half. But I do not think, although now we'll have to see. I do not think that the First Department Appellate Division in New York is going to throw out the judgment. But we've been waiting. And in that time, Donald Trump's able to, to, to perpetuate mischief because if it had got affirmed, it would be a little bit better. So that's Letitia James's office. She also went after the National Rifle association, rightly so, a New York corporation at the time, for fraud and other things, went after Wayne lapierre, the flamboyant head of the nra, and took him down for embezzlement. And Donald Trump didn't like that either, because Donald Trump likes Americans being shot in public schools and in churches and things, and supports the nra. So now that he's got back in power and he's got the most corrupt Department of Justice in history. He can have Pam Bondi here. So here's the conspiracy I teased at the top of our podcast. You've got the Nepo Baby and Bill Pulte who comes from the Pulte building family in the Southeast. Every other home in Atlanta was built by Pulte Homes. My late brother in law worked for Pulte Homes. So that Nepo Baby gets put in these little baby Trumper with political aspirations. He gets to be the head of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are kind of two semi private regulatory lending guarantee organizations in the real estate market. Donald Trump uses him for a number of things. One, he's the chief attack dog of Jay Powell at the Federal Reserve. And he lobbed in a complaint alleging that Schiff and Letitia James both committed mortgage fraud. Lands on the desk of a willing conspiratorial Pam Bondi. She says, looks good to me. What about the Department of Justice manual? Oh no, that died seven months ago. I threw that out seven months ago. And she then makes a criminal referral and grand juries get open on fraud. What's the fraud for, Schiff? Bullshit. In order to be a senator representing a state, the Constitution says at the time of the election you have to be resident in that state. And he was. But after he got elected he bought a house in Maryland and for the next six years has been listing that as his primary residence. So maybe he got a quarter of a point discount on the mortgage rate as a result. And at the time he runs for reelection five years from now, he's going to have to reestablish primary residency in California, which he will, but that's the requirement. And I'm sure he's got an ethics opinion that tells him exactly that, that it you don't have to be a primary resident of the state for the entire duration of the six years because his day job is in Washington and so he has his primary residence there. He will, I'm sure, re establish residency should he choose to seek reelection in five years. So that's the mortgage fraud, which he already wrote a letter back to Pulte and told him exactly that and said he had ethics advisory opinions to support him. Yet they opened up the investigation. So the New York Times has to have that banner on Letitia James. She owns a couple of pieces of property. One is in Virginia, it's an investment property. I think her father's involved in it. And one is in New York, a multifamily. On the multifamily, it's listed. And I, I've owned property, I own property in New York. And it's a confusing byzantine process. It's listed, it was built as a five unit multifamily, but I think they tore down a wall and it became a four unit. Why does that matter? Because as a four unit multifamily, you get more favorable interest rates than if it's a five unit. So she bought a four. What was built as a five, but she bought it as a four and she took out a loan as if it were a 4. 4 5. Is any of this criminal intent, Criminal mind mens rea to commit mortgage fraud? And she's got a great lawyer, Abby Law, who you and I know is representing her. So that's the mortgage fraud paperwork issue for Letitia James. Ironic that. And I'll tell you who's investigating her in a minute. Then you've got this Virginia home and allegedly on the line listed for either co borrower or whatever. They listed her father as her husband line instead of as the co borrower when it's her father, as if she was trying to mislead the broker or the bank about her. The fact that her father's her father and not her husband sounds like a bank issue. There's, you know, if you've ever done a mortgage, you know there's a pile high mile high mile high pile of documents to be signed and she might have missed which line the person is on. I think I did the same thing. I, I signed an entire set of documents like in my wife's and I'm a lawyer in my wife's signature block instead of where I was and I had to redo them. It happens. That's not criminal fraud. Now let's look at the continued conspirators. Who's investigating the mortgage fraud? Ed Martin. Who's Ed Martin? He's so MAGA Trumper and Jan Sixer that he can't even get confirmed by the United States Senate to be the D.C. u.S. Attorney. That's why we got Janine Pirro, because he's so maga maga. He's the guy that said, I'll do anything Elon Musk says. I'll. I'll prosecute anybody he tells me to. Okay. He defended Gen 6 insurrectionists. And I think this is the thing that got him he lost the job over is that he was on both sides of a case. He was the defense lawyer for a Jan Sixer and he signed the dismissal after the pardons on behalf of the federal government. For the same guy, he couldn't even grab another guy, so he signed his own. It's like totally ridiculous. So what they do with him, they might have made it worse for us. They put him as the head of the weaponization committee under Pam Bundy. Well, the weaponization committee is now weaponized because he's now the, the prosecutor as some sort of quote unquote, special attorney. Not, not special, not independent counsel, not, not special prosecutor, special attorney with whatever powers Bondi gave her to go after these mortgage issues separately. The last part of the conspiracy is John Sarcone, who you and I covered a lot in the last four or five weeks. He's the guy that also couldn't get, get confirmed in the Northern District of New York, upstate New York as a federal prosecutor. So she made him, Pam Bondi, the acting interim special attorney with the powers of the Northern District, whatever it was. He's also got a couple of problems. One relates to his own residence. He claimed that he lived at a certain location and when the local newspaper went to go check out that location, it was an abandoned, vacant board, boarded up building. And the response for Sarconi was to fire the media outlet and not allow them to cover to any press conferences with him. All right, so he listed an abandoned building as his primary residence. And he's the one going after Letitia James and the Attorney General's office. And he also, there's some mixed reportings about whether he told the truth or lied about somebody, a knife wielding attacker who happened to be Brown or, or an immigrant that attacked him. There's a videotape that suggests that that didn't go down exactly the way he said that he tried to make himself more courageous and the attack more egregious than it really was. In either event, he's the guy that's now not only investigating, he's investigating Letitia James's and Letitia James's office. So now you've got the Attorney General, a state law enforcement entity, the New York Attorney General being invested by a local U.S. attorney in the Northern District up in Albany of New York. Talk about that. Lastly, in a moment, in order to find out whether she violated Donald Trump's civil rights because she obtained a civil fraud conviction against Donald Trump for $450 million and went after the NRA. I mean, so there's a. They're going after her for abuse of power in her office. There's many, many problems with a federal prosecutor trying to go after a state law enforcement agency in our system of federalism which will be played out. You and I will be teaching our audience about if that case gets beyond the grand jury, why is it up in the Northern District of New York? Why is it in it? Why is it not in Manhattan or Brooklyn? Because of the jury. Manhattan and Brooklyn are very liberal juries. Donald Trump got convicted in New York, in Manhattan, in a state court proceeding. His corporations got convicted in Manhattan. And Brooklyn's worse in terms of being on the liberal spectrum. More north you go in New York, all the way up to Albany, the better chance you got. Again, moderates, more importantly, right wing MAGA up there. That's where Elise Stefanik comes from. And other maga, even though it's a bright blue state, there are pockets of red, especially as you go north. So that's why they're prosecuting it up there. That's why they want the grand jury up there. There's things that she could do to kind of change venue, and we'll talk about that at another time, but that is the conspiracy. It's Pulte to Bondi, Bondi to Martin, Martin to Sarconi, and we're a lesser nation because of it.
Ben Miceli
Going back and taking this episode full circle, all of the skilled prosecutors, the career prosecutors, the top people at the doj, they've either been fired or they most likely quit. So now you're left with the worst of the worst. Bad lawyers, bad people, not smart people, evil people, dangerous people. And that's who's running this. And then when they're not allowed to even hold the position, whether it's like an Alina Haba, whether it's like a Sarcone, whether it's this guy in the Central district of California, we haven't talked about him, whatever, they don't leave. They don't leave. They get, they get asked or they get fired, basically, because they term out, because you can only be interim for a set period of time, then they get fired by the judges who have the say if you can keep them on and extend them, then they get fired by the federal judges. And then most people just, I mean, and this to me speaks of this sociopathic MAGA movement of norms and whatever. You know, most people, you know, you get fired, you leave, you literally leave the office, you know, and Alina Haba, I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. I'm staying. I'm not going anywhere. Get out. I'm not leaving. But the problem is when we, the people who follow the norms are like, all right, you're just annoying. I know that I can do just fine. You want that position? Stay. And that's when these idiots win. That's when these fascists win. When we like, okay, enough. Just, just, just. You want the Nobel Peace Prize? Just give them the Nobel Peace Prize, right? I mean, just think about the mindset of Trump saying that too. I want it. I get the Nobel Peace. And then you. And then they want more, and then they want more, and then they take more. And so we have people, we just want to go. I know you watching. You want to spend time with your family and have hobbies and go out and go for walks and go to movies and watch tv, read books, you know, and just do things where these miserable MAGA people, they just want to make you miserable. Like that makes that, that's their hobby, right? Like where you're out there, hey, I want to go to the beach, I want to do that. They're thinking, how can I hurt someone? And that makes them happy. And eventually that wears people down. And they do it in such a relentless non stop way where eventually people who abide by norms say, ah, just keep that. Fine. You want to. You want that position so badly, fine. And we can't, though, right now. We can't have that mentality. That's what Donald Trump's done his whole life, right? He doesn't take, no, he keeps on doing it over and over again. He doesn't care. He blames whatever and it's just a fountain of evil spewing over and over and over again non stop. But that's where we've got to stand up and say things, Stop it. Stop this crap. It ain't happening. It's not happening. I'm putting it all on the line for this. That's what we're going to do at Legal af. That's what we're going to do at the Midas Touch Network each and every day. We appreciate you for watching everybody hit. Subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers here. Subscribe to Michael Popo's legal YouTube channel, Legal AF. Subscribe to the Legal AF substack, the Midas Touch substack. Let's get those platforms growing. A reminder, Michael Popo's law firm, you all wanted him to start it. He's representing a ton of our viewers right now who have cases. So if you've been in a catastrophic accident or you know somebody who has, whether that's a trucking accident, a car accident, medical malpractice, sexual assault, wrongful death, call the popoc firm.com or go to thepopocfirm.com or call 877-popak af 1-877-popak af or go to the popoc firm.com free consultation reach out. It's free. The popoc firm.com 1-877-popocaf they'll review the case, see if it's something they take. And even if they take the case, they do it on a contingency, meaning they don't get paid paid unless you get paid. Thank you everybody so much for watching Pop. Feel better, man. And thank you everybody. And we'll we'll see you next time.
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Legal AF Podcast Summary – Episode: Legal AF Full Episode - 8/9/2025
Release Date: August 10, 2025
Hosts: Ben Miceli, Michael Popak, Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Executive Producer: Meidas Media Network
In this intense and comprehensive episode of Legal AF by MeidasTouch, hosts Ben Miceli, Michael Popak, and Karen Friedman Agnifilo delve deep into the tumultuous intersection of law and politics, focusing particularly on the ongoing legal battles involving former President Donald Trump and the strategic maneuvers by both Republican and Democratic factions in Texas. The episode also tackles the controversial handling of the Epstein case, the weaponization of the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the broader implications for American democracy.
Timestamp: 00:28 – 06:59
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Timestamp: 06:59 – 19:15
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Timestamp: 19:15 – 39:57
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Timestamp: 39:57 – 58:25
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Timestamp: 58:25 – End
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This episode of Legal AF provides a critical analysis of the ongoing power struggles and legal manipulations within the U.S. political landscape. The hosts meticulously dissect the strategies employed by Donald Trump and his allies to undermine democratic institutions and target political opponents through the weaponization of the DOJ. By highlighting specific cases and actions taken against prominent Democratic figures, Ben Miceli, Michael Popak, and Karen Friedman Agnifilo underscore the severe threats facing American democracy today. The discussion serves as a call to action for listeners to remain vigilant and support efforts to preserve the rule of law and democratic principles.
Subscribe and Stay Informed:
For those who haven't listened, Legal AF offers a deep dive into the most pressing legal and political issues of the week, providing valuable insights and unfiltered analysis. Subscribe to their YouTube channel, Substack, and support their mission to keep democracy strong.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this summary are based on the transcript provided and do not necessarily reflect the official policies or positions of any affiliated organizations.