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Michael Popok
To kick off the Intersection. Was it going to be the cosplay military rally of a demented Commander in Chief rambling on for an hour and proposing that the military use Americans in American cities as a dress rehearsal for launching the military against the enemy, making American cities the enemy? Was it going to be that from today or was it going to be a 161 page decision that is a love letter to the Constitution that is written to the historians and to the Supreme Court and to the American people and sits right at the intersection of law and politics. Written by Judge Young, Senior Status Judge in Massachusetts today to protect the First Amendment. Guess which one I went with? Let's kick it off. We're here at the Intersection, the podcast on the Midas Touch Network. I'M Michael Popak. We don't blow smoke or sunshine. It's time to get to the bottom, the bottom of this administration, the bottom of the protection of our constitutional rights. And as Judge Young put in his own writing today, a reminder about freedom and this First, I'll give you the quote and then I'll tell you who said it or who wrote it or said it. Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance. It must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, in his inaugural address in 1967. And those words are still true and more true today. Judge Young in issuing a major ruling, one that he said may be the most momentous ruling that's ever been issued in his courthouse. And he's in his 80s. A senior status judge protects the First Amendment rights of everyone, including those here as permanent residents, including law professors and professors and college students and student activists and protesters, regardless of their immigration status. But certainly if they have proper immigration status, to not have the Justice Department and the secretary of State and Donald Trump and the Homeland Security director secretary weaponize immigration law, to deport people because they don't like their viewpoint, they don't like their criticism of our government or Israel's government or whatever it is. And under the false flag of anti Semitism, crush and chill First Amendment expression. I am sure that when Judge Young, who issued the decision today, 161 pages, he didn't just start writing it today. Sure. The Charlie Kirk death, the aftermath, Donald Trump going after everyone that is not, in his view, properly maga loyal, which according to a new polling, is about 60 or 61% of the country. I'm sure that Donald Trump's reaction to crush First Amendment expression of those he disagrees with, despite having an executive order that he signed on the first day that said that the federal government would get out of the First Amendment business and would stop, stop crushing dissent, he's violating his own executive order. I'm sure that Judge Young knew this moment in history as we're on a knife's edge. And that went in to his writing here, it kicked off in a way that I've never seen before, ever. And I defy anybody who's a constitutional scholar or follows things as closely as we do here on Legal Ao for the Midas Touch Network and on the intersection to tell me the last time a federal judge framed his opinion about the First Amendment. Or anything else as a response to an anonymous postcard, cheeky postcard that he got in his chambers that we didn't know about. And the entire opinion is written as a response to that postcard. I'm going to post it here and I'm going to read it to you up on the screen. This is above this. We call this in the business, the caption or the style. It tells you who the parties of the case are and the case number and the courthouse. I've never seen a judge order that there be text above the caption and a reproduction here of the postcard. But since he framed the whole thing as a response to the postcard, it made a lot of sense. And here's how we know it's a response to the postcard. The postcard, which apparently came from somebody in Philadelphia mailed to Massachusetts, which the judge has on file in his chambers if anybody would like to see it, is dated 19-6-2025, although it says 1919 slave 2025. I think that's because Juneteenth is the 19th. Right. Okay, so 19 slave 2025. Trump has pardons and tanks. The person wrote anonymously. What do you have addressed to the judge? The judge typed a response. Dear Mr. Or Ms. Anonymous, alone I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together we, the people of the United States, you and me, have our magnificent Constitution. Here's how that works out in a specific case. See below. And then he ends the order in which he finds that the Trump administration, over and over again, has violated the First Amendment rights of professors and student activists and therefore has violated our First Amendment rights. Which he reminds the Trump administration that the First Amendment is actually carved in New Hampshire granite on the side of a courthouse in Massachusetts. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, literally carved on the courthouse walls. And the judge reminded the Trump administration that means no law. It doesn't mean. Well, it depends on whether the person is properly here or not, or if they're a migrant or if they've got a green card or if they've got their documents and their papers that no, no, it doesn't matter the person's status. No law means no law unless and until they are removed from the country and not because of their First Amendment expression, they have the right to express themselves while in the country. Now, after he went through, in 147 pages all of the examples of the Trump administration, Marco Rubio, Chris dinom and the rest going after student activists here legally, law professors here legally on college campuses and weaponizing immigration law in order to deport them after creating a tiger team apparently to go after these people. The judge then said I've made my findings and the application of the rules of law and before I get at another time to how I'm going to redress this, we call it redress ability in, in the law business. What is my remedy? I'm going to fashion going to be. I want to tell you where my head is at about justice in the Trump era. Now he didn't have to write the next 5 pages. All this I posted on legal AF substack by the way starts on page 148 after he made the findings. This is, I don't want, I wouldn't say this gratuitous, but certainly it's more in the form of an after forward justice in the Trump era where he cites, he quotes his own wife, I mean Judge Young's wife as the jumping off point to do the analysis which for many reasons I love. The judge starts it this way on page 148. The court's findings and rulings above resolves phase one of these proceedings. The wrong suffered by these plaintiffs is amply established. What now? It is not enough for the court simply to determine that the plaintiff's First Amendment constitutional rights have been violated. The Constitution is not self effectuating. We have to do something about it. There must be the prospect of an effective remedy. When this court, an effective remedy might be unobtainable today, it may be obtainable today it is not so sure. The reason is the rapidly changing nature of the Executive branch under Article 2. Now he chastises the United States Supreme Court for coming up with this unitary president theory which came out of like Robert Bork's mind in the 1980s, then carried the ball, was then carried by Antonin Scalia onto the United States Supreme Court. And now We've got the Maga 6 on the Supreme Court who all support the unitary theory which is at odds with co equal branches of government and checks and balance. It says all power is reposited in Article 2 in the Executive branch, in the President and only the President. Okay? All power of Congress is reposited in Congress. All power of the judiciary is posited in the courts. So what? Oh no, you can't tread on it, you can't impede it, you can't impinge on it, you can't infringe on it. And it's gotten out of control. And it's the reason why we have that ridiculous immunity decision which Donald Trump took to supercharge his powers and test the limits. The court then goes on to one of my favorite parts where he does a quote and I was thinking when I read the quote, we'll put it up on the screen on page 150. Like, where's he getting that quote from who? What famous person said that turns out to be his wife? President Donald J. Trump. He seems to be winning. He ignores everything and he keeps bullying ahead. This is a quote that so perfectly captures the public Persona of Donald Trump, especially as it pertains to the issues. In this case, it is from his wife. And then he goes through each one. He seems to be winning right where he the triumphalism is a natural extension or essence of the Trump brand, calling it his perfect administration that he's right about everything. Then he talks about the unitary president model that he goes to. He ignores everything. This is indubitably true. The Constitution are civil laws, regulations, mores, customs, practices, courtesies, all of it the president simply ignores when he takes it into his head to act. This is not to suggest that he's entirely lawless. He is not. As an experienced litigator, he has learned that at least on the civil side, neither our Constitution nor laws enforce themselves and he can do most anything until an aggrieved person or entity will stand up and say him nay. That is take him to court. Now that he is our duly elected president with full personal immunity, he is prepared to deploy all the resources of the nation against obstruction. Daunting prospect, isn't it? The judge said. Small wonder then, that our bastions of independent, unbiased free speech, those entities we once thought unassailable, big law firms, media companies and universities, have once, have all, all too often proven to have Quaker guns. See, Quakers are peace, are peace loving. And they won't, they won't historically fight. So a Quaker gun is one that does not fire. But not all of them. Behold President Trump's successes in limiting free speech. Law firms cower. Judge Young wrote on page 152. Institutional leaders in higher education meekly appease the president. And as we came on year, Donald Trump's already crowing again about a $500 million deal with Harvard where they're gonna like, channel some of the money into creating Harvard trade schools, Harvard School of Plumbing, Harvard School of Air Conditioning Repair. By the way, I may hire somebody from that media outlets, from huge conglomerates to small niche magazines mind the bottom line rather than the ethics of journalism. Who do you think he's writing to in this 161 page decision? You can write it in comments, history, the Supreme Court, the Trump administration, or fill in the or all four. Or fill in the blank. And he keeps bullying on to finish his rhetorical flourish here. Whether it's social media, Judge Young writes, print or television, President Trump is the master communicator of our time. About his speech, he says, is triumphal, transactional, imperative, bellicose and coarse. It seeks to persuade not through marshaling data driven evidence, science or moral suasion, but through power. While the president naturally seeks warm cheering in gladsome. Isn't that what we just saw with the Although there wasn't a lot of cheering, this presentation to 800 military brass today forced, compelled, rally, welcoming acceptance of his views in the real world, he'll settle for sullen silence and obedience. And then he ends it this way, he says, including a response to the postcard he quotes from Freedom is a fragile thing, he says, that I fear. President Trump believes the American people are so divided today that they will not stand up, fight for and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected. Is he correct? And then he ends the ends it with the following and because remember, this is a response to the postcard and there I'll put up page 141 or 161. Sorry. He says the following after he signed it officially, slash William G. Young, Judge of the United States and he said, that's interesting. Judge of the United States, he says. That is how my predecessor, Judge Sprague, in 1865, would sign official documents. Now that I'm a senior district judge, I adopt this format in honor of all of the judicial colleagues, state and federal, with whom I've had the privilege to serve over the past 47 years. Judge of the United States but now he's Bill Young. I hope you found this helpful, he says to the postcard writer, meaning the 161 prior pages. Thanks for writing. It shows you care. You should. Sincerely and respectfully, Bill Young and here's the P.S. the next time you're in Boston, because the postcard was in Philly, stop in at the courthouse and watch your fellow citizens sitting as jurors reach out for justice. It is here and in courthouses just like this one, both state and federal, spread throughout our land, that our Constitution is most vibrantly Alive. And for it is well said that, quote, where a jury sits there burns the lamp of liberty. Close quote. I can't think of a better way to have started this today with you than with Judge Young. That is what Legal AF is about. That is what Midas Touch is all about, the protection and defense of the First Amendment. That is what Bill Young is defending our masterpiece, our magnificent Constitution. Even if the Supreme Court has found itself to be nothing more than enablers and complicit against Donald Trump. And complicit for Donald Trump. There are judges, many of them senior, status quo, like Judge Breyer in San Francisco who found that the Trump administration violated the Posse Combatus act, or this Judge Young, who is taking it all on now at the age of 84 or 85 years old. It is important that we continue to defend our First Amendment and constitutional principles every day, in every way, even when threatened. Listen, I've had personal threats, you know, because of my position here on Legal af, on Midas Touch. I just had. I just had, you know, we'll talk about it later. I just had the Popoc firm's website hacked. I won't go into who did it. We know who did it. We know why it was done. We're under attack. But that didn't stop me from getting up this morning and planning my day with you to talk about the new cases that came in. We're going to do all of it here on the Intersection. We're going to talk about not only how defective James Comey's indictment is, but why he's going to be the poster child for the defeat of Donald Trump in his most corrupt department of Justice. He's going to give us the blueprint. Pat Fitzgerald, his lawyer, and James Comey are going to defeat this indictment sooner rather than later. Not only is the indictment defective, the prosecutors defective, and I'm going to walk you through all of that before this show is over. Then I want to talk about. Besides that. Then I want to talk about the new lawsuits that have been filed and new decisions that have been made, including we just got a decision out of Judge Lamberth, another senior status judge, Republican, just like the Judge Young that I just read from, who ruled against Trump today, who ruled against Carrie Lake today and found her dripping indifference was grounds for possible contempt in a case involving the Voice of America. We've got two new lawsuits that have been filed, one against Donald Trump's attempts to put together a massive database of all data. That was Elon Musk wet dream. And they're still doing it. And there's a new lawsuit about that. There's a new lawsuit, in addition, about the attempts by Russ Vogt, the Office of Management and Budget director, the real head of Doge, the architect of Project 2025. I feel like I'm in a prize fight. And I'm introducing the challenger who, with Donald Trump, is going to use the shutdown to, to fire more, tens of thousands of more government workers, to shrink the government. Now, they're not shrinking the government in all ways. They're shrinking the administrative apparatus of the government. They're shrinking the social services component of the government. They're shrinking your relationship with the federal government, including through funding for programs that you rely on in education, in health, in a food right, in Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. When you go on the websites today for all departments of the government, it says the radical left wants to shut down the government because they want a $1.3 trillion package. Oh, f, off. Okay. The bill that you passed is hurting Americans. Don't ask me. Ten polls in the last two days say that Donald Trump is gurgling. He's down to a 39% approval rating. I think he's going to be below 30% in the next 90 days. 61% of America rejects Donald Trump and Trumpism. So don't blame the radical left. So he's getting a lot, he thinks he's getting a lot of mileage out of this post Charlie Kirk. All he did post Charlie Kirk was make a martyr. Not out of Charlie Kirk. He made a martyr out of Jimmy Kimmel. So now all the websites want you to believe that you're suffering economically is not because of Trumponomics, is not because of the tariffs passing along the greatest tax increase in the history of America to the American consumer. It's not because of rising prices, including 30% on fruit and vegetables at the supermarket. It's not because what's going on at the gas pump. It's not because of higher interest rates. It's not because of consumer confidence down and jobs down and GDP growth down. It's all a figment of your imagination, almost a pigment of your. Maybe that, too. It's because the Dems want to bring back some Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts and bring back some Obamacare cuts. So you have health care. Donald Trump doesn't care about all that. If he cared about your health, do you think he'd have Robert Kennedy running public health? You think he'd have a Peter Thiel acolyte with no medical or scientific or technology training, running the center for Disease Control. If he cared about your health. Wake up. Not you, not our audience. I mean, I'm talking rhetorically here. Okay, so. So that's what's going on with the shutdown and the new, and the new lawsuit about the shutdown and of course we'll talk, as I said before, about, about the Comey thing. The Comey thing's interesting. I had a debate, before we take a break, I had a debate with a friend of mine who's just this side of MAGA about Comey. He was all excited, what he said. I said, what are you all excited about? Oh, you know. Now you don't like it because now it's happened. I said, I don't like it because it's an abuse of the rule of law. The indictment is bullshit. It should never have been brought. That's what 12 different prosecutors have said in that office. It was brought by a lackey bootlicker of Donald Trump who had been a federal prosecutor for all of two days. She's not even properly appointed and she couldn't even figure out how to get the indictment right. And they indicted on the wrong thing. They wanted her. They wanted the Russia hoax indictment because that's what really has been chopping Donald Trump's backside. They didn't got that. They got the Clinton foundation leaked to the Wall Street Journal indictment. That's not quite what they wanted. And they barely got it at that. So don't crow to me about, well, it's good for the goose, is good for the gander. Don't compare the criminality of Donald Trump that led to a 34 count felony conviction, a 19 count felony conviction for his companies, 34 count for him. Three times indicted, twice impeached. Don't make those comparisons with a, with a fraud based company in New York. All affirmed on appeal. Yeah. Oh, it's happening to you now? Okay, well, that's not quite the same thing. We're comparing apples to bowling balls at this point and we don't like to do that here on the Intersection. Thanks for being here. This podcast, the Intersection, which you've joined, is listener supported, audience supported, and thank you for the bottom of my heart on how much support and outpouring of support we've gotten here. We're doing about 400,000, 500,000 views and listens. It's regularly in the YouTube top 70 out of all podcasts. And it's because of you and I enjoy you being here with me and vice versa. We also have other ways to support what we're doing here, including our, you know, people say, how can we support I recently had a friend of mine say, how can we invest in Legal af? We're not taking investments. We're not taking direct cash into the company. Although I did appreciate the sentiment. We don't have outside investors. We don't have corporate parents. We don't have to worry about a appealing to anybody. Brothers, don't go over my script for tonight. I don't have a script for tonight. That's why we're here. That's why we're doing what we're doing. And that's why Judge Young is telling us we're doing the right thing in his New Order as defenders of freedom in the Constitution in our own way. But you can become a full card carrying member of the Legal AF community by being here on the Intersection with me coming over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel, hitting the free subscribe button there and then I got a substack and that is a way to put a lot of your heart and soul into something. Become a member of Legal AF Substack. And there there is a paid membership option and it's really inexpensive. It's like seven or eight dollars a month, not a week a month. And you can do a biannual subscription and then you become a full fledged member. You get unique content. You get to participate in the chat with me during lives. I do two lives a day, get about three, 4,000 people every time. And all of that you get amazing new content. And it's all in a way that we can't really do it on the YouTube channel. We do it on legal AF substack. Come over there, become a member. And then of course we've got our sponsors and here's a word for them now. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on Prize Picks being right can get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this season on Prize Picks where it's good to be right. I'm so excited to see Saquon Barkley take the field this season. I'm thinking in that first game he can even have more than one rushing touchdown. Prize Picks is simple to play. Just pick more or less on two to six player stat projections. If you get your picks right, you could cash in. Prize Picks is also the best way to get action on sports in more than 40 plus states including California, Texas and Georgia. 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All right, let's go to that cosplay military dictator presentment of the troops that we saw today at Quantico 800 forced conscripted military generals and admirals being forced to listen to the drivel of Pete Hegseth, who never got above, I don't think, major in the military, who's fashioned himself on television waving around flags with his tattooed body as some sort of warrior. He's going to install he he, the guy that was in hair and makeup at Fox and Friends on the Weekend Edition who he, the one who watched the ball drop for Fox every New Year's Eve. Instead of being on a battlefield or in a military, a military war theater, he is going to install the military ethos, the warrior ethos into our troops. All it was was an hour long of a demented Donald Trump circling the drain, barely keeping a coherent thought in his head. I'll show you some clips. And Pete Hegseth marching around like a tin soldier talking about getting rid of wokeness. We're not going to have beards, apparently, we're not going to have women either, because at one point Hegseth said we're going back to male standards, completely crapping over the tens of thousands of women in the military who have died in battle, who have sacked, made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our liberty and justice. He just tosses it aside with a ridiculous sophomore attack. We're going to get rid of woke, we're going to get rid of beers, we're going to get rid of dresses. We're going to oh my God. Let's play the clip of him going after women today.
Pete Hegseth
At my direction, each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat mos, for every designated combat arms position returns to the highest male standard. Only because this job is life or death. Standards must be met and not just met at every level. We should seek to exceed the standard to push.
Michael Popok
And if you thought that was bad, here's his clip talking about what he's going to instill in the military. And note here, there's no applause. There's. He's just, he's just talking of stone faced military men, men mainly, some women, smattering of women who would rather be doing their day job of protecting democracy and being on the wall because we need them on the wall protecting us. No, we pulled them all out of all military theaters and stuck them in a room. If he wanted to do a TED Talk, he could have just signed up. If he wanted to do right, that was just a TED Talk cosplay. Let's watch another clip of Pete Hegseth, our defender. What is he, the Secretary of War? What war is he the Secretary of while Donald Trump's trying to win the Nobel Peace Prize? Why do we have a war department? Let's play the clip.
Pete Hegseth
This also means grooming standards. No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We're going to cut our hair, shave up, shave our beards and adhere to standards. Because it's like the broken windows theory of policing. It's like when you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes. So you have to address the small stuff. This is on duty, in the field and in the rear. If you want a beard, you can join special forces. If not, then shave. We don't have a military full of Nordic pagans, but unfortunately we have had leaders who either refuse to call BS and enforce standards or, or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards. Both are unacceptable. And that's why today, at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done. Simply put, if you do not meet the male level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test, or don't want to shave and look professional, it's time for a new position or a new profession.
Michael Popok
But it got better when Donald Trump, you know, the commander in Chief, couldn't miss up an opportunity to march around like he was some sort of General Patton. I felt like I was watching a bad ripoff carbon copy of like George C. Scott in the famous movie Patton. I mean, all he needed to have was a helmet on his head and jodhpurs and like a whip under his arm. It was just really sad. Except I woke up when Trump Said he was. He wanted. He wanted the military to attack US cities. I mean, what he said was, and I'll play it for you in a second, is I want you to consider using military operations. We're at war with our cities. We're at war with our cities. Who's on the other side of that? Americans. And to use the military and National Guard on Americans as practice run for the military, trying to take down the enemy. So now Americans are the enemy. That must be. Based on recent polling, the 61% of Americans who don't agree with Donald Trump is now the enemy. Let's play that clip.
Donald Trump
Very important mission. And I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. National Guard, but military, because we're going into Chicago very soon. That's a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor. Stupid. They threw him out of his family business. He was so stupid. I know the family. He becomes governor, he's got money. Not money that he made, but he ran for governor, he won, and now he criticizes us all the time. Last week they had 11 people murdered, 44 people shot. The week before that, they'd had five people murdered, 28 people shot. Every weekend, they lose five, six. If they lose five, they're considering it a great week. They shouldn't lose any.
Michael Popok
And in the same breath, he gives license to the military to get out of their tanks and go beat the crap out of people and violate their civil liberties. Let's play that clip.
Donald Trump
I was watching during Biden. They had troops standing up like this, brave, standing up at attention the way I should stand all the time. And I'm like this. And people are standing and their mouth is this far away from their mouth, and they're spitting at them and they're screaming at him. And that soldier standing there, he wants to knock the hell out of the person, but he's not allowed to do anything. So they just stand there and they get abused. And a woman was this far away from his face, and she starts spitting in his face and he's not allowed to do anything. If it's okay with you generals and admirals, I've taken that off. I say they spit, we hit. Is that okay? I think so. They spit. It's a new thing. They spit, we hit.
Michael Popok
See, that's the problem. The problem is the military is not based on the Posse Comitatus act, supposed to be turning its turrets and its. And its rifles and the barrels of its guns against Americans and others on domestic soil. Because they're not trained to protect our civil liberties. They're not trained in our constitutional protective rights. And so only bad things are going to happen from an ill trained rabble military who are not in, who are not trained for de escalation or for civil rights protection being used to beat the crap out of protesters and people who are exercising their civil liberties. We've already seen it, right? We've already seen the ICE officer who doesn't care that he's on a body cam, apparently, or it's being filmed by others in the room, which, you know, Pam Bondi and others have said that's, that is a violation of federal law. You're interfering with the government and a federal officer because you're filming them. No, no, we're trying to hold you accountable. What's the new line out there now when you have an ICE problem? Apply heat. We're apply, we're trying to apply heat in our protests. He just threw this poor woman to the ground in a courthouse. And this is all the fault, of course, of the United States Supreme Court. So while that's going, I thought, I thought that was a, an interesting set of clips about where our thinking is as Donald Trump says things out loud, like, you know, I like the shutdown because it allowed me to cut the umbilical cord between the American people and its federal government even more and fire even more people, which leads us to a lawsuit. I'll cover at the end. And then we've got Lamonica McIver, who is a congresswoman from my home state of New Jersey, who's firing back with her own motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution, the indictment brought against her because she was exercising her house oversight powers to look at a detention center in Newark, New Jersey, and got arrested. And apparently, based on the clip I'm going to show you, it was at the orders of the Department of justice that Lamonica MacGyver be arrested. This clip is going to be used not just by her, now that it's found its way to the public docket, but is going to be used by other targets of Donald Trump's administration who are being targeted by the Department of Justice, like James Comey, former FBI director, like Armando Abrego Garcia, like Adam Schiff, Letitia James, Lisa Cook, you name it. Let me show you the clip. Now.
Pete Hegseth
I'm getting a team because he has cops around me. No, no, I got, I got. We're taking them right now.
Michael Popok
All right, let me just. We've been waiting an hour, and now.
Pete Hegseth
This okay, yeah, no, I'm gonna take him right now.
Michael Popok
Okay. Okay.
Pete Hegseth
Even though we stepped out, I'm gonna.
Michael Popok
Put him in costumes for over an hour.
Pete Hegseth
All right, I'm talking right now. All right, guys, listen. We're gonna walk out of the gates. I'm gonna place the mayor in handcuffs.
Michael Popok
Okay?
Pete Hegseth
We are arresting the mayor right now for the deputy attorney general, United States. Anyone that gets in our way, I.
Michael Popok
Need you guys to get.
Pete Hegseth
Give me a perimeter so I can help them and get them on there. If you have body cams, turn them on.
Michael Popok
This is all to support Representative McIver's motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution and because she has speech and debate legislative immunity, because she was doing her job when she was looking at the Delaney Hall Detention center in Newark, New Jersey. So all of that leads us to the Comey indictment. And the reason I believe that James Comey in his late night video to supporters effectively and literally said, let's go to trial. Bring it. With this amazing Batman voice, which I loved. Now, what I know and I'll. We'll talk about tonight is that he's loaded for bear, right? He's got. He's got Pat Fitzgerald, former hard nosed Prosecutor in Chicago, 12 years as the Chicago U.S. attorney, going out put. Put two governors in jail. Barack a donor for Barack Obama in jail. A New York Times reporter for not revealing her sources in jail. Think Jack Smith turbocharged. And then he went into private practice and joined a law firm that I was a member of called Scaddin Arps in their white collar department based in Chicago, and a good friend of James Comey. And that's in one corner. And in the other corner, Jamie, Insurance, defense law. I've been a prosecutor for 72 hours. I'm an instant prosecutor. Just add water. Hall again, what could go wrong? You know that nostalgic feeling of sitting at the breakfast table as a kid and pouring a giant bowl of cereal that just tasted amazing? Well, Magic Spoon has reinvented that feeling with cereal and treats that bring back the flavors you love, but in a way that actually fuels your day. Every serving of Magic Spoon's high protein cereal packs 13 grams of protein, 0 sugar and 4 grams of net carbs. And the flavors straight out of your childhood, Fruity cocoa and frosted. And then there are the Magic Spoon treats. Crispy, crunchy, airy, and ridiculously satisfying. With 12 grams of protein in every bar. They come in mouth watering flavors like marshmallows, chocolate, peanut butter, and dark chocolate. Perfect on the go, pre or post workout or even as late night snack. Here's how you try them. Get $5 off your next order at magicspoon.com legalaf or look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or in your nearest grocery store. That's magicspoon.com legalaf for $5 off. Welcome back. Thank you to our pro democracy sponsors. Thank you for being a loyal supporter of all things Legal AF and a card carrying member. Now on our Legal AF substack. As a member and subscriber on our Legal AF YouTube channel, there's something that warms the cockles of my heart and renews my faith in our democracy, our constitutional republic. Much the way that when Biden was still in office, my wife and I when she was carrying our daughter, she was about the six or seven month mark we went and drove to Washington D.C. and went to go look at in person the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution all under glass to sort of water our tree of liberty. I feel that way. Having read and now talked to you again about Judge Young's decision rendered today his love letter to the American people and to the Constitution. And when I see James Comey in a one minute Instagram talking about two different ends of the spectrum, right Old school Judge Young, it looks like he typed it on a typewriter. And Instagram IG message from James Comey. I love the voice that James Comey inadvertently, I think adopted for his bring it. It's a combination, the one where he says let's go to trial. It's a combination of like Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry movies and did I fire five bullets or six or whatever, whatever the line is. It's like Clint Eastwood's old cool Clint Eastwood, not the current yelling at an empty chair. Clint Eastwood combined with Batman. Probably the you fill in your favorite Batman and Batman voice for that one. I have one in mind. See if you can think what I'm thinking of and I'll just tell you. Christian Bale. And lastly, this is wait for this one. The Rorschach character from the Watchmen movie got that one where he's taken away to prison and he yells out they're not locked in here with me. No, I'm not locked in there with them. They're locked in here with me. And then they take him away. It's sort of like that. And it and it makes me feel better about the defiance, about the resistance, about the First Amendment post Charlie Kirk slash Jimmy Kimmel World. Let's talk about the things that justice Judge Young talked about the intimidation factor of Donald Trump, his attempt through raw brute power to make us lose hope. I think that's one of the reasons we're all here together on Intersection. We'll never lose hope, we'll never lose confidence on our position. Might doesn't make right. Right destroys might. There, I finally got it out. James Comey's indictment. He'll go down as the poster child of how to fight a vindictive, vengeful prosecution and defeat it right where it stands. Combination of James Comey is smarter than Donald Trump and lawyer trained Pat Fitzgerald. I'd want on. If you were picking an all star team, your starting center would be Pat Fitzgerald. Okay. He's that good. And so then we look at the new information coming out about the indictment. Like I have a query that hasn't really been covered. I'm going to do a hot take on it. It's not just that Donald Trump forced the short straw into Lindsey Halligan's hand, a willing hand to become the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. It's why wasn't this case prosecuted by Main Justice? Why didn't Todd Blanche do it? Why didn't Pam Bondi do it, although she's never been a federal prosecutor either. Why didn't Judge Jeanine Pirro do it from her perch as the U.S. attorney for D.C. i mean, yeah, I get that Comey gave his testimony from his home in the Eastern District of Virginia because it was Covid and he phoned it in or zoomed it in to the Senate, which is the subject, which is the, the foundation of this bullshit perjury charge. It's so confusing. I'm not even sure what the perjury charge is. You won't either. And that's another defect in the indictment. But why didn't they. But he phoned it into the Senate and the Senate, last I looked, is still standing despite Jan6, right where it was built in Washington D.C. sounds like main justice could have brought this case in D.C. we had a D.C. grand jury, had Jeanine Pirro's office do it. No, they decided to have Lindsey Halligan do it and they sent no help. Todd Blanche didn't go down with her. Jean Pirro, no one from the office went down with her. Stan Woodward for the Department of Justice. Nobody went. She went in by herself with another lackey named Meg Cleary who has little or no experience as well, and they effed it up. I mean, Pam Bondi's bragging today about or the last couple of days. See, we were able to get from a Liberal. Hold that thought. Liberal. Eastern District of Virginia grand jury. That district is where they're going to have to try the case. And while they were able to get an indictment on probable cause, it's a relatively low standard. And even then, it was 14 to 9, which makes for an interesting baseball score or maybe even a unique football score. But it is not indicative of a good day at the grand jury for prosecutors that they were only able to get two of the three counts, not even the main count, which is count one. That's why they put it as count one. Only two out of the three. And just barely. And 14 to nine. That's not great. You just barely got over simple majority. Sure, you needed 14, but that's all you got. How are you ever gonna get 12.0of a federal jury in a liberal district like the Eastern District of Virginia? You're not. Which brings me to my next point. I'm gonna go through and catalog for you all the defects in the indictment. I'm gonna tell you why the magistrate judge and all of her confusion is gonna play into the hands of Comey when he files his motion to dismiss the indictment. For its irregularities, for the grand jury's irregularities, for all the things that Halligan did wrong. All right? He'll also have a defense of vindictive prosecution. The video I showed you by MacGyver could be used by him to show the animus and vendetta. I'll do that. Is Lindsey Halligan even properly appointed? I say no under the two different ways she could be appointed. And that would also be a defect to have the indictment dismissed. But we're missing the point. I don't know. I'm leaning in now. For those that are watching me, I'm leaning it. We're missing the point. Donald Trump doesn't care whether he wins. His definition of winning the indictment is not the same as yours and mine. He wants to treat these people like playthings, force them to defend themselves, put a shadow on them, make them get legal defense funds as a pound of flesh for what, quote, unquote, they did to him. He already has gotten his pound of flesh because of the headlines. He's headline driven, Right? He's brute force. Right? So he already got the headlines. Letitia James and Senator Adam Schiff, new federal probe about whether they committed mortgage fraud. He got his pound of flesh. Lisa Cook got board of governor on the Federal Reserve. We're still waiting for that decision, by the way. Uh, committed mortgage fraud. Did she or didn't? Didn't. Did she or didn't she? He doesn't really care. He got his pound of flesh. James Comey FORMER FBI Director INDICTED FOR PERJURY the vagaries of all the screw ups, the infirmities notwithstanding, he got his headline and his pound of flesh. He doesn't care. And while he's got our attention with the probe and the indictment and the whatever, he then piles it on in an abusive fashion with using his Department of Justice to do the same thing as FBI to do the same thing. His social media influencers who are controlled by the rapid response team within the administration do the same thing and they get weeks and weeks and months and months of mileage out of the pound of flesh. Sorry to mix metaphors. He doesn't care. These are human beings, these are people that have constitutional rights that have been violated. But he's immune, he's literally immune from any criticism. Not to say the people that he's using as his henchmen have immunity. They have better be, they better have pardons in their back pocket already, which are not going to help the lawyers with their bar licenses, by the way, because of the things that they are doing. Willingly complicit with Donald Trump in the most corrupt Department of Justice we've ever had and we had a pretty corrupt Department of Justice under Nixon with people going to jail. John Dean, the Attorney General Ehrlichman went to jail for 17 months. I'm looking at you, Pam Bondi. I'm looking at you, Todd Blanch. FBI directors can go to jail. There's no immunity for the rest of these people. And if you have a bar license like Cash Patel and Bam Bondi and Todd Blanche, it's up for grabs. You'll just join that long unbroken list of Donald Trump lawyers inside and outside the government who were, who've lost their bar licenses, had them suspended, been indicted and or convicted and are fell in. Some of them are felons today. So yes, the indictment has infirmities on its face for James Comey. Yes, Pat Fitzgerald is going to destroy it. Yes, Halligan screwed up by having competing indictments that had one had two counts, the other one had three counts. They had signatures on both. The grand jury looked confused about whether they really indicted on two of the counts or not. When I see a proofreading carrot being used by the jury in handwriting on an indictment of this magnitude, I know things have gone awry in the grand jury room which the magistrate judge commented on. And then you get to the perjury. This will never stand. First of all, they didn't want count to. They wanted count one. Count one was about the Russia collusion that Hillary Clinton, according to Lindsey Graham in the question, were trying to get dirt on Trump and they didn't care if it was manufactured. And they used the Steele dossier to do it, which has been discredited. And somehow Comey's complicit in that. That's what they wanted the perjury to be about Trump and the Russia hoax. But the problem is Lindsey Graham couldn't ask a clear question. There was technical difficulties between the question and the answer, literally because of the zoom. And all he said was, I don't remember getting a memo about Hillary Clinton trying to go after the Trump campaign. You don't? No amount of umbrage or pearl clutching by Lindsey Graham. Oh, I do declare sorry to my Southern friends for that. Oh, I have a mint julep in one hand and a fan of the other. Oh, my God. You don't remember the memo. I don't remember the memo. Oh, but you must remember it. I don't. That can't be perjury. How do you have perjury or something perjurious when it's based on memory and he says he didn't remember Unless you have evidence that he signed for it. Well, you definitely got it. I mean, that doesn't. So they didn't get that. What did Lindsey Graham get? Sorry. Lindsey Halligan. Too many Lindseys. Too many Lindsey spoiling the party. What did Lindsey Halligan get from the grand jury? The we think. We're not sure. It's the Cruz Comey exchange in the same Senate hearing about whether there was a leak by the FBI about the Clinton foundation being under investigation, which we always said was the October Surprise that killed Hillary Clinton's campaign to the Wall Street Journal. Yes or no. And if so, who did it? It was a whodunit. But about Hillary, like, he's now trying to profit off Hillary Clinton and Hillary Clinton. If anybody has a lawsuit against Comey or it's Hillary Clinton. So she screwed that up. That's the one she gets. If that's even the perjury. Cruz says you. You didn't leak to the Wall Street Journal. He says no. Andy McCabe, your number two, says he didn't do it either. Okay. You stand by your testimony? I do. And then he screwed up the question a couple of times in framing it. He called it. Instead of the Clinton foundation, he called it the Clinton administration, which also undercuts any perjury. You got to have clear margins around your question and your answer, which he didn't have at. So it's either that exchange, which I can't even leave the grand jury indicted on that, or it's about other leaks that come. He's already admitted to. Back in 2017, he leaked to the New York Times his memo about his meeting in which he got fired by Donald Trump for failing to pass a loyalty test. Be loyal to me. Get rid of the Michael Flynn, General Flynn, Colonel Flynn, whatever it is, investigation. No, you're fired. And he leaked the memos through Daniel Richmond, a Columbia Law professor, former U.S. attorney, Assistant U.S. attorney in New York, who's a buddy of his. He's admitted to that in 2017. Now, Richmond was recently re interviewed by the Department of Justice. But if it's that clip and not the other clip, look, that's another grounds for the dismissal of the indictment. If we can't figure it out, how is Comey and his lawyer gonna figure it out? Which violates their right to, you know, their Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial and to have a proper indictment against them. Sure, they can make a bill of particulars request to get a more complete indictment, but the indictment has to stand where it is. So. But remember my working theory. Donald Trump doesn't care. Pound of flesh plus months of his ability to lie in social media along with his enablers is enough for him. Now, I want to move to the next. The next topic here on the intersection. I call it the revenge of the Senior status Judges. Right. We talked about at the top, Judge Young. And now I want to talk about Judge Lamberth, Royce Lamperth, also a Reagan appointee, also senior status in D.C. and he just issued a ruling against Carrie Lake. You know, Lake is sunk, I guess is the right way to put it in. Which based on her own deposition testimony, which he found to be completely incredulous or straining credulity. He blocked the continued dismantling of Voice of America, which used to be our way through diplomacy, to get our brand of democracy into communist and other dictatorships, to give people reason to believe in our brand of democracy. I thought that's what Donald Trump was all about, our brand of democracy. Nope. He wanted to defund all of it because he found a liberal DEI bias. So there once was, as the judge commented, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free, fill in the blank. Where we were doing programming to get democracy's flames spread across the country, across the globe. You know, what it's down to now under Donald Trump, despite hundreds of millions of dollars of funding by Congress. Congress demanding that there be Radio Free. Fill in the blank Voice of America in China, North Korea, Africa and Russia. You know what the entirety of the Voice of America operations are right now based on Royce Lampert's decision? Two 15 minute segments every day in an Arabic dialect, and that's it. Okay? Nothing in North Korea, nothing in Russia, nothing in China, despite congressional obligations and even Donald Trump saying, I have to continue with its statutory mandates. Well, you're not doing it. And so Royce Lamperth even said, how about in the deposition where Carrie Lake was asked if the African continent, where there's no content, South America, where there's no continent, represent significant interest of the United States or significant interest globally? She said she didn't know. She never gave it much thought. So Royce Lampert put an end to the complete dismantling. He stopped the reduction in force, the firing of 500 more voice of America employees. He wants on his desk in the next month a list of how to restart Voice of America and get back to what Congress wanted. And if the, if the, and at the end, he said, I will grant effectively a motion for contempt based on the abuse of this court's orders if the plaintiff asked for it, but the plaintiff didn't ask for it. So I'm not going to grant the sanctions, that I'm not going to do them on my own. Wink, wink, bring the motion. Plaintiffs Lamperth is going to set up an evidentiary hearing and he's going to find the Trump administration in contempt while they run off to one level of appellate court and then the United States Supreme Court to try to reverse what Royce Lamberth has done. And we'll continue to follow that on the intersection on Legal AF, on YouTube and all of that. Now, let's talk about precedent for a minute because it's all the rage right now. Stare decisis is the foundation of our constitutional framework for what the Supreme Court is how, how they're supposed to, from a jurisprudential standpoint, make their rulings. It effectively means that which preceded is used to create the new law precedent. We are not a civil code country where some of our followers and listeners, where they have the civil code, where you just look in the code book and then every judge, it's a free for all. You do whatever. Every judge interprets it their own way. They don't recite and go back to any other cases or any other opinions. That's not us. We're supposed to be building a model of precedent to be used in the Courts, both at the lower court level and all the way up to the Supreme Court level. In fact, when a judge like Judge Young, who I just talked about at the top of this podcast, did not think that the United States Supreme Court's one paragraph decision in a matter involving the Department of Education on an emergency docket without a full opinion represented precedent to apply to a wholly different department about a wholly different thing. Although funding was also involved, he got chastised by Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh who said defiance of Supreme Court rulings will not be tolerated by federal courts. Judge Young was like defiance. I was supposed to interpret from that one paragraph, which had nothing to do with my case, did not give me factual background, did not give me, did not give me the jurisprudential logic behind it. We call it the ratio decidendi or the graveman. How am I supposed to apply it to future cases? I was not being openly defiant. I just think it's funny now that he just wrote 161 page love letter to the Supreme Court. If they thought he was being openly defiant, then, you know, he got his groove back. Now even Royce Lampert, who I just told you about the Voice of America case, took time out to chastise the United States Supreme Court because Donald Trump in that case argued, you can't block, you can't block our firing. And the judge said, effectively retort, why not? Because there's already been five or six cases that the Supreme Court, like the Department of Education and other departments, has said that federal judges can't block firings. And he said that was on emergency docket. I don't have. Again, I'm going to repeat what all the judges are saying. I don't have binding precedent in front of me. That gives me the intellectual, legal and factual logic that I can apply in your case. And you're trying to fill in the silence in a way that takes away the right of a federal judge to apply the law. And I'm not going to allow it. Yet again, another resistance move by the lower courts telling off their bosses at the Supreme Court. You want to run this Constitution and this constitutional republic by one paragraph Emergency orders that aren't really orders on the merits, then don't blame us if we don't follow that precedent. But precedent isn't even being Followed by the Maga6 on the Supreme Court. Justice Clarence Thomas must have forgot his mic was on. It's not a hot mic moment. He was being interviewed at Catholic University and I guess he got all cozy, comfy with A warm cup of cocoa with the Catholics at this interview and let it rip about. I don't think precedent is gospel. That needs to be followed. You don't. Let's play the clip.
Sponsor Announcer
You see originalism and stare decisis as intention with each other. And what factors do you bring when you write an opinion that suggests maybe a line of cases should be revisited?
Michael Popok
Well, if I find it doesn't make any sense, I think that. I think we should demand that no matter what the case is, that it has more than just a simple theoretical basis. I don't think that I have the gospel, and I don't think that any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel. And I do give respect to precedent, but the precedent should be respectful of our legal tradition and our country and our laws and be based on something. So if he's not following the precedent, then why are they chastising? And how can they chastise the lower courts from not following theirs? Right. So I love the. Clarence Thomas just said the quiet part out loud. We know you haven't been following precedent, Clarence. Most of the Maga 6 on the Supreme Court, haven't it? You've created, as Judge Young pointed out today in the First Amendment case I discussed at the top of the Intersection podcast, that under your originalism interpretation, you just. Which only popped into pop pop culture and legal culture about the late 1980s when Robert Bork was trying to get on the Supreme Court carried forward. The ball carried forward, like lateraled to Antonin Scalia. And now they finally got the numbers. For a while it was just like Alito and. And Clarence Thomas and. And Roberts. And now it's Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Alito Thomas and Amy Cody Barrett. All originalists. What. What the heck does that even mean? Well, the Constitution is a brittle document. It's not. Or as Antonin Scalia once put it, it's not living breathing. It's dead, dead, dead. That's what he literally said. Anthony Scalia. I'm getting over a cold. I'm sorry. Not how I was taught the Constitution at. Where am I at? Duke Law by Walter Dellinger, the late Walter Dellinger. It's a living, breathing document. It can be changed by amendment, and we have to move it forward with respect for the words. But given the mores of today and evolve it through the Supreme Court interpretation, consistent with our historical norms and traditions, but understanding that they shift. 100 years ago, gay marriage would not be registering a 60 or 65% approval rating. It does today. Things Change. We're not wearing, you know, we're not wearing or using. We're not firing muskets, we're not wearing old timey clothes. You know, things change. But to the originalists, because it gives them away. To avoid liberal, and I mean that in a, in a lowercase l, liberal, liberal. And avoid liberal progressive ideas to say, well, that's not what our founders would have thought because I have a dictionary from 1787 and here it is. The problem with originalism is that it's a fraud and it's not true and it's not what the historical underpinnings of the United States Constitution are about. I just obtained a copy. Just again, we talked about watering the tree of your own liberty. I picked up at my local bookstore, the Constitution of the United States. But really what it has is the compilation of the Federalist Papers and other writings which I want to reread all the major Federalist Papers, some written by Alexander Hamilton and others that led to the Constitution and the principles of the Constitution. So originalism is a fraud. Unitary president model is a fraud. That was a fringe theory through the 1980s and 1990s, but the Federalist Society pushed it. And then it's like. And then you got these guys like Roberts and Kavanaugh and Gorsuch who all worked in a White House. And so they love the power of the President. They think after Nixon, when we had our last corrupt president, that the pendulum swung too far away from the power of the President. It's gotta be reclaimed. And now look what happened. They created Frankenstein, Franken, Trump. Right. So against all of those backdrops, I'll just leave on that topic, I'll leave it at this to the originalists out there. And if you're out there in the audience, you can comment. If you're always looking for the text and the meaning of the words and everything is in its original meaning in the Constitution, then how do you explain your own powers as United States Supreme Court? As a United States Supreme Court, because it is nowhere to be found in the original text of the Constitution, no matter how hard you look. Your powers to lay down the law based on cases and controversies and to interpret the Constitution and to interpret it as a co equal branch of government that came from a person. John Marshall, our most influential and revered Chief justice, the first Chief justice, who in 1807 or so in Marbury vs Madison, declared that that was going to be the role of the United States Supreme Court. It doesn't have an army, it doesn't have a police force. So it has to govern because by the will of the governed. And how do you explain that your own position, your own power comes from an interpretive model adopted by John Marshall. And for those that are interested, go to Washington, go to the United States Supreme Court. See if you can go when oral argument is out, which is first Monday in October until around the end of May, and look at the giant statue of John Marshall, you know, three times, four times life size, sitting in the middle of the rotunda of the Supreme Court. And you'll know the importance of that person. So let me, let me just touch on a couple of cases that I'll be following on Legal AF, the YouTube channel and Legal AF substack, both file filed by Democracy Forward who are with us on Legal af. They actually have their own playlist. Sky Perryman, its founder, meets with me regularly. They filed two cases in the last 24 hours. One I don't know if you remember, but among the many bad things that Elon Musk and Donald Trump wanted to do and have done is try to create a giant database AI driven of all of your and my personal, financial and medical information. What could go wrong with Chinese hackers trying to find the Motherlode or Russian ones in hot pursuit? And so that has been addressed in a new lawsuit that's been filed to both discover its essence and to destroy it. At the same time, there's a new lawsuit that's been filed about what Russ Vought or Vote, who's the head of the Office of Management and Budget, who's also the architect of Project 2025 and is effectively the head of DOGE, what he's going to do during a government shutdown, which is, let me put it this way, the government we come back to, no matter how short the shutdown is, is going to be a lot smaller than even the government is today. That's why I think the Democrats incumbent upon the Democrats to try to fight to keep the government open, because it'll just give a cover to Donald Trump and Russ Vote to destroy further the relationship between the federal government and the states, the federal government and the people. Government programs that keep people alive will all be wrecked and destroyed and a brain drain will go on because of the shutdown in a way that in past shutdowns it never was. So we'll follow these lawsuits. I've done a whole hot take over on Legal AF about Russ Vote in particular, you need to know who this gentleman is. We'll continue to follow it. I'm so glad you're here with me at the Intersection. Take a moment when this slide over to the audio version of the Intersection. Use a little love there, a little Hummingbird theory. Let's go over and leave a comment on the Intersection. Plug it in on Apple or on Spotify. Kind of give it a little bit of a little breathe some life into it. Where we could use some more audio lessons. We're doing great on video on YouTube where we're in the top. Last week we were in the top 70 of all YouTube podcasts. Pretty impressive considering this thing wasn't here eight months ago. It's all because of you. And then, you know, I do my regular work on the Midas Touch network, do about 14, 15 videos a week there. And then I'm the curator, founder of the Legal AF YouTube channel. Become a subscriber there. You'll get reminders. We got some great interviews, amazing playlists, some great contributors from court accountability action to civil action to pragmatic optimists. I mean we have something for everybody. To Adam Klassfeld, All Rise News. I said Democracy Forward is there with us. Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wallentz of Court of History. I mean every week we get fantastic interviews you can't get anywhere else. So become a member of Legalif the YouTube and of course finally become a You want to invest in legalif? Here's how you do it. You become a member and a paid member of Legal af Substack at the intersection of law and politics with live reports and commentary and writing like no other. I think it's $7 a month and that's the way people say how can we invest in Legal af? You can't, but you can become a subscriber and that goes a long way. Thank you. See you next Tuesday. And for those that observe Lashana Tovah, I'm Michael Popak for Midas Touch and Legal AF on the Intersection. I'm Michael Popak and I got some big news for our audience. Most of you know me as the co founder of Midas Touch's Legal AF and the Legal AF YouTube channel or as a 35 year national trial lawyer. Now building a what we started together on Legal af. I've launched a new law firm, the Popoc Firm, dedicated to obtaining justice through compassionate and zealous legal representation. 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Full Episode – 9/30/2025
Host: Michael Popok (MeidasTouch Network)
Date: October 1, 2025
This episode of The Intersection dives deeply into the fraught and ever-changing landscape where law and politics meet under the Trump administration’s second term. Host Michael Popok, with his signature candor and legal acumen, walks listeners through major legal battles—focusing on federal judge William G. Young’s landmark First Amendment ruling, the weaponization of government agencies for political vengeance, the crumbling respect for legal precedent at the Supreme Court, and ongoing lawsuits against the administration’s attempts to upend democracy and government structure.
Using urgent contemporary examples, Popok reflects on rights, abuses of power, and the resilience of the courts. The episode’s tone is spirited, combative, and occasionally personal—Popok doesn’t shy from calling out abuses or advocating constitutional vigilance.
[04:47–32:50]
The Ruling Itself:
Judge Young (Massachusetts, Sr. Status) issues a 161-page opinion defending First Amendment rights against the Trump administration’s efforts to deport permanent residents for anti-government speech. The opinion is uniquely framed as a reply to an anonymous postcard urging the judge to stand up to Trump’s abuses.
Quote Highlight:
“Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction… It must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.”
— Governor Ronald Reagan, cited by Judge Young [06:18]
Judge Young’s Response:
Reads aloud portions of the actual postcard and the judge’s personalized reply:
“Dear Mr. Or Ms. Anonymous, alone I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together we, the people of the United States, you and me, have our magnificent Constitution. Here's how that works out in a specific case. See below.”
[08:00]
Popok’s Analysis:
The judge’s ruling is not only legally sound but symbolically potent—a “love letter” to the Constitution and a “reminder about freedom.” Young explicitly warns against using immigration law to silence dissent and weaponizes this as a warning to Trump's government.
Notable Critique of Trump:
The judge, drawing inspiration from his own wife (!), diagnoses Trump’s style as “triumphal, transactional, imperative, bellicose, and coarse… It seeks to persuade not through marshaling data-driven evidence, science or moral suasion, but through power.” [22:00]
[17:00–28:00, 47:00–50:00]
Popok Observes:
Trump’s administration ruthlessly uses the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and public rhetoric to silence, intimidate, and persecute critics—targeting professors, students, and public officials (e.g., Representative McIver, James Comey).
On Institutional Cowardice:
“Law firms cower. Institutional leaders in higher education meekly appease the president… Media outlets mind the bottom line rather than the ethics of journalism.”
— Michael Popok on Judge Young’s findings [24:25]
Personal Stakes:
Popok discloses that his own firm’s website was hacked for his public criticism, underlining the real risk for dissenters.
[51:00–66:40]
Prosecution as Political Punishment:
The Comey indictment is, per Popok, “bullshit” (his word)—a defective, slapdash action by a Trump loyalist prosecutor, Halligan, designed to extract a “pound of flesh,” not secure real justice.
Case Details:
The indictment resulted from weak grand jury support (14–9, barely over the threshold) and is based on vague accusations of perjury that hinge on fuzzy recollections during a COVID-era Senate hearing.
“Bring It” Factor:
Popok highlights Comey’s public, defiant video response—likening its tone to Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry,” Batman, and the Watchmen’s Rorschach:
“Let’s go to trial. Bring it.”
— James Comey, paraphrased by Popok [54:45]
Legal Breakdown:
Popok lays out multiple fatal flaws in the indictment: improper jurisdiction, a prosecutor lacking the proper appointment, and ambiguous or defective perjury allegations.
Political Motivation:
Trump doesn’t care if these prosecutions fail in court—they serve to harass, threaten, and damage reputations:
“His definition of winning…is not the same as yours and mine. He wants to treat these people like playthings, force them to defend themselves, put a shadow on them… He already has gotten his pound of flesh.” [63:30]
— Michael Popok
[66:45–70:00]
Another Senior Judge Pushes Back:
Judge Royce Lamberth (D.C.)—also a Reagan appointee—blocks the Trump administration’s gutting of Voice of America. Cites “dripping indifference” from officials (incl. Carrie Lake) and considers contempt sanctions for defying congressional mandates.
Impact:
Lamberth halts firings, demands a restart for Voice of America, and schedules further hearings, underscoring the ongoing (if embattled) power of the judiciary.
[70:00–78:00]
Disrespect for Precedent:
Popok criticizes the Supreme Court’s “MAGA 6” (the conservative supermajority) for ignoring traditional precedent, citing Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent remarks:
“I don't think that I have the gospel, and I don't think that any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel…”
— Clarence Thomas [69:09]
Originalism Debunked:
Popok argues originalism is a “fraud,” points out that judicial powers—such as those claimed by SCOTUS—are themselves not in the Constitution but were devised in Marbury v. Madison by Chief Justice John Marshall.
Consequences for Rights:
The abandonment of precedent and embrace of unitary executive theory endangers checks and balances and allows Trump’s abuses of power to thrive.
[78:00–80:30]
Democracy Forward Lawsuits:
Exploration of new legal actions aimed at uncovering and shutting down Project 2025’s ambitious, AI-driven citizen data database—an Orwellian effort by the Trump administration to centralize personal, medical, and financial data.
Government Shutdown Strategy:
Details how Russ Vought and Project 2025 are primed to use a government shutdown as cover to decimate social services, shrink the administrative state, and weaken the federal government’s reach into everyday Americans’ lives.
On Judge Young’s Ruling:
“Even if the Supreme Court has found itself to be nothing more than enablers…there are judges, many of them senior, like Judge Breyer and Judge Young, who are taking it all on now.”
— Popok [30:55]
On Trump’s Military Rhetoric:
“Trump said he wants the military to attack US cities…'We're at war with our cities.' Who's on the other side of that? Americans.”
— Popok recapping Trump speech [36:30]
Popok’s Direct Tone:
“'The bill that you passed is hurting Americans. Don't ask me—ten polls in the last two days say Trump is gurgling. He's down to a 39% approval rating. I think he's going to be below 30% in the next 90 days.'”
[31:25]
On the Department of Justice:
“If you have a bar license like Cash Patel and Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, it's up for grabs…You’ll just join that long unbroken list of Donald Trump lawyers…who’ve lost their bar licenses.”
— Popok [63:30]
Defiant Note:
“We'll never lose hope, we'll never lose confidence on our position. Might doesn't make right. Right destroys might.”
— Popok [66:00]
Popok is unfiltered, lawyerly, and passionate, employing pointed humor (“comparing apples to bowling balls…”) and intensity (“F, off!” to Trump’s spin on the shutdown). He is determined to break through legalese, making the stakes clear for both engaged followers and newcomers. The show’s message is one of vigilance, community, and hope for constitutional renewal despite an era of dark legal and political maneuvering.
Legal AF – The Intersection is a vital, sometimes fiery window on law and politics under pressure. Listeners come away understanding specific legal battles, the wider institutional breakdown, and the importance of holding the line for the Constitution.