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- [00:00]
Charles Barkley
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- [00:11]
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- [00:31]
Michael Popak
Development in the Abrego Garcia case with Judge Zinnis. And it's just the way we laid it out in public. Donald Trump lies along with his cabinet members like the Secretary of State and the Department of Justice, said Pam Bondi about never bringing back Abrego Garcia who was illegally removed and deported to El Salvador. How do I know it was illegally done? Because the United States supreme court said it was 90 because Judge Zinnis said it was. Because two different panels of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said it was. And now we've been waiting now for over two and a half months for Donald Trump to do what the court, the Supreme Court ordered him to do. Facilitate the release. Publicly they say that'll never happen. They laugh in our face. They bring in the the petty dictator of El Salvador. They sit him in the Oval Office with a script prepared by Stephen Miller and they laugh at the American people. We will never bring him back.
- [01:24]
Podcast Host
Right.
- [01:24]
Michael Popak
They laugh at Senator Van Hollen. They put up a New York Times piece that they graffiti with let me edit this for you. You'll never see him again. Ha ha ha. That's in public. That's for the mass consumption. But in private, in litigation, they wanna do everything in the dark. They wanna do everything in sealed filings, in secret filings. Cuz they don't want the world to know they're actually working on the return of Abrego Garcia. How do I know all of this even though so many of the documents have been sealed improperly so by the Department of Justice and by the Trump administration because of the unsealed documents, because we have two filings bang bang back to back in Judge Zinnis courtroom which tell us all we need to know about what phony, phony comments and phony position taking the Trump administration is taking along the way with Abrego Garcia, period. I'm Michael Popak you're on the Midas Touch Network. How do we even get here? Let's look at public versus private secret. Because Donald Trump doesn't want you to know that he has obeyed the United States Supreme Court. At least that's our thinking publicly, you know, you've seen it all. I'll play it again. Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, at the end of a cabinet meeting, actually looked the reporter in the eye and said, I'll never tell you and I'll never tell a judge what we're doing concerning Abrego Garcia at his return, if anything. Let's play that clip question.
- [02:54]
Marco Rubio
You brought up El Salvador in your remarks. Have you been in touch with El Salvador about returning Abrego Garcia as a formal request from this administration to me?
- [03:02]
Trump Administration Official
Well, I would never tell you that. And you know who else I'll never tell? A judge, because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the President of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge. So we will conduct foreign policy appropriately if we need to, but I'll never discuss it, and no one will ever make us discuss it, because that's how foreign policy works.
- [03:21]
Michael Popak
Okay, We've all seen the scrawl over the New York Times graffiti, right? We've seen that as well. In which the court, at which the. The Trump administration basically puts a big middle finger up to the Supreme Court. You're never getting him back. Ha, ha, ha. We'll show that. Now then, of course, we've got the Bukele, the dictator of El Salvador, is in the White House, the Oval Office, right around the time Judge Zinnis was trying to figure out what exactly was going on with him. And Bukele said, I would never smuggle a terrorist back into this country. And Donald Trump, like, with a ridiculous pitch and catch, I would never ask you to. Ha ha. But now we got the new filings. Let me read them to you. Firstly, we've got the plaintiff, the Abrego Garcia lawyers, led by Donald Trump's former law firm, Quinn Emanuel. Now, they just filed what was required by the judge, a memorandum of law regarding privilege assertions. How do we get here? Because everything Donald Trump does in court, he tries to do in secret because he's a coward and he hides everything. Oh, I got a privilege. Oh, there's state secret privilege. Oh, there's executive privilege. Oh, there's the privilege. I don't want to tell you. And so in order to get that to be resolved by a federal judge, you file a privilege log. You give the log to the judge. The judge does what's called an in camera review by herself of the documents and the assertion of privilege has to be backed with facts in law by affidavit and declaration. They submitted the affidavit of one Marco Rubio, the same guy that was laughing and saying he'll never tell a federal judge anything about the diplomacy. That's the guy they use for the affidavit. How's that going? Not well. And so here's what and calling out the hypocrisy. First page of this filing by Abrego Garcia's lawyers, it says as follows. A full month has passed since the United States Supreme Court found that Kilmer Armando Abrego Garcia's removal to El Salvador was illegal. Yet Abrego Garcia remains in El Salvador and the government has produced no evidence showing that it has made the slightest efforts to facilitate his release. To the contrary, the President has insisted on national television that although he has the power to bring Abrego Garcia back, he won't because his lawyers have advised him against it. That was the interview with Kristen Welker. That was the interview with Terry Moran. Other cabinet members, including the Secretary of Homeland Security, has likewise testified to Congress that there is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be in the United States again. Meanwhile. Meanwhile, in sealed filings, the government presumably has told this court the opposite as it has repeatedly sought to draft this litigation.
- [06:12]
Podcast Host
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- [08:11]
Michael Popak
Are an Legal AF listener, you can.
- [08:14]
Podcast Host
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- [08:31]
Michael Popak
Plus + free shipping@smalls.com in fact, what what their what their point that they're making is is that if they're taking diplomatic steps to bring them home, the court has an obligation to find out what they are. The Supreme Court said that the trial court needs to find out what they are. Now on the right after that filing, just in the last hour or so, we got a new filing by the Trump administration and here's what they say. Again, we got to read between the lines. They say on page two of a two page brief that they want to continue to keep everything privileged and secret so they can publicly bash the lawyers and Abrego Garcia and continue their PR campaign against him to try to tear him down, label him a wife beater, a human trafficker and the rest. While in court they secretly they talk in hushed tones and here's what they said in their new filing publicly. One line publicly disclosing that sensitive information would likely harm ongoing diplomatic negotiations. Now that's the second time we've heard about ongoing diplomatic negotiations. I did a hot take about two weeks ago where in discovery responses that were provided to the other Side by the Trump administration. They reference ongoing diplomatic negotiations. They sort of has suggested it, but they refuse to tell the judge what they are or if they're even going on at all. And that's why the other side, the Abrego Garcia lawyers, in their filing, in their 30 page filing, have said, look, no privilege, there should be no state secret privilege. They shouldn't be allowed to assert a privilege. They can't be trusted with a privilege. We don't believe them with a privilege. You, judge, as ordered by the United States Supreme Court, need to get to the bottom of everything that's going on in the way of diplomacy or not. And if nothing's going on by the way of diplomacy, then you can find them in contempt. Remember, there's a backdrop here. The judge is considering whether to find the Trump administration in contempt. She would be the second judge to do so. And part of this discovery process is around that. You know, now what do I think's gonna happen? I don't know. I thought they'd pop Abrego Garcia out a month or so ago, but they continue the Trump administration to press this losing hand. And, you know, could they, the way we just got the last US Hamas alive hostage out, could they try to pop him out soon at an opportune time where they're cooking the books to do it when they're, when they're pressed or their polling numbers look bad. And so they needed to prop themselves up. I don't put anything past this administration. It's certainly part of their playbook. But now the judge having the memorandum of law here, having the new confession by the Trump administration that they are working allegedly on diplomatic channels, but they're not going to tell the judge what they are. I think we're pretty well set up for the contempt hearing now and for the contempt finding by the judge, she's going to have to make a decision. 14 different media entities, outlets have all filed a motion to intervene to rip these seals off. We're a public justice system. Things on the public docket should be able to be reviewed and analyzed and so that I can do commentary on them. For instance. Now, for those that are really into this, I hope you are on Legal AF the substack, Legal AF the substack. We are posting under filings Afghanistan, of course, filings like this, so you could read them for yourself. So I want Legal AF substack to be your home for all things law and politics. And we're going to post the things that we talk about here. Sometimes we flash up on the screen here on, on Legal AF hot takes and I might as Dutch optics, but we're going to be posting the documents there. Come on over to Legal, a substack free subscribe there as well. You'll, you'll get all this amazing materials. And of course we've got Legal AF, the YouTube channel as well. So going to keep an eye on this. Next filing is going to come from the Trump side. Judge said that's it. We're done. Simultaneous filing. She's going to hold a hearing. She's going to make a decision whether ultimately the privilege issue applies or not. I think she strips most of the privilege away from Donald Trump and forces this information to be provided to her. I think Donald Trump continues to fight it. I think this goes up to the D.C. court of the sorry, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals over Maryland on the way to the Supreme Court Court. In the meantime, Abrego Garcia sits and rots in a place that everyone on this side, this side of the country, this here understands that he's illegally being held against his will. You know, the MAGA likes to call the Jan Sixers hostages. He is a hostage being held hostage by the Trump administration. We're going to continue to follow it right here on the Midas Touch Network. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal af. Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF sub stack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called wait for it Morning af. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AOFF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews, we got ad free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.