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This thing weighs a ton.
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Drew Ski, lift with your legs man.
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Santa.
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Santa, did you get my letter?
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He's talking to you britches.
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D
I'm not.
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Of course he did.
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Right Santa, you know my elf Drew Ski here. He handles the nice list.
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It as a gift.
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Nice. My side of the tree is slipping. Kimber the holidays are better. AT T Mobile switch in just 15 minutes and get iPhone 17 on us with no trade in needed. And now T Mobile is available in US cellular stores with 24 monthly bill credits for well qualified customers plus tax and $35 device connection charge. Credit sentence balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel financing agreement to $830 eligible court in a new line $100 plus a month plan with auto payments. Taxes fees required. Check out 15 minutes or less per line. Visit t mobile.com well it turns out you can't bribe a congressperson who is indicted for bribery if you're Donald Trump and you gave him a pardon hoping you'd flip a Texas Seat from blue to red. Leave it to Donald Trump. I think he could bribe Henry Cuellar, a representative from Texas who was looking at a jail sentence for accepting bribes from foreign countries. He thought he was gonna bribe him with a pardon for his wife and for him and that he would become a reliable red vote in Texas. That's not the way it works. Even though that's the way it works in Donald Trump's mind as a transactional guy who thinks everything is a deal. I'm Michael Popak. Let's talk about the big fu that was given by Representative Cuellar and his wife effectively to Donald Trump when they said, yeah, thanks for the pardon, but we're still conservative Democrats. You're on Midas, Dutch and legal af. I just find the irony of trying to bribe somebody indicted for bribery too, too good, too delicious to pass up. Let's get to it. Henry Cuellar, conservative Democrat from a district in Texas covering places like San Antonio, was indicted along with his wife for accepting bribes from Azerbaijan and Mexico. I mean, they had the direct link for Azerbaijan and the energy company. After he got the bribe, he gave some pro Azerbaijan and energy company speech on the House floor talking about Azerbaijan. Mexico too, lined his pockets with money and was picked up by the Biden administration, prosecuted for public corruption, pump theft of honest services, much the way Senator Menendez in New Jersey, you know, was. That's going to be the next pardon, by the way, convicted of having gold bars that he accepted from Egypt in terms of lobbying on their behalf, undisclosed to the American voter that he accepted bribes. So what happens every. It's now a thing. If you have children, daughters, you write letters to Trump to try to get your parents pardoned. It's like the, what was their name, the Chrisleys on television who stole hundreds of millions of dollars from banks. But their attractive looking daughters wrote a letter or daughter wrote a letter and then the Chrisleys are out. Same thing happened with the Cuellars. And so the daughters write a letter and Trump lets him out. Now, it looks like the reason Trump let him out is because he wanted him to become a reliable red seat, a red vote. And Cuellar has said publicly, including on Fox, listen, I'm a Texan first, I'm an American first, a Texan second, and a Democrat third, in that order. And I am a conservative, but I caucus with Democratic Party and thank you for the pardon, but no. Now, the maps are very important to Donald Trump. We know the United States Supreme Court is going to allow a map that was redrawn in the last six months by Texas to eliminate five blue seats and make it five seats redder has been approved effectively by the Supreme Court for this upcoming midterm election because we just got the ruling for the United States Supreme Court, led by Justice Alito, that they're not going to interfere with map making this close, quote, unquote, to an election. And they don't see racial gerrymandering. What they see is Democratic Republican gerrymandering. They see Republican districting and redrawing to improve the odds of Republicans, much the way California has done it with Prop 50 with their new maps. With that as a backdrop. Of the five seats in Texas that were eliminated that were Democratic, Henry Cuellar was not one of them. So he's got effectively a safe seat. It got a lot safer now that Donald Trump has effectively taken the shade or shadow of being an indicted bribe taker off the table. I think that just increased the odds of Henry Cuellar to be supported by the voters of his district and send him back to Congress. In a way, it actually supports or improves his bona fides as being a firebrand conservative who's willing to stand up to everybody, including the Department of Justice, and work with Donald Trump if he has to, on behalf of Texans and himself and work with the Democrats in other ways. But Donald Trump's all off because he didn't get what he wanted. He wanted effectively that seat to flip. With Cuellar going, thank you for the pardon, sir. I'm now a Republican and that didn't happen. Let's first watch Cuellar with Maria Bartiromo on Morning Futures being grilled because, you know, she's a propagandist about being disloyal to the president and being attacked for it because he wouldn't flip and become a Republican. Let's play the clip.
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Congressman, thanks so much for being here. Congratulations on the pardon.
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Thank you so much. And it's so good talking to you again.
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And do you believe that you were indicted because of your criticism of Biden's open border?
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Absolutely.
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The president was right. And I now, looking at all the evidence and looking at everything, definitely I feel that I was weaponized. You know, they used the department to go after my, you know, myself and my family. And I'll tell you something, if they want to come after me because I was a critic about open borders, that's one thing. But you don't bring the family in. You just don't do that. You don't, as a prosecutor, you just don't do that type of situation.
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Now, Donald Trump was originally asked about his pardon and whether that improved the odds of Cuellar getting reelected in the White House several days ago. And there he was, relatively calm. Well, that's not the reason I did it. You know, it was weaponization. And, you know, we all have something in common with Biden's Department of Justice. Let's play the clip.
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Did you speak with House Republican leadership about your decision to pardon Congressman Henry Cuellar? And are you concerned that you made a vulnerable Democrat, perhaps less vulnerable with that decision?
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It didn't matter. He was, he's a respected person. He was treated very badly because he said that people should not be allowed to pour into our country. And he was right. He didn't like open borders. He didn't. He was on the border. You know, he represents a very respected man. He represents the people on the border. And he saw what was happening. And as soon as he made that statement, I then said, I'll bet he gets indicted. And that's what happened. You know, I put out my truth from that. I did a truth, wonderful truth. We love truth. But what happened is he got indicted for speaking the truth and his wife got indicted. Imelda. And that's sort of a first. Usually they leave the wife alone, right? Don't they, Congressman? Typically they indict somebody, put him in jail for the rest of his life. But the wife could just sit home and cry or she'll find a new man. A lot of times they find a new man makes them much happier. In fact, a lot of times they like that man better than the one that's in jail.
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But now that Cuelhar and his wife are not gonna become Democrats. You know, the way I think of it is like switching parties is like switching religions. You know, be like, I can't believe he's not giving up Catholicism and becoming a Jew. I mean, for me, religion, politics is as part of the fiber of my being, as my spiritual, spiritual embrace, my religion. And for somebody to say switch, it's not that easy. Just because you. And why would you trust Henry Cuellar? He got indicted for bribery. I really don't understand. But here is what Donald Trump said. Um, now that he's all off, that Cuellar is not playing, playing, playing by the rules. He's an ingrate. Says such a lack of loyalty, something that Texas voters and Henry's daughters will not like. Right? They're gonna side with Daddy Trump over. Over their father. Oh, well, next time, no more Mr. Nice Guy. Why was this guy ever Mr. Nice Guy, by the way? Where does he have the time to do the presidency? I mean, we already had the reporting that Donald Trump rolls into the office at, like, noon, rolls out at 5. He golfs dozens of days a month, and on top of that, he's writing, like, 100 social media posts in an evening. Or people around him are, how does he have time to even be the president? Why does he even want to be the President of the United States? Why doesn't he just follow Melania out the door? She obviously threw in the towel. She doesn't want to be the First Lady. She don't want to be first lady. First time. You know what she busy doing? Overseeing the demolition of the White House for Christmas. Nothing, nothing says. Nothing says holidays this time of year like jackhammers at the White House. So. So he goes on, he says, no more Mr. Nice Guy. Well, what, in case Cuellar gets indicted again? I mean, it is possible. Menendez got indicted twice and got convicted once. You mean even when he got indicted in a prior bribery scheme, it did not lead him to be chastened and he did not learn a lesson. He just took another bribe five or eight years later and then tried to blame the girlfriend or the wife that he had at the time she made him do it. That's chivalry. That's bravery. That's profile and courage. At least Cuellar didn't blame his wife, even though she was indicted along with him for putting money in her pocket. So what I. The Takeaway from this hot take is, as we've said, if you see a Trump pardon, there is a transactional component to it. It either benefits himself, Donald Trump, politically or financially or both. So that's why Menendez isn't getting out of jail. Because a senator from New Jersey, a blue senator from New Jersey who took bribes like that, that doesn't help. Donald Trump gets no benefit out of that Cuellar. I can flip a seat. Honduras ex president serving 45 years for cocaine trafficking single handedly brought more cocaine into America during that period than any other person. He can help me influence the Honduran election, which backfired as well. Another backfire, because it's not going to go hard right conservative in Honduras, it's going to go moderate. And he pissed off the Hondurans by releasing the president from the party that he was trying to support in the name of drug interdiction. Cocaine interdiction. You released the cocaine trafficker. So that backfired. See, Donald Trump is trying to turn all the world red. He wants all of Europe to go hard, right? He just gave him a lesson, right? A national security document that the Russians love, attacking Europe, saying that your immigration policies are out of whack, that you're going to lose your countries and your cultures. You need to become hard right? You need to make them Europe great, great again. And we're going to turn our attention to the Western Hemisphere. Only at a time when Russia is chomping at the bit to attack in Europe, has said they're planning an attack, they're planning to attack Europe if they have to. And they just try to down the plane for the EU president, jam her radar to crash the plane and kill her and assassinate her. Now's the time to abandon Europe. But when you see a financial pardon, a guy or a person who's been pardoned, hundreds of millions of dollars was at stake, probably is going to benefit the Trump family fortune in some way. Yeah, that's what you always have to think. It's never without a string attached. It's never for the right reason. You know, the evidence, new evidence exonerating the person they were sentenced to too high level of sentencing, guideline crimes because there was a disparity between cocaine and crack and black people got the raw end of the stick and they got longer sentences. Never like that. It's always Biden. The Biden Department of Justice was weaponized, right, because they went after crime. Let's just remember this Department of Justice now under Donald Trump does not have a public corruption unit. Is not going after foreign and foreign bribes, does not have a public integrity unit to speak of and doesn't really have a civil rights unit to speak of. So I don't know what you call that. That's just the chloroforming and the reorientation of the Department of Justice to only go after Donald Trump's enemies and not do a darn thing towards and for Americans. We'll continue to follow it all right here on the Midas Dutch Network and Legal AF. I have a personal ask folks. We're close to the 1 million subscriber mark that landmark over on Mid Legal AF YouTube where I do a lot of my work along with other contributors. Probably gonna go to 980,000 this weekend coming up and then we're trying to get to 1 million before Hanukkah Christmas with your help. We will. The bigger we get, the more your voice is heard, the more street credibility we have to bring on Amazing contributors. The American Civil Liberties Union is coming on with us. Democracy Forward is there with us. Court Accountability Action is there with us and some other amazing contributors. Join me. Find out if you're a subscriber. It's all for free. No paywall, no outside investors. Same thing on legalaf Substack. Become a paid member and you get access to a whole treasure trove of information at the intersection of law and politics. 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 substack. Every 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 A for 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.
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