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- [00:01]
Podcast Host
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- [01:00]
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- [01:31]
Jeff Bridges / Dana
Jeff Bridges why are you still living above our garage?
- [01:34]
T-Mobile Advertiser
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Jeff Bridges / Dana
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T-Mobile Advertiser
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Jeff Bridges / Dana
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T-Mobile Advertiser
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- [02:04]
Michael Popak
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T-Mobile Advertiser
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- [02:11]
Jeff Bridges / Dana
Dude, my work here is done.
- [02:13]
Podcast Host
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- [02:30]
Michael Popak
Juries and juries and Judges are rejecting the Trump administration and its Department of Justice and its attempt to overcharge for felonies. People who are just doing First Amendment protest and expression. It's important as we move into no Kings Day weekend, as we take to the streets to defend our liberty, that we understand that there are grand juries that are doing their job and they're embarrassing the Department of Justice led by Donald Trump and people like Jeanine Pirro in D.C. case in point, Sidney Laurie Reed, filming in front of an ICE detention center in D.C. she scuffles with some FBI agents. She gets thrown up against the wall and she tries to defend herself. And they try to charge her with a felony assault and battery. And the grand jury rejected the charges brought by Jeanine Pirro three separate times. It was so bad, such an embarrassment, that Jeanine Pirro had a downshift and bring it down to a misdemeanor of just assault. I'll talk about the difference between assault and assault and battery. And even then, a jury came back in less than two hours and said she's not guilty. I'm Michael Popak. You're here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal af. Let's talk about it through the lens of Sidney Laurie Reed and what she had to go through now for Jeanine Pirro. Let's just say she's having a rough go at it, having never been a federal prosecutor before, having never been a federal anything before. She was a state county court judge in running D.C. and the grand juries are putting their feet to the fire and saying this isn't a felony. Nine different times, Jeanine Pirro's office has failed to obtain what's called a true bill of indictment from a grand jury. So, no, the person who threw a sandwich at a federal officer isn't going to be, he isn't going to be indicted for a felony, Jeanine. And nine different times this has happened to the department. And four times is not the charm for Sidney Laurie Reed. Three different grand, three different times, the grand jury rejected the felony. They brought it down to a misdemeanor, and then it went into a court presided over by Sparkle Suknan, a Biden appointee. But there was a jury. And what came out during that whole process, just so you know, is a video of the, of the, the interaction between Reid and the FBI agents. That's what the grand jury no doubt saw. That's why they didn't, they didn't indict for a felony. Now, this failure to obtain an indictment has never Been seen before by court watchers. Here's a local court reporter in D.C. who's been doing this for 10 years, and here's what he had to say about it. Let's play the clip. Yeah.
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Jordan Fisher
So with the increase in arrests here, we've seen grand juries rejecting charges in some of these cases as well. Our digital investigative reporter Jordan Fisher, he's been in and out of the courtrooms for these last couple of weeks. And Jordan, we know you reported yesterday that the grand juries, they rejected, what, at least eight of these indictments so far, right?
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Criminal Justice Reporter
Eight so far that we know of.
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Jordan Fisher
Yeah.
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Criminal Justice Reporter
And just to put that into context, I've been covering the criminal justice system for more than a decade now, and prior to a month ago, I had never covered a grand jury rejection. It's called a no true, bill. That's the technical term. Part of the reason is that is grand juries are basically designed to be black boxes. You're not supposed to know what's going on. Part of that is to protect the privacy of people who, who, you know, don't get. Don't wind up getting charged so that those allegations don't come out. But it does leave people asking what exactly is going on here right now?
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Michael Popak
Even Jeanine Pirro knows that her goose is cooked. Recently at a press conference, she said the following about grand juries. You know, sort of, it's up to them. Yeah, it's up to them. But one commentary. If you're bringing crappy cases to the grand jury, they're going to spot it a mile away. Juries, and I've been doing jury work for 35 years, can spot a fraud, can spot somebody that's not telling the truth as an advocate or a witness a mile away. Here's what Jeanine Pirro had to say about all that.
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Ben Meisellis
The federal takeover here in the District. We're hearing from the U.S. attorney for D.C. jeanine Pirro, after a grand jury declined to indict former DOJ employee Sean Dunn for throwing a sandwich at federal officers. Earlier this month, while speaking on Fox News, Pirro put the blame on D.C. residents for being so used to crime.
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Jeanine Pirro
There are a lot of people who sit on juries and they live in, you know, they live in Georgetown or in Northwest or in some of these better areas. And they don't see the reality of crime that is occurring. And my office has been instructed to move for the highest crime possible, consistent with the law, the statute and the evidence. And in that one case, in that particular article, we were on point but the grand jurors don't take it so seriously. They're like, you know, whatever. And my job is to try to turn that around and to continue to give the support that my prosecutors need. In that case, we took it as a misdemeanor and we'll go forward with it. The fact that they're so used to crime, that crime is so normalized in D.C. that they don't even care about whether or not the law is violated is the very essence of what my problem is in D.C. hey, everybody, Ben.
- [07:58]
Ben Meisellis
Meisellis here from the Midas Touch Network. I wanted to let you know about my podcast partner Michael Popak's new law firm. It's called the Popak Firm. Michael Popak's pursuing his dream of starting his own law firm, really based on the popular demand by all the Midas mighty and legal a effers who are approaching Michael Popak with their cases and saying, can you help us? And at that time, Popak was not able to. So he went out on his own. He started the Popoc firm where he is now handling catastrophic injury cases like car accident cases, trucking cases, malpractice cases, big negligence cases, wrongful death cases. So if you or someone you know have a case like this, the consultation with Popo's firm is free. Give him a call. See if you have a case. It's ThePopoc Firm.com ThePopoc Firm.com or you can call 877-popock-af-p o p o k a f. So 1-877-p-o p o k a f give Michael Popak a call. And I'm really proud of you. Popak. Thanks for all the hard work you're putting in.
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Michael Popak
Now let' talk about the trial and what came out during the trial. Now credit to the public defender's office defending Sidney Laurie Reed. She was filming at the ICE Detention Center. There's video that shows her being thrown up against the wall. How many videos do we have to see of people being abused by an out of control federal force under Donald Trump who says, I got your back. You know, Donald Trump says out loud at rallies, at speeches that people should be punched in the face, thrown to the ground thr the car, have their heads banged and the federal officers are responding to it. Civil liberties are out the door. Catch me if you can. There's going to be and you can write this down now as my prediction, there's going to be thousands of lawsuits brought against the federal government under the Federal Tort Claim act and for constitutional Violations related to out of control National Guard, law enforcement, federal officers, ice, Border Patrol, FBI and the rest because they're not trained properly on civil rights and civil liberties. They don't understand our Constitution. Donald Trump doesn't want to train them. And bad things are happening on the streets. It used to just be black and brown people where really bad things were happening, including being killed. Now it's white people as well, because we've got an out of control rogue force that's completely lawless being run by a lawless president. So at trial they showed the tape and then Sidney Reed did not testify, but for five hours. Who Henny Abates, who, who was the person that the federal government, the Department of Justice claimed was assaulted by Reid. How to testify. Let's talk about assault versus battery for a minute. Because they're different. Battery is an unwanted touching, means I actually have to physically make contact with you with a body part or with an object. That's could be battery if it's an unwanted touching. If you're lovingly caressing your family member, your child, your loved one, your wife, your girlfriend, that's okay. But if it's unwanted, it becomes a battery. You don't have to have injury, you don't have to, you don't have to go to the hospital over it, although you often do, especially when the police are on the other side. An assault is no contact, but a fear, a reasonable fear of the person that they're going to be battered. So if I, if I, out of the blue as I'm talking to you, if I go like this and you flinch, maybe you flinched right there on the screen, you know, watching me. That fear of being battered is an assault. And then we have levels of felony related to interference with law enforcement and all of that. So they couldn't get the battery because they, the action of Ms. Reed that they were using as the basis of the crime was that she either inadvert, either kind of, no pun intended, knee jerked or knee jerk reaction or flinched or tried to protect herself, but some point she put up her knee, it didn't make contact with the groin of FBI Agent Eugenia Bates, but they wanted that to be assault. Now, Eugenia Bates, because she was throwing her up against the wall, read against the wall, she had some scuff marks on her hands and that type of thing. Now why was FBI Agent Bates on the stand for five hours in a relatively simple case with a video? Because there were text messages and Judge Sparkle Suknan and that shout out to the federal public defenders to get these text messages found. Text messages were appropriate, relevant to come in into the courtroom in order for the jury to understand the bias and credibility of the FBI agent. And on those text messages, she called Sidney Reed a libtard and downplayed her reads, abrasions and bruises from the scuffle and the physical altercation with the FBI agents. And the jury heard all of that. It took them less than two hours. They returned a verdict and it was in favor, not guilty, in favor of Lori Reed, Cindy Laurie Reed. Now, we, we have still a system of double jeopardy. That means she cannot be tried again for that crime, misdemeanor or felony, anything that came out of that altercation done. She wants to be. Somebody wants to sue her civilly, that's a different story. But for the crimes, she cannot be sued again or it violates our doctrine of double jeopardy. The case is over. I think it's important to talk about that case because federal judges coming off of the no Kings protest on Saturday. I'm sure there's going to be instigation by federal agents, especially as the no Kings Day protest kind of winds its way through federal property or near federal property. You know, they're looking, they're itching for a fight and they have itchy trigger fingers. These, these federal officers. And they've been instructed to stand their ground and almost not to de. Escalate, but to escalate the tensions. And they'll use procedures and methods in order to do that. This could lead to violence on the street or where First Amendment protesters are protecting themselves. Federal judges are going to have to sort this out come Monday, come Sunday. And I'm glad to see that there's grand juries and juries who look at these things and say, these are not federal. You're making a federal case out of nothing. These are not federal charges. These aren't even misdemeanor. Misdemeanor charges. And that's been the problem of this Trump administration's Department of justice and why they have no credibility. They're overcharging their cases. They're also quietly having to dismiss a lot of cases. Of the eight or ten cases that Jeanine Pirro has not been able to obtain an indictment. There's dozens more which he's had to dismiss outright. Yeah, and that is a, that is a indictment of the Trump administration, how, how poor and weak the Department of Justice is. You know, they try to do all these shiny objects, distract distractions. Oh, he indicted John Bolton. Oh, he did bad things with his diaries. Oh, he indict James Comey. You know, he said he stood by some testimony from eight years ago about an event nine years ago. Oh, Letitia James has another house. We don't like black people that own too much property, you know, like that. But what's going on behind the scenes is just this utter and complete collapse of DOJ leadership, which makes it almost impossible for them to have any credibility. When you stand in front of a jury or a judge. I've been doing this for 35 years. I've stood before dozens and dozens and dozens, hundreds of judges, dozens of juries and arbitration panels. And if you don't have stepping into that well, of that courtroom credibility, authenticity, believability. If the judge doesn't believe you, you're dead. When you say that a certain set of facts stand for a certain type of proposition under a case or the judge has to believe you, and if they don't, if the whole time while you're talking you're advocating, they're thinking, I don't believe a word this guy is saying, you're done. You're dead. All you have is your reputation in that courtroom. Juries, it's even worse because if they don't like you and believe you and trust you and won't follow you where you want to take them through a. Through a explanation of the evidence or the witnesses, if they roll their eyes or close their minds, you're done. You're dead. So is your client. That's where the Department of Justice is right now. This is what the next generation, the next generation of leaders in the Senate and the House, the next generation of leaders in the Department of Justice once the Democrats take back power in 2028, this is what we're going to have to deal with. The complete wholesale rebuilding of the Department of Justice and our system of justice as Donald Trump has scarred it and defamed it and chloroformed it all along the way. See you on Saturday at no Kings. We'll put up video related to it. I'm Michael Popak. You're on Midas Touch Network and on Legal af.
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Jordan Fisher
Can't get your fill of Legal af.
- [17:42]
Michael Popak
Me neither.
- [17:43]
Jordan Fisher
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.
- [17:59]
Michael Popak
What else?
- [18:00]
Jordan Fisher
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. A F on substack. Come over now to free subscribe.
- [18:18]
Jeff Bridges / Dana
Hello, is this Pacific Source Health Plans?
- [18:20]
Jordan Fisher
This is a health plan.
- [18:22]
Jeff Bridges / Dana
I'm trying to reach Pacific Source. I know I'll get a person on the phone when I call them.
- [18:26]
Jordan Fisher
What do you think I am?
- [18:27]
Jeff Bridges / Dana
I mean, you sound like a person.
- [18:29]
Jordan Fisher
That's what counts.
- [18:30]
Jeff Bridges / Dana
Automated systems can do a lot, even sound a lot like people. What automated systems can't do is offer the quality our members rely Empathy. When you call Pacific Source Health Plans, you'll talk to a person who cares. What did you say your name was?
- [18:45]
Jordan Fisher
Nexa 9000. Hmm.