Loading summary
Transcript15 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, I just Venmo'd you for rent.
- [00:02]
B
Nice. Now I can instantly spend it whether I'm checking out online with Venmo or using a Venmo debit card. Say more. More. Exactly. Because the more you do with Venmo, the more you get. Like earning up to 5% cash. Back with Venmo Stash on a bundle of brands.
- [00:17]
A
So order more pizza.
- [00:18]
B
The meth demands it.
- [00:20]
A
Get the Venmo debit card.
- [00:21]
B
Venmo Stash bundle Terms and exclusions apply. See terms at Venmo Me Stashterm. Venmo checkout not available at all merchants. Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank.
- [00:30]
C
NA this episode is brought to you by Starbucks.
- [00:34]
A
That is fire. Whoa, that's good. This might be the drink of the summer. Okay, I like this one, too. I'm rocking with it.
- [00:40]
C
Okay, try it for yourself. Starbucks Refreshers concentrates are coming home. Find them in the coffee aisle and make it yours. Keep your wellness routine going strong all summer. Cachava's new travel packs help you stick to your daily ritual even when you're on the go. Just one packet of Cachava's all in One Nutrition Shake provides complete nutrition wherever you are with 25 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber. Greens, adaptogens, and more. Simplify your daily ritual. Go to kachava.com and use code NEWS for 15% off. That's K-A-H-A-V-A.com code NEWS.
- [01:19]
B
I'm Kiana, and I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted.
- [01:45]
A
Start your free trial@shopify.com that sounds you hear that's fireworks that have started to go off already in Washington, courtesy of the United States Supreme Court, who in three decisions dropped today, took a bite out of Donald Trump. Major setbacks for Donald Trump. First on mail in ballots. Second, about the Federal Reserve and his ability to fire people at will. And third, about his sex abuse judgment obtained by E. Jean Carroll. All coming together here on Midas Touch and legal AF Michael Popak. Let's roll up our shirt sleeves and get into it, shall we? Let's start with Mail in ballots. It's a decision that was rendered 5 to 4, written by Amy Coney Barrett in Watson vs Mississippi. The Republican National Committee wants to take away your right to vote, wants to destroy mail in ballots as we know it. But the Supreme Court is not going to allow it because they found as at a matter of statutory interpretation, that states are empowered under the Constitution to, to count ballots that are marked post date of the day of the election, even if they're counted. After recognizing that no state in their right mind can tabulate all of its votes on one election day, which is what Donald Trump wants, they also made a ruling and I'll read to you from parts of it that I think undermine many of the things that Donald Trump is now trying to do as his assault on mail in ballots and on elections in advance of the midterms, particularly, they said if there's fraud, if there's integrity problems, that is not for the court, that is for the legislatures. I think they're referring to the state legislatures and certainly not for the President of the United States through executive order to try to take away our rights to vote. All in a case called Watson vs Mississippi. Let me, let me touch on the Lisa Cook case, who's serving a 13 year term on the Federal Reserves, a Board of Governors, which is the seven member group that runs this independent organization that's been around since 1913 but traces its lineage back to the 1700s with banks of America, original Banks of America. In that case, which has been written by Justice Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson and Kavanaugh, that five person group, they said that Donald Trump cannot on his own just fire people claiming it is for cause on the Federal Reserve, that that undermines the independence of the Federal Reserve, that if he could just fire them for any reason or all reasons, then then it would be no different than being able just to fire somebody at will. And particularly the statute which they are upholding, that that created the Federal Reserve by Congress says it has to be for cause. Now what is for a for cause, reason to terminate. They left it a little, a little loosey goosey, a little mushy, if you will. They said it depends on if the allegations, when you compare them to the position and the responsibilities of a member of the Federal Reserve, if those two things are not coextensive or then you can fire them for cause. They don't really get into the due process argument. They get into his allegation and the way he fired her through social media posts and otherwise. Is not allowable and finds that he's not going to win on the third ruling today because this is three out of, this is three or four out of about 14 decisions we're getting between today and later this week. You've got E. Jean Carroll. Now I'm going to be bringing on hopefully Robby Kaplan, the lawyer for E. Jean Carroll, to celebrate this decision. We've been talking about that. For the last about five months, Donald Trump has been trying to get the Supreme Court to take on on an appeal, his case where he lost $5.5 million and more importantly was adjudged to be a sex appeal abuser by a nine person jury in New York presided over by judge, by Judge Lewis Kaplan. Trump argued, after losing at every appellate level, he now argued to the Supreme Court in a petition that the judge let in evidence of his prior sexual abuse on other women and the famous Access Hollywood recording of him, which he's never been able to deny because it's true, where he says out loud that he would grab a woman by her genitalia and get away with it. That should not have come into his case. And after 12 different conferences in which they could not get the four votes together out of nine necessary to bring that case up on appeal in Donald Trump's favor, they finally rejected the appeal and denied the petition to today there's another petition for 83 and a half million dollars because she had two trials against him and won both of those. And I, if I'm reading the tea leaves, they're not taking that case either. There was no dissent by anyone in the Eugene Carroll case, not even Alito or Thomas. Let's get back to mail in balloting. This is an action packed video. Let's get to it. Let me read to you. Let me set the stage. First Mississippi in 2020, around the time of COVID along with about 30 other states, set a deadline. As long as your ballot was you made your electoral choice, you elected who you wanted. That's the election. By the way, you put that in an envelope, you mailed it and had it postmarked on the day of the, by the day of the election, it could be received up to five days after grace period and be counted in that election. Well, Donald Trump likes to say that's fraud. There's gonna be fraud. It's not fraud. It's just counting. It's just tabulating. He doesn't like the fact that he loses often on mail in ballot and absentee ballots. Now, they had a weird position because they didn't wanna be against absentee ballots, the Republican National Committee, they didn't wanna be against military ballots. They just wanted to be against mail in ballots. But that tied them up in knots. And so even at oral argument that we covered on Legal AF YouTube channel, they were just completely spinning with irreconcilable legal positions that were pointed out by people like Amy Coney Barrett, which made absolutely and she ended up writing the majority opinion. Now what they have now declared is that a federal set of statutes about what day the election is does not undermine the ability of states under Article 1 to make decisions about the time, place and manner of elections. If they want to give a five day extension, California has a seven day extension for mail in ballots. That doesn't undermine those statutes. Now they purposely said in the ruling which we'll post up on legal AF substack for paid members today, that we're not making a constitutional analysis. We're focused on whether a statute about the day of election means you can't have a grace period for mail in ballots. And we're finding that that does not compute. That does not apply. States can still give a grace period. It doesn't violate the setting of a an election day. They also recognized Amy Coney Barrett in the decision that it is virtually impossible to tabulate all votes in one day. And so that is an unreasonable position to have taken. Let me read to you from from certain parts of this which I think are important, particularly undermining Donald Trump's attempt to federalize elections. On that note, this is what the court said on page 19 written by Amy Coney Barrett for the majority plaintiff sets the Republican National Committee assert that requiring ballots to be received by election day protects election integrity and increases voter confidence in election results. As we've said time and time again, policy arguments are properly directed to legislatures, not the courts. Citing a couple of cases from the United States Supreme Court. The question today is not whether requiring a ballots to be received by election day is a good or bad idea. The question is whether the idea has made its way into the United States Code. So the way I interpret that is they are not going to be happy with Donald Trump's attempt through executive order to federalize and take over the Constitution to take over the constitutional right of states to regulate elections. As they said at the beginning of their of this opinion, the primary power to regulate elections is with the states. The ultimate power is with Congress. One of the two of them have to speak and speak clearly on this major issue, a major decision. And they're they're not I believe based on this ruling going to allow Donald Trump just to create a centralized database, make laws about voter ID or voter or voter collection or counting or mail in ballots at all. I think that's, that's the takeaway for me in the case of Watson versus Mississippi, of course, with Alito and Thomas and others in dissent. Well, it's time for some life talk. Life insurance talk, that is. You probably have it. But do you know how much you're paying for it? And for how much are you being covered? Odds are you pay too much for too little. And did you know if you receive life insurance through your job and you're unexpectedly laid off, you could suddenly be covered for nothing. Scary to think about but simple to get right. Thanks to select quote where I'm headed to sort out my life insurance policy today. Unlike other one size fits all life insurance companies, select quotes license agents work for you. In as little as 15 minutes they'll compare policies from top rated carriers to find you the best fit for your health and your budget and they work for you for free. Get the right life insurance for you for less and Save more than 50%@SelectQuote.com LegalAF Save more than 50% on term life insurance@SelectQuote.com Legalif today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com Legal AF Then we've got the case of Lisa Cook. Lisa Cook, upon her slender shoulders hangs the entire independence of the Federal Reserve. There are seven members of the Board of Governors. Of the seven members of the Board of Governors, four are not really in favor of Donald Trump, including the former chair Jay Powell. Three are either Trump or Trump adjacent. If he got a majority by getting rid of Lisa Cook and firing her and replacing her, he get not only a majority on the Board of Governors, but he'd be able to take over the Federal Open Markets Committee, which is a seven member, which is a sorry, 12 member committee, seven from the board of governors, all seven and five that they select who are regional presidents of the Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve bank presidents for the different regions picked by the majority. So if you get rid of Lisa Cook, you get the, you, you destroy the independence of the Federal Reserve. And that's what they were fearing here. How did it happen? She had a couple of mortgages, one on a condo in Atlanta, one in a house in Michigan. Okay. Oh, she lied on her application. She said she was going to live in both or she wasn't going to rent one or, or she, she, she was one was a second home. One was a first home, whatever the arguments were. And then you got Bill Pulte, who's now the acting Director of National Intelligence. That's a laugh. He's a Nepo baby who's been running Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac, the mortgage regulators. And he comes out and says, oh, I found signatures on two different pieces of paper. Look at this. Two loans on the same day. She must have committed fraud. I'm making a referral to Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice. Donald Trump gave her three days and said, you're fired by social media post. Yeah, that's not good enough. So here's what they ruled. They went through Roberts, went through pages and pages. No surprise, it was Roberts. Of the historical analysis of how we even got to the Federal Reserve in 1913 and all the financial chaos that preceded it and how it was amended in 1933 and 1935 by Congress. And they don't like the fact that Trump tried to fire her for cause, but didn't really have a cause. Now, at the end, here's what they rule. They also don't like Donald Trump's argument that whatever he does in firing a Federal Reserve person is not reviewable by the court. They said, no, it's. It's reviewable by the court. And then they kind of get into this murky area, which is not totally great about giving. If you're. If your purpose of your opinion on the Supreme Court is to give guidance to the lower courts, the district court levels, it's not great guidance because it has to do with what is for cause to fire Lisa Cook or anybody else. And it says it's gotta be tied to the, to the job. It's gotta be tied to the independent position that she holds. And it has to be some sort of malfeasance that's connected to the position. I think private mortgage fraud, even if it were committed, is not going to do it. Based on this new ruling, here's what they say on page 13 over the 14. And this is really where the rubber meets the road in the decision. This, again, is, is the Trump versus Cook decision. Having rejected both parties position, we need not fully demarcate the contours of cause for today. For present purposes, it's sufficient to observe that any definition of cause in this context must reflect the Federal Reserve's unique historical status and role. So they, like, refused to give guidance to the lower court I. At all, which is sort of. It's a little bit nuts, if you know what I'm talking about. They go on to say that count that there should be a substantial threshold for cause. In other words, they're putting cause way up on a shelf. It is true that cause cannot be reduced to a precise set of rules. Whether cause for removal exists in any given situation will depend, at least in part, on the seriousness of the alleged misconduct and the extent of any nexus that may exist to the governor's professional duties. The key issue is whether the cause assigned truly implies an unfitness for the place or whether it simply represents an effort to secure a more congenial replacement. Our review is deferential, but we are not required to exhibit naivete from which ordinary citizens are free. Without such constraints in place, any perceived or alleged misstep could provide a ready pretext for a governor's removal, a fact he would surely know and that would surely weigh on him as he decided what to say and how to vote. Nothing could be more corrosive to the independents. So they're gonna look at like, what is the crime that's being alleged and if it's so bad that it would compromise independent judgment, then they can be removed. I don't know. Signing two mortgage documents about two separate properties that they own, I don't think that that fits. Lisa Cook lives for another day. The independence of the Federal Reserve, at least for now, has been preserved. So let's round it out with E. Jean Carroll. E. Jean Carroll alleges that in 1996 and she proved in court in front of a Nine Zero jury, six men, three women, presided over by Judge Kaplan federal court a few years ago, that she was sexually abused in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue diagonal across the street from Trump Tower. And she knew Donald Trump. She bumped into Donald Trump and that he sexually assaulted her, abused her in a dressing room. That was proven at trial as part of the evidence. She brought in the Access Hollywood audio tape and played it for the jury. Her lawyer, Robbie Kaplan, did, and brought in at least two other women, Ms. Leeds and Ms. Stoyanovich, who claimed that in and around 1996 they were sexually assaulted and abused by Donald Trump. Mislead said she was upgraded to first class, sat next to Donald Trump and he started to grope her on the plane, not knowing her. And Natalia Stianovich says that she was a People magazine reporter doing a puff story, puff piece about Melania and Donald Trump's marriage and Donald Trump attacked her in Mar? A Lago, in a bedroom. Donald Trump doesn't like that. That evidence came in, E. Jean Carroll argued to the Supreme Court. It was already reviewed by the appellate court in New York the 2nd Circuit found to be non reversible. It was a harmless error. If anything, there was such an abundance of evidence against Donald Trump and the court kicked it around since February. 12 different meetings in which they considered the petition but didn't vote on it. Although that's not a great sign. In order to get up and get your petition up to be considered, you need four votes and then five to rule for you. That means they couldn't even get four votes and now they've, they've kind of given up and rejected the petition. This also applies to the this also bodes well for the 83 and a $83 million judgment she obtained for punitive damage and otherwise when Donald Trump testified at a second trial involving her. That petition is up with the court also on an immunity issue, although the immunity there obviously waived or had been waived by a combination of Alina Haba and other lawyers. So I think this is great for E. Jean Carroll programming. Note, I'm going to get, I hope, Robbie Kaplan on to join me on Legal AF for an exclusive interview about this great win for justice and for E. Jean Carroll. All right, that's my breathless report about three different bombs. You know, don't you don't have to wait for 4th of July for the fireworks to start at the United States Supreme Court. And we're still waiting, still waiting on later this week, I believe, birthright citizenship, which should be another loss for Donald Trump where the Supreme Court says, no, you can't by executive order change the definition of who gets to be an American in America. Until my next report, take a minute. Hit the free subscribe Button on Legal AF YouTube channel. By the way, this is 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 AAF 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.
- [21:32]
B
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses Setup required Compatibility and availability Various 18 Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month, of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments.
- [22:11]
A
But that's weird.
- [22:12]
B
Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment
- [22:19]
C
of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile. Com.