128 Judges Demand Disciplinary Proceedings for Trump Lawyer

0:00Michael Popok:At no time in our history have federal and state former judges joined together to criticize, rebuke, call out the lawlessness of a presidential administration and its Department of Justice until now. More than 300 federal and state former judges led by Judge Michael Ludig and Judge Nancy Gertner and other groups like Democracy Defenders Fund and the Lawyers Defending American Democracy have joined together to file motions and briefs and bar complaints and all different things in federal and state courts to address the Trump administration. administrations and its Department of Justice under Todd Blanche's lawlessness.

0:49Michael Popok:It's rogue behavior. It's attacks on the rule of law. And in this moment, attacks on the federal judiciary that are having real life, real life consequences. Federal judges are being called out by name, placing targets on their back and of their families. And federal judges have said enough is enough. I've got in my hands this recent ethics complaint against one of the top lawyers for the Trump administration, James Percival, came out of my backyard in Florida, worked in the general counsel's office under DeSantis and Ashley Moody, and now is the head of the Department of Homeland Security as the head lawyer.

1:30Michael Popok:You want to know why ICE is lawless? You want to know why they're rogue? It's because their leadership is corrupt and their lawyers are too. And James Percival thought nothing, nothing of violating his rules of professional responsibility obligations not to defame and attack judges. He literally put on their back, well, not literally, he figuratively put on their back targets. The worst of the worst that need to be removed. I just read filings by the Department of Justice in the James Comey indictment case as they try to salvage that indictment against him for the seashells on the beach issue.

2:11Michael Popok:They said removed means to kill. They said that remove means to kill. Anybody knows that? A third grader knows that. All right. Well, James Percival, your own head of the Department of Homeland Security, just said, remove these judges and then went on to give illogical, bad faith, immature analysis. An analysis is too heavy of a word for what he did about their positions. But more importantly, he's calling for violence against federal judges. He should be disbarred. So these 128 judges have filed an ethics complaint with the Florida Bar. Now, I'm a member of the Florida Bar. In fact, I'm going to write a letter to back up this letter later today.

3:02Michael Popok:Because the Florida Bar took a prior position that was wrong when a similar letter went out against Pam Bondi, also a Florida Bar member, when she was attorney general. And they said, oh, no, supremacy clause. They may be lawyers and they may operate as lawyers, but they're also federal employees. And we're not going to do anything until they stop being federal employees or about their federal conduct. No, these people have. I mean, you don't have to be a lawyer to be an attorney general. But if you're going to practice and you're going to sign pleadings and you're going to provide advice and counsel, unless you're a lawyer, you are practicing law without a license.

3:36Michael Popok:It's the unlicensed practice of law. We call it UPL. Usually bar associations and bar regulators are up in arms about it. It keeps them up at night, but they're going to let federal attorneys get away with not having bar licenses or not having their bar license subject to discipline. Forget it. I'm Michael Popock. By the way, you're on Legal AF and on Midas Touch. Take a minute and hit the free subscribe button on Legal AF's YouTube channel. Now, I've had the honor of having people like Michael Luttick, former federal judge who signed this along with 127 others to the Florida Bar. And I've also had not just retired federal judges, which shows a tremendous amount of courage, but there's a different brand of courage when you are an active, sitting federal judge and you criticize people who come on and attack you.

4:32Michael Popok:And I can't think of two finer human beings or jurists than Judge Esther Salas, the District of New Jersey Federal Court, and Judge Beth Bloom, Southern District of Florida. I know them both. I've had them on my podcast to interview them about this particular issue of Percival attacking judges. And Judge Salas comes at it from a very personal vantage point. Her own son was murdered. when someone showed up at her house to assassinate her and found her son home from school instead and killed him and mortally wounded her husband six years ago this past July. And so when she says, knock it off, lower the rhetoric, federal judges are under attack.

5:22Michael Popok:Just to give you the statistics before I play you the interview with Judge Salas, according to the United States Marshal Service, which is under the control of the Department of Justice, by the way, and Donald Trump, there have been 402 threats made against individual federal judges in 2026 alone. 299 out of approximately 2 ,500 judges, 12 % of all active judges have received a death threat during this period. Think about that. More than 10 % of federal judges during 2026 have received a death threat. And that includes their children. Even Amy Coney Barrett, a Supreme Court justice, said in her recent interview that the threat level is high.

6:09Michael Popok:And she had to explain to her son, her preteen son, why she had a bulletproof vest after the Dobbs decision took away a woman's right to choose. um percival who barely got through his confirmation hearing didn't even know what habeas corpus was um he and i'll play that in a moment this is what he posted on his social media he posted um and this is repeated in their bar complaint at pages let me find the page for you here, 8 and 9. And I'll just read it straight, as we always do here on Midas and Legal AF. Every day, James Percival posted on July 23rd, the brave men and women of ICE risked their lives to remove the worst of the worst from our country.

7:07Michael Popok:Today, in honor of the ICE worst of the worst series, I'm starting a new series, worst of the worst district judge edition. I just told you that the Department of Justice has taken a position that the word remove means to kill in certain context. He then goes through and criticizes four separate judges, including Judge Zinnis. Let's talk about Judge Zinnis for a moment. She's the judge who, with great courage, ruled in favor of Kilmer Abrego Garcia several times. That was upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals twice in the United States Supreme Court 9-0. This is when they sent him to the torture prison of El Salvador, SICOT, where he was tortured upon arrival.

7:56Michael Popok:He's not from El Salvador. He's from Venezuela. They had some made-up charges that he was part of Trenda Aragua, a Venezuelan drug group. And without habeas corpus, without due process, they sent him in the middle of the night, shackled with other men to that prison. Judge Zinnis ordered him to be returned, that the government facilitate his return because he had an order of non-removal by a federal judge, immigration judge, to prevent him from going to El Salvador.

8:28Michael Popok:And that was an illegal removal. She issued her order. It was ignored. Abrego Garcia's lawyers at Quinn Emanuel, filed at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and won twice. They filed again at the United States Supreme Court, and he got a 9-0 emergency order in favor of Judge Zinnis. And then subsequently, another judge in the Middle District of Tennessee named Judge Crenshaw ultimately dismissed a criminal indictment against him for human trafficking and smuggling, finding that it was a product of vindictive prosecution by the Department of Justice. But here's how James Percival, the guy who doesn't know what habeas corpus means, here's how he puts it.

9:10Michael Popok:Judge Paula Zinnis of the District of Maryland, appointed by Barack Obama. Remember Kilmer Abrego Garcia? He's still in the country. The reason Judge Zinnis, she entered an order preventing his removal and then ordered him released on the basis that we had no plans to remove him. If it sounds crazy, it is. Our efforts to reverse this decision remain pending. Yeah, it's not going to work. Let me play you James Percival, not knowing what the heck habeas corpus was, despite him becoming the head lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security. Play it. Last month, the White House deputy chief of staff said that President Trump's administration is actively looking at suspending habeas corpus.

9:49Two weeks ago, I asked Secretary Noem about this. And today I'd like to ask you about this as well, since you're obviously nominated to be the general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security. So Mr. Percival, let's just start with what is habeas corpus? Thank you, Senator. Habeas corpus is a Latin phrase that means you shall have the body. Right. And what is the foundational right that habeas corpus represents in our constitutional democracy? Yeah, well, I guess there's a number of different concepts. There's the writ of habeas corpus, which is a judicial review mechanism. There's what we call the suspension clause, which is about suspending the writ of habeas corpus.

10:24And then there are several implications of that for the work that DHS is doing, such as the Alien Enemies Act. Well, so, you know, I appreciate you and I could do a law school debate about this. Let's just get to the core foundational principle here and why it's so important. It is the bedrock principle in our country that prevents the government from imprisoning someone without any justification or review. And it's a key right that makes America a free society.

10:50Michael Popok:Now, before I get to the actual bar complaint, which is about 24 pages, including the 128 signatures of the judges, let me play you a clip from Judge Salas. again six years ago in july around the time that percival was posting those targets on the back of those judges judge salas had her son murdered so she knows what she's talking about play esther salas judge esther salas so let's ask the judges what should happen going forward next you know i i i do want i would love for us to get back to a place where we can disagree in an agreeable way. I would love for us to start talking about merits. I mean, one of the reasons, Michael, I've chosen never to name anyone when I've done any of my, you know, my appeals to the public is because I really want to talk about what's being done as opposed to who's doing it, you know, and what's being done is attacking the judiciary in ways that we've never seen before.

12:03I mean, people have often said to me and criticized me, Michael, they say, oh, well, this has been done under a Democratic president. And you know what? For the longest time, I would say that I was an equal opportunity denouncer. You know, when the Supreme Court's homes were being picketed, I went on Fox News and I denounced that. When a certain Democrat leader called out the justices and said certain things, I called that out too. But this is no longer apples to apples. This is apples to watermelons. And the reason it's apples to watermelons is because I don't think anyone can point a time in this country where a website would put up a judicial officer's name and call that officer a threat to national security.

12:48I can't remember a time where we had leaders literally calling us monsters and criminals, which, you know, unfortunately, we've been called that by the leader of this country. You know, I can't remember a time when we're using department heads now to use official handles to call judges worst of the worst and incite and inflame anger against the judiciary in this way. And so for me, it is no longer apples to apples. It is apples to watermelons. And we're getting close to now, you know, really a dangerous place where as Mike, I just want to say July is a horrible month for me. It's my anniversary of my son's death.

13:31I hate the word anniversary because there's nothing celebratory about that. his birthday and my wedding anniversary that I just had on the 28th of July. And I have to celebrate 31 years of marriage with my husband without my only child in this world. I know the dangers that we're talking about. And I just ask our political leaders to tone it down, criticize us on the merits, appeal us, But stop villainizing and demonizing my colleagues, please.

14:08Michael Popok:Now, there is a provision which is cited in this bar complaint, which is posted on Legal AF Substack, which I've sworn an oath to uphold as well.

14:22Michael Popok:And I will be reminding the Florida bar as well. And I'll post my letter on Substack so you know what I'm doing. in which they go through each of the comments. And here's what they say. On page 19, General Counsel Percival's post impugned the character of four sitting judges. These attacks increase the unfounded perception that the judiciary is biased and its results unfair. Comments on Mr. Percival's posts show that it has had an adverse effect on the trust of at least a subset of those who interacted with the content. Comments include statements calling into question the judges, calling them left-wing, radical activist judges, calling on DHS to ignore the judges and deport, then arrest the judges if they interfere.

15:10Michael Popok:And one post stating that they need and deserve intimidation. Furthermore, Mr. Percival's comments raise the risk of threats of violence against judges. Several sitting and retired judges have already raised serious concerns about the impact of Percival's statements on sitting judges. And there they cite to the interview of Beth Bloom, Judge Bloom and Judge Salas that we did on Legal AF. Here's Judge Bloom. Let me say that criticism of the entire of any branch of government is healthy. It allows us to to become better as public servants. But this is not healthy criticism. These are unjustified attacks that are designed for one purpose and one purpose only.

15:56And that is to bring others to do harm, to delegitimize not only the entire justice system, but the judges that work hard every single day.

16:08Michael Popok:And here's some of the comments about those statements, about those attacks. James Percival, among the comments to Percival's post, this is on footnote 96 on page 20. Ignore the judges, then arrest the judges if they interfere. That is irregular and malicious behavior. None of these people, especially Burroughs, is a judge. They're political activists. Bloom, Beth Bloom, you just saw, sounds like another left-wing lunatic, a political hack posing as a judge. Let me vouch for Judge Bloom for a moment. I practiced before her when she was on the Miami-Dade Circuit Court. We always thought among the bar that she was going to be elevated to the federal bench.

16:53Michael Popok:She was that high quality of a jurist, and I was not surprised when she was nominated and confirmed as a federal judge. In fact, I think I had the last major case in front of her. So listen to people like me who practice law for a living and practice in front of judges exactly like Judge Bloom. These are not political hacks posing as judges at all. They deserve our respect. And more importantly, if you're a member of the Florida Bar or any bar, it's not that the judges deserve your respect. It is demanded and commanded. It is a fiat by way of the ethics rules. You shall not impugn the integrity of judges ever at any time.

17:39Michael Popok:And I saw some people in comments were like, well, there goes the First Amendment. No, the First Amendment is not pure. It's not unregulated. You can't say anything. And if you hold a bar license, if you have the privilege to hold a bar license, now there are just some things you can't say and seek First Amendment protection. Now, I don't know what the Florida Bar is going to do here exactly with this bar complaint. If they put it into the circular file like they did with Pam Bondi's. But we need to call them out and we need to pressure the Florida Bar. And I'm hoping that another letter from me is going to contribute to that.

18:16Michael Popok:You're here on Midas Touch and on Legal AF. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button. Help me to continue to grow our pro-democracy channel on Legal AF. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Popak here. When life changes in an instant because of an injury or the bad acts of another, you need fighters in your corner. The Popak firm is dedicated to helping the injured and their families get justice and the money they deserve. And we don't back down. Contact us today and let's start your fight for justice together.