Federal Judges Break Silence on Trump DOJ Nightmare

0:00Michael Popok:You know how hard it is to be a sitting federal judge and on the receiving end of Donald Trump's vitriol, his violent rhetoric, that of those around him and his proxies going after federal judges and their families, their loved ones, their spouses, their sons and daughters. Do you know how hard that is for a sitting federal judge? I mean, let's take a recent example that ties back to Todd Blanche. You've got Judge Kathleen Williams, very highly regarded in the Southern District of Florida, and she issues a 56-page decision which basically says that Donald Trump and Todd Blanche, his embattled, beleaguered, self -sabotaged attorney general pick, entered into a collusive deal that was illegitimate in order to have as a byproduct of it.

0:56Michael Popok:a settlement agreement authorized by Todd Blanche, which gave and tried to set up a phony$2 billion fund to pay people who attacked our democracy, the Jan 6 fund, while at the same time running interference in cover for what Donald Trump really wanted, which was Todd Blanche executing a one paragraph release of liability to give Donald Trump his family and affiliates and businesses. He's got 400 of them. The tax immunity he's always been looking for, the immunity that even the Supreme Court didn't give him. He found in a in a willing candidate who would do anything to get the nomination in Todd Blanche.

1:35Michael Popok:And Judge Williams called it out. Now, she issued her ruling in due course within a couple of weeks after all of the filings were in. The fact that Attorney General Todd Blanche happened to be in a confirmation process can't stop a federal judge. You know, it doesn't stop the trains from running on time. It doesn't stop air traffic controllers from trying to land airplane traffic just because something else is going on in the world. But to the MAGA world who takes their tone from the top of Donald Trump and thinks it's appropriate to attack federal judges, they started to attack the federal judge.

2:14Michael Popok:federal judge uh williams highly regarded in my neck of the woods in the southern district of florida they said she was a political hack that she was a partisan that she was doing what she was doing because she wanted to interfere with with the nomination of of the attorney general the reason that people were investigated prosecuted indicted and convicted for being involved with jan 6th that they happened to all be republicans was not because there was a political witch hunt is because it was only the Republicans that were involved. And for Judge Williams to be attacked mercilessly, and she's not done, by the way, I wanted her to go further.

2:52Michael Popok:I'll be frank. I thought that while the order was very judicious and very well-reasoned and handing out sanctions and findings of bad faith and referrals to bar associations and the like, I think she could have went further. They're lucky she didn't go further. I wanted her to find fraud on the court. I wanted her to not only declare the settlement agreement dead and buried and Blanche powerless to have entered it, but also by name call out that release. She did call out the release, but in her order at the end to list it as something that has been voided because of a fraud on the court. Now, she didn't go quite that far, although she invited that motion to be filed by somebody in the future.

3:37Michael Popok:And what's her thanks for that? To be attacked, to have to worry about her personal security, to have the federal U.S. marshals worry about her. You know, this is somebody that's given her life over to public service. She started as the, she was a lawyer, she was a prosecutor, she was the federal public defender, like the opposite of the U.S. attorney in two different districts in Florida, highly, highly regarded. And yet we have to talk about federal judges under attack. and federal judges, including sitting federal judges. I do a lot of reporting about former federal judges. I just interviewed former federal judge Mark Wolf.

4:15Michael Popok:I've interviewed former federal judge Mike Ludig. But current judges, you know, it's hard. It takes courage to find a way to come out to protect the judiciary without being attacked as a partisan hack and to have it fall back on them. I just had the honor on behalf of our audience to interview two such current federal judges. One I know well from having practiced in front of her, Judge Beth Bloom, Southern District of Florida, and one I've always admired, and so should we, Judge Esther Salas, District of New Jersey, who six years ago in July had her 20-year-old son murdered. He was home from college at the front door of their home when somebody came knocking to assassinate Judge Salas and wounded her husband, severely wounded her husband, and killed her only child.

5:11Michael Popok:And she's become an understandable, outspoken advocate about protection. It's not a blue-red thing. It's a black-white thing. It's a, we should be in favor of protecting our judiciary, and we need to tone down the rhetoric. And the tone starts from Donald Trump. Look, magnesium is something most of us aren't getting enough of. And if you're just grabbing the drugstore version, you may not be getting the full picture. Industrial farming, chronic stress, and everyday aging can all make it harder to get the magnesium your body needs. The thing is, magnesium comes in many forms, and each one supports your health in a different way.

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6:32Michael Popok:Experience the most trusted magnesium for purity, potency, and performance. Plus, it's non-GMO, vegan, and gluten-free, making it a choice you can feel good about. Go to qualialife.com slash legal AF for 50 % off. And here's a bonus. Use the code LEGALAF for an additional 15 % off your order. That's Q-U-A-L-I-A life.com slash LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF. Thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. Let me show you a clip of Judge Salas talking to this very point. It's just getting worse, Michael. It's not getting any better. I mean, we've talked about toning down the rhetoric. I think the president himself, after the White House correspondence attack, talked about, let's tone it down.

7:24And his White House spokesperson talking about all this rhetoric against the president. Well, it has to go both ways. you know if we're gonna we have to tone it down everyone has to tone it down but instead of toning it down we have general counsel for the DHS posting pictures of judges and mischaracterizing their rulings and and in essence basically intimidating any future judge by saying you want to go on the worst of the worst list next week judge you want to do that or fall in line This is intimidation. This is anti-democratic. And this is the reason that I'm still talking about my beautiful boy who was murdered six years ago, because it's not stopping, Michael.

8:14It's getting worse.

8:16Michael Popok:Right. I mean, the White House Correspondents Dinner went on a second time and it got worse. He's continuing to attack with vitriol judges like Judge Williams. See, they don't want to acknowledge that they're on an epic losing streak because of the law, because of the facts, because of something, a stubborn little thing called the Constitution. They don't want to, the Department of Justice and the

8:46Michael Popok:different agencies and departments of the federal government, the executive branch, They don't want to admit that they're losing tens of thousands of cases in the district courts below. But they're not losing them because it's a Republican administration. They're losing them because they're wrong on the law and they're abusing power and the Constitution. And so rather than acknowledge that and stop it and cut it out and start respecting the guardrails around our democracy and the underpinnings of our democracy in the form of the federal courts, what do they do? They attack the judges. In fact, we talked about a guy named James Percival, who is the Department of Homeland Security head, general counsel, who frequently posts like a wanted, a wanted poster, you know, with crosshairs on the backs of federal judges.

9:37Michael Popok:You know, the worst of the worst. This is the, here's the hall of shame for federal judges by name. And then he distorts their interpretation. He distorts their ruling. He doesn't understand it himself. This is a guy who didn't really understand what a writ of habeas corpus or the doctrine of habeas corpus was during his confirmation hearing. I talked about it with Judge Bloom and with Judge Salas, and here's what they had to say about that. Why is it so important to you to appear in a video like this and talk directly to our audience on Legal AF? Because silence may be viewed by the public as acquiescence.

10:13We need to protect our judges and we are ethically permitted to speak out in a measured way in defense of our colleagues. And by the way, Michael, not all of these judges even knew about these posts. This is not legitimate criticism. This is what Chief Justice Roberts has said is one of the four areas that are attacks on the rule of law. This is disinformation designed to get the public to be fumed about these judges and its intimidation tactic, as Judge Salas said, not only for these judges, but other judges. You want to speak out about TPS or a position that may be inconsistent with the Department of Homeland Security?

10:59You want to be on this list? I mean, the worst of the worst were convicted, violent criminals. He is now placing judges, public servants that are working extremely hard, applying the rule of law to continue to intimidate and to inform the public in a very dangerous way. It's not responsible. It's dangerous. And we feel as judges, we have an obligation to speak out so that we can inform the public about what's happening.

11:35Michael Popok:I agree. Of course, Judge Bloom, you're right, because at the core of the criticism is a, as you said, disinformation campaign about let's just take DHS for a minute. Tens of thousands of cases they have lost related to the operation of ICE or other federal security officers. You've got a guy, James Percival, who in response to questioning could not really accurately describe what the writ of habeas corpus was. I've done a video about that. And they just lose. Not only do they lose, but they have been found in contempt of court. They have found to have violated hundreds of orders. OK, you have Judge Schiltz, the chief judge in Minnesota, who said this may be the most orders that have ever been violated by an agency in the history of an agency.

12:32Michael Popok:And we're talking about just in a one month period of time in Minnesota. So he's a he's attacking the judges in order to distract attention away from the fact that they have a almost a 100 percent losing record on most cases that are before them, especially when it comes to civil rights violations. But Michael, I know I speak for Beth and as active judges, we're not here to talk about any of the merits of what the DHS is doing in terms of their cases. So I want to be very clear and just say that our purpose as active judges sitting on the bench is not to necessarily talk about anything on the merits with respect to these cases that are coming before us.

13:16And I want to do my job. And Beth wants to do her job. And all the judges want to do their jobs. What we want to do, though, is do our jobs without being subjected to reprisal, retribution, or in my case, death of my son. Right. So what I want to bring us back to is the reason that Beth brought this to our Speak Up for Justice's attention. We all then said, wait a minute, we've got to speak out. There's nothing more than either one of us. And I know I'm speaking for Beth here. I want to do my job. And I'd like to mourn my son in private. But unfortunately, for the last few years since his murder, I feel like we're constantly having to defend the rule of law and and talk and protect our judges who are just doing their jobs.

14:09This is important.

14:11Michael Popok:You know, I know from speaking online and offline with Judge Ludwig without revealing any confidences, of course, that there are federal judges, especially in the first year of the administration who were scared, who were like, I don't need to do this. Do I need to do this? Do I need to rule against them on this and be subjected to all of the abuse and physical threats? I mean, you've seen violent threats against judges into the thousands triple since Donald Trump's been back in office the second time. Does anybody think that's a coincidence? This is a guy whose blueprint, when he was a criminal defendant and a fraud defendant, was to attack mercilessly judges like Judge Mershon, the criminal court judge in his 34 felony count conviction, Judge Angoran in his$500 million persistent fraud judgment, Judge Chutkin in his D.C.

15:05Michael Popok:election interference case. And what does things happens on the other end of that. Like, what's the end game? In fact, we talked it over with the with the current sitting judges about what is the end game? Here's a clip. So for me, I just I my my focus here is basically what I'm wondering, what is the end game to, you know, to the general counsel or or the Department of Homeland Security using these type of tactics. What is the end game? Why are they doing it if they know it is risky and it puts judges at harm? And by the way, it's eroding the public's confidence. And I think that's the end game.

15:48The end game really is to delegitimize the courts, to have the public in America not believe what they're reading in the decisions and to expose the judges who are reaching these results to threats and violence and precisely what happened to you judge salas i mean that that is the risk that's why speak up for justice is getting the judicial independence award because our goal is to protect the judges it needs to stop it needs to stop or we're going to have another

16:17Michael Popok:unfortunate you know judge salas with a murdered um family member or a judge being murdered themselves. And we're going to call it out here the way we see it on Midas Touch and on Legal AF. I'm Michael Popok. I'm traveling, but these are important issues that I can't let a little thing like a vacation stand in the way of covering. So take a moment, hit the free subscribe button on Legal AF YouTube channel. If you like this kind of content and analysis and interviews, we'll keep it coming to you. Just do us a favor and become a free subscriber. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popok.

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