Hundreds of Judges Swarm Trump DOJ

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2:21Michael Popok:Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim Well, I hope you like my little song Book direct at storieshiltales.com What's the number one group that may be responsible for protecting our rule of law and to empower federal judges to use their inherent authority to root out corruption, fraud, deceit, and contempt and contumacious conduct in their courtroom? former federal and state judges, hundreds of them, in unprecedented ways, never in 250 years, have almost 300 former judges come together and regularly submit applications, motions, and briefs to federal judges at the district court level and the appellate court level and the Supreme Court level to encourage them to use their inherent authority to stop the most corrupt Department of Justice in our history, to stop one of the most corrupt attorneys general in our history in Todd Blanche.

3:25And who is behind the scenes orchestrating and coordinating the work

3:31Michael Popok:and the efforts of these judges? Who just got together 174 judges to file a brief to convince and encourage the appellate panel, the full en banc panel of 11 judges in the District of Columbia Federal Court to support Chief Judge Boasberg and his criminal contempt proceedings against the Department of Justice and Donald Trump? Who's behind the 35 judges that filed their brief with Judge Williams in Miami to encourage her to use her inherent authority to root out fraud and corruption and fraud on the court perpetrated by Donald Trump and his lawyers and the Department of Justice? Who's responsible for the 101 judges who just filed a bar complaint with my bar regulator in New York against Todd Blanche, calling him unfit.

4:29Michael Popok:It is exactly J. Michael Ludig, former Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judge. He should be our chief justice today instead of John Roberts. It was that close. And now he's gotten off the sidelines of history. He's a constitutional scholar. He is a federalist for sure, but he is a constitutionalist. and now when you piece together all of these things that have happened in the last few days where courage begets courage what do you have you have the firewall to protect our democracy when i interviewed michael luddick in the last 24 hours he looked the camera in the eye i've never i've interviewed michael luddick judge luddick i don't know a dozen times i've never seen him this angry.

5:18Michael Popok:I've never seen him squint this much about the corruption of the Department of Justice, never in 250 years, the corruption of the Attorney General, the corruption of Todd Blanche. He point blank says Todd Blanche is unfit. And I cover it all, including a fascinating interview with Lee Galearn of the American Civil Liberties Union. And we do it on Midas Touch and Legal AF. I'm Michael Popak, take a minute, hit that free subscribe button. Let's get to my interview with Judge Ludig. So this is the last 24 hours, folks. I asked Judge Ludig if Todd Blanche is fit to be the attorney general. We're getting up to the eve of when he's going to be on a confirmation hearing.

6:04Michael Popok:And this is what Judge Ludig had to say. Is he unfit to be the attorney general of the United States, Judge?

6:10J. Michael Luttig:No, of course he is. It's not even a question. I mean, it's an embarrassment to America that the President of the United States would nominate this man, the Attorney General of the United States, just like it was an embarrassment that he nominated Pam Bondi before him. Right.

6:33Michael Popok:Not fit for office. He also talked about the reason he's yoked together all of these federal and state judges, along with Nancy Gertner, another federal judge, that they alone can rise above the din of partisanship and be heard to give support and a backbone and comfort to federal judges under attack to have them do the right thing. Here's what Judge Lodick had to say about that.

7:01J. Michael Luttig:This is pure and simple corruption, okay? Corruption, textbook corruption. Now, the second point I want to make is this, you know, for history, if you want to put it that way. every American from the criminal in the street to the president of the United States for 250 years, Michael, has accepted and understood that when you walk into a court of law in the United States of America, you tell the truth, you tell the whole truth, you tell nothing. but the truth. You tell the truth about the facts of the case. You tell the truth about the law of the case under grave penalty. For the first time in 250 years, Michael, this administration led by President Donald Trump and his multiple attorneys general at this point have gone into federal courts across the land with very few exceptions lying to the federal courts and the individual federal judges to their faces about the facts and the law.

8:42J. Michael Luttig:God help us if this ever happens again in the United States of America, but I do not believe this will ever happen again, no longer, no matter how long this nation endures.

8:58Michael Popok:And if you think this is not important and it's not piercing through and getting through to pellet panels and federal panels and district court judges, it is. And how do I know that? because I just interviewed Lee Galert from the American Civil Liberties Union and I asked him about, point blank, does 174 judges joining your case with a friend of the court brief encouraging that the appellate court reverse a lower court opinion to give Judge Bozberg back his power to start criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration? Does that group of judges matter? So here's what Lee had to say about it.

9:45The fact that all these former judges and in a nonpartisan, bipartisan way have come out is so critical because it's taking a lot of courage for the sitting judges, given how the administration is acting. And just, you know, a couple of things. One is Chief Judge Bozberg was sort of the first to come out and say, look, this is unacceptable, violating court orders. And it took a lot of courage. And as you know, the administration really went after him, from the president calling for his impeachment to online attacks. And so he has been very courageous and he has not let them deter him and he has stuck with it.

10:24And what I think you see is courage, but getting more courage because other judges now, Republican or democratically appointed, have come out and said the same thing and that their orders are being violated. So I think the fact that hopefully we prevail in this en banc and the D.C. Circuit has Judge Bozberg's back will be important not only in our case, but will send an important signal throughout the country that the appellate courts are going to have the district courts back. And just one other thing about the Amici. I mean, he you know, he's done an incredible job rallying all these judges.

11:01But I also want to put in a plug for his co-author, former Judge Nancy Gertner from the District Court of Massachusetts, who has been as integrally involved in this as well. And the two of them have been out there rallying all these other judges. And that to have their support has been absolutely essential for them to conquer. Because as he said, that is so rare for former judges to be coming out like this.

11:28Michael Popok:Exactly. In fact, I asked Judge Ludig about that legal alert clip, sort of a call in response. And here's what Judge Ludig had to say in response. So that was Lee, I think, speaking directly to you. What do you think, Judge?

11:46J. Michael Luttig:Well, I appreciate every word that Mr. Glant just said. And especially I appreciate what he said about what he said he believed our impact was on the sitting judges.

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13:02Michael Popok:I like that it's a simple doctor-formulated option to support your metabolism. So learn from Allie and make the switch to Veracity. Head to veracityhealth.co and use code LEGALAF for up to 65 % off your order. Once again, that's V-E-R-A-C-I-T-Y health.co for up to 65 % off. And make sure you use my promo code LEGALAF so they know I sent you. Now, the reason I wanted to platform all of this in one video is because I wanted you to understand what goes on behind the scenes, how former federal and state judges are identifying which picking their moments. And effectively, it's relatively easily. If it stinks to high heaven to the average person, it stinks to the federal judges and they rush to the rescue.

13:58Michael Popok:Here's Judge Ludig on that very point.

14:00J. Michael Luttig:The man in the street in America right now is going, what the hell is going on at the Department of Justice. That's what the judges see every week. And they just, again, as I said in your program the last time, all that I do and Nancy does and we operate together is we offer an opportunity for the judges to participate if they want. any time that we see an issue that we think they might be interested in. We present the opportunity to all the 300 judges or more, and then individual judge by individual judge decides whether he or she wants to participate. And if they do, then we have the brief written up, we approve it, circulate it to them, and they join it or not join it.

15:06J. Michael Luttig:And it's an unbelievable process, as I said, never before in history.

15:13Michael Popok:This is the type of information that we need now. As Judge Liddick said to me in the interview, there is no more important moment in time than have this issue front and center with your audience, Michael. This is what your audience needs to be focused on. Here's Judge Liddick.

15:33J. Michael Luttig:But I do want to make this point on Midas Touch today, legal AF. There is nothing more important going on in America today than these litigations in the federal courts supported by this group of over 300 retired state and federal judges. If the country is to be saved through this administration's war on the federal courts and the Constitution, it will be because of the federal judges and the retired federal judges who have supported their sitting colleagues.

16:21Michael Popok:And we're going to do it. This group is yoked together. We are animated. We are vibrating on the same frequency. We are energetic. We are the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers. I'm glad you're here. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button over on Legal AF YouTube channel. And link below, you can get the clip for my full interview of Legal Alert and Judge Michael Ludick. Until my next report here, I'm Midas Touch. I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack.

17:02Michael Popok:You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Wear Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.