Judge Calls Trump's Bluff on Ballroom in Scathing Ruling

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1:00Michael Popok:All right. A federal judge just told Donald Trump in a breaking order, if you want your top secret military installation and your top secret hospital under the ballroom next to the White House, I'll give it to you, but you're not getting your ballroom. A second order has now been issued by Judge Leon at the direction of the federal appellate court in District of Columbia. allowing Donald Trump to build below ground whatever top secret, not so top secret anymore, installation that he wants, but it's not going to allow him to argue. You know what I need to put on top of that giant hole? A 90 ,000 square foot ballroom.

1:37Michael Popok:No, says Judge Leon. You can secure the site. You can build your top secret military installation in hospitals, whatever you want to build. But I don't want to hear that the only thing that will be useful to cover it from a security standpoint is a 90 ,000 square foot ballroom with 40 foot ceilings and golden chandeliers. How about not? What's Donald Trump going to do next? He's already lost once, two to one at the appellate court with Judge Millett and Judge Garcia just waiting for Donald Trump to appeal again. He's only got one vote there to let him build his ballroom without objection. That's Judge Naomi Rao.

2:14Michael Popok:I guess his only hope may be at the United States Supreme Court on, you guessed it, an emergency or shadow docket? Maybe. I cover it all right here on Midas Touch and Legal AF. I start with how we got here. So Judge Leon has been the judge presiding over the ballroom for about 10 or 11 months. He held hearings back then in which he said, I don't think, I haven't ruled on a preliminary injunction yet, but I don't think your ballroom is constitutional or legal or properly or something proper for a president to do. And I see you're doing construction work below ground. So in order to allow the construction work to continue to blow below ground for the last eight or nine months, Trump's lawyers took the position that that's just below ground work, you know, top secret military security clearance stuff, but it's not gonna impact what we do above ground.

3:07Michael Popok:And the judge says, okay, you can do below ground, but I don't wanna see you swinging a crane to start building a ballroom while I'm deciding whether the ballroom is legal or not. And so you move forward. And about two weeks ago, the judge finally declared on a preliminary injunction that the ballroom was unconstitutional and illegal because Donald Trump or no president has power to build a ballroom without congressional approval. Forget about funding, just congressional oversight. Congress owns the park and is the landlord for the park that the White House is in. Congress has, pursuant to the property clause of the Constitution, has the power over all federal property, including the White House.

3:51Michael Popok:Yes, on some small, rare occasions, the president can do some small remediation work without congressional approval, but he can't knock down a third of the White House and rebuild it in his image without congressional approval. That's what Judge Leon ruled. he put up a red tag to stop the project and gave 14 days for Donald Trump to go appeal. So in other words, he stayed his order to give time for Trump to go to the appellate court. Next up, the appellate court. Trump files last week or just before, yeah, earlier in the week, a week ago, he files a motion to stay, arguing that the National Trust, which brought the case, doesn't have any standing, can't bring the lawsuit.

4:37Michael Popok:Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong. The injunction's wrong. And while the appeal is going on, I should be able to build my ballroom, which is going to take about three years. And one of the new arguments that they raised was that we need the ballroom because we need a topper on top of the hole. In other words, we need a shed, which is what Trump said, on top of the giant hole that we just made. Now, everybody who's done construction litigation understands that an open excavation pit where you're doing below ground work probably needs a slab and some sort of topping structure, certainly a slab.

5:13Michael Popok:But the slab and the topping structure is not the 90 ,000 square foot ballroom that you've already been blocked from building. See, that's Donald Trump's argument. It's all It's all cohesive. It all goes together, fits together. The ballroom, below ground, we got to do them together. You can't block one without the other, which was a changed position from what they argued in front of Judge Leon. You know, that's called, we have a term for that. That's called inconsistent positions. And you're not allowed to do that. You're stopped from doing that in courtrooms. By the way, you know you're on Midas Touch, right?

5:47Michael Popok:Hit the free subscribe button. I'm Michael Popak. Come over to Legal AF YouTube and do the exact same thing. OK, so he red tags. Judge Leon red tags the ballroom. 14 days. Go to the appellate court. Appellate court, three judge panel. Judge Millett, Obama appointee. Judge Garcia, Biden appointee. Judge Naomi Rao, Trump appointee. Comes out two to one. That's all you need is two votes. Two to one, effectively not stopping the injunction that the block that Judge Leon did. but sending it back to him, remanding it to him for further fact finding about a pending motion for clarification. That's where the National Trust said Trump thinks he can still build the ballroom for security purposes and he shouldn't be able to.

6:33Michael Popok:The National Trust took a very reasonable position. Below groundwork, we are fine with. Build your secret hospital. Build your secret military installation. Just don't tell us that you got to build a 90 ,000 square foot ballroom in order to top it. Very reasonable. The appellate court, which is not in the fact-finding business, appellate courts take a cold, factual record from below. If they need more facts, the trial court judge does it for them. So they remanded it back to the judge with instructions before the 17th, so right on time, go handle fact-finding. So he had briefs, he had a hearing, and he issued his amended order.

7:15Michael Popok:And we have it. and the amended order is exactly what we thought it was going to be. Continue to do you below ground. Just don't tell me that it locks in the above ground construction and don't do anything that promotes the vertical construction, the above ground construction of the ballroom, period. Here's the order and you can get a copy of it. In fact, in the legal AF sub stack, We always put these things up under filings AF. All right. So here is the order, amended order, granting the motion for clarification on the 16th, a day earlier than even the appellate court had given him, order that the National Park Service and that everybody that works for Donald Trump is enjoined from taking any action in furtherance of the above ground physical construction of the proposed bill.

8:10Michael Popok:room at the former site of the East Wing. Now, for clarity's sake, because Donald Trump always scratches his head, I don't know what that means. In fact, here's a, when he got blocked the first time, here's Donald Trump saying, I don't know what that means, which led to the motion for clarification and this new order. Play the clip. And also a judge just ordered him to stop construction of the ballroom. Are you planning to stop? Well, we'll appeal to that, but it's not, I don't know. It's basically, I wrote a part of his opinion, but basically he's saying I need congressional approval. And he's so wrong.

8:47This is being financed privately. It's a donation that's being given by companies, very rich companies, very rich people, so that for 150 years they've wanted a ballroom here. We're going to have the finest ballroom, I believe, anywhere in the world. and he said we need congressional approval well they don't get congressional approval from the white house when they do things they don't especially when you don't we didn't ask for any tax money we have no taxes is taxpayer free we have no taxpayer putting up 10 cents and i see right here i just wrote it out he said we need congressional approval well we built many things at the white house over the years they don't get congressional approval when they build than the White House.

9:30It's totally separate. And especially when it's a donation. I mean, the ballroom is a donation. Hey, everybody. Ben Mycelis 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 AFers 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 Popak firm where he is now handling catastrophic injury cases like car accident cases, trucking cases, malpractice cases, big negligence cases, wrongful death cases.

10:19So if you or someone you know have a case like this, the consultation with Popak's firm is free. Give him a call. See if you have a case. It's thepopocfirm.com, thepopocfirm.com, or you can call 877-POPOCAF, P-O-P-O-K-A-F. So 1-877-P-O-P-O-K-A-F. Give Michael Popoc a call and I'm really proud of you, Popoc. Thanks for all the hard work you're putting in.

10:49Michael Popok:Ordered that this order does not prohibit below ground construction, including below ground construction of national security facilities, as well as above ground construction, short of constructing the ballroom. And you can do anything you want below ground, but don't tell me that it locks in the above ground size and scale of the ballroom. You can do measures that are for personal safety of the president and his staff. Notice how even he leaves out the family, because nobody believes that Melania Trump still lives in the White House. He doesn't even bother mentioning the family of Donald Trump.

11:27Michael Popok:The proposed above-ground ballroom and provided that any such construction will not lock in the above-ground size and scale of the ballroom. Again, to remind the president, the order does not prohibit construction strictly necessary to ensure the safety, security, and structural integrity of the White House, to secure the site, In other words, you can do all that. Ordered that subject to the safety and security exceptions above, no such work shall proceed absent express authorization from Congress. And there we have it. The order that the defendant's motion to extend the administrative stay is denied.

12:06Michael Popok:This order will take place seven days after its issuance. So seven days from the 16th, we're looking at the 23rd order. So they got till the 23rd, seven days to go run back to the appellate panel. The defendant shall file a status report in 21 days. So what's going to happen next? Trump's going to run back to the appellate court, but he doesn't have three votes. He's got two that believe that Leon ultimately, Judge Leon, was right about the injunction to stop the building. So Donald Trump is going to have to go take an emergency shadow docket appeal. It'll come up through Chief Justice Roberts to the United States Supreme Court.

12:42Michael Popok:They're all coming out of the woodwork during these speeches that they're giving. And they're saying shadow docket is bad. It's not an interim docket. It's cutting the legs out from under appellate courts and from district court judges to do their jobs. We agree with that. So he's going to have to try to see if he's got four votes and ultimately five votes at the United States Supreme Court to let him in the middle of the night without congressional approval in violation of several statutes and the Constitution, demolish a portion of the White House or all of the White House for that matter, because where does it stop?

13:14Michael Popok:Why don't we just tear it all down and put up a Trump-like condominium tower, like the thing he's building in Miami for his library? How about a 50-story tower with White House, Trump White House, in gold neon letters at the top, right? What's to stop him from doing that? That would be the question that would come up during an oral argument in front of the United States Supreme Court. He has to get four people to believe in the middle of the night he could demolish the White House without congressional approval and put up whatever he wants on top of it. Good luck. I'm not even sure even in this right-wing Supreme Court there is that will to do that for him.

13:54Michael Popok:But we will know, and this is a fast-moving story. You're going to want to follow it here on Midas Touch, on Legal AF, on the YouTube channel, and on Legal AF Substack. Until my next report, 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. 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.

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