Legal AF - 2/14/2026

24:18Michael Popok:Let me read to you from this order. Whenever I see the Bible being cited, it gets me excited. So here's what Judge Stearns wrote in his order. Wisdom, this is first page, first paragraph. Wisdom counsels that redemption may be found by acknowledging and fixing our own errors. Proverbs 28, 13. In this unfortunate case, the government commendably admits that it did wrong. Now it is time for the government to make amends. And he then goes through the case for Amy. and the emergency judges order that she not be sent to outside the country. In other words, the reason, and just a little bit of a tutorial here, the reason the Trump administration moves and removes people, moves and removes, moves them from their jurisdiction where they're picked up, where they live, to another United States jurisdiction, and then removes them out of the country, sometimes in the same day or same 24, 48 hour period, is to get them away from federal judge jurisdiction.

25:26Michael Popok:The federal judges of choice for the Trump administration reside in Texas. So if you're picked up in Massachusetts or Chicago or Portland, Oregon, or Minneapolis, all of a sudden, even though you have no connection to Texas, suddenly you're chained, put on a transport and sent to Texas. But what really is happening is you're being sent away from a federal judge, maybe a Biden or Obama or Clinton or Bush appointees jurisdiction. So now the first move of the shell game, Texas. So now the jurisdiction lies in Texas for any writ of habeas corpus petition, which is more likely it's a conservative judge, maybe a Trump judge.

26:12Michael Popok:So now they're in Texas. Now we get to removal. Why are they being removed out of the country so quickly? To get them away from federal court oversight. And judges are wise to this. So what they're saying is they're also wise to something else, a development at the United States Supreme Court from last spring involving Kilmer Abrego Garcia, in which they backed a federal judge who came up with the concept of facilitation. I call it the facilitation doctrine. It's really Judge Zinnis. And now every federal judge is using it, which is I'm going to order that the federal government facilitate the return to the United States of the illegally removed person.

26:52Michael Popok:I have that power. You know, their argument had been, the Trump administration, no, Judge, you lost your jurisdiction as soon as we put those people on the plane. And the response is no. If I had an order in place, like Judge Stearns, Judge Bozberg, Judge Zinnis, then I have the inherent authority to order you to facilitate the return. And the Supreme Court, which never agrees on anything, they can't, as I joke, they can't agree on their lunch order. Who got the tuna salad? Okay, 9-0 said that that facilitation concept was right for due process. So now all the judges are using it, facilitate, and Judge Stearns uses it.

27:34Michael Popok:Let me go over it. So after he goes through all of it, he says that the respondents have readily acknowledged they violated the order on page 5. So that's an admission. He says, I gave in this, he says, the judge says in the spirit, the court suggested, would a black robe judge suggest something? You better follow it. Suggested that the Secretary of State, with his considerable powers, provide Aine with an expedited student visa. The Secretary of State regrettably declined the invitation. And now the court said, we're now up to civil contempt. He then cites to John Adams in his capacity as not only a founder, but in helping to write the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, which was the model for our Bill of Rights, does that as well, and says that this argument that the Trump administration brings up, which is, Judge, what does it matter?

28:36Michael Popok:Even if we brought her back and you ordered us to facilitate what she has, we're just going to put her in immigration detention. And down the road, she's probably going to be removed anywhere. And the judge wagged his finger and said, not so fast. That's not for the executive branch to be judge, jury, and executioner on immigration policy. It's up to the judiciary. So don't presuppose what's going to happen in the future after a court of appeals determines the extent of her due process rights. You don't get to crush her due process rights and say, well, she'll probably just be removed in the future anyway, judge.

29:12Michael Popok:That's not for you to do. So using the facilitation doctrine on page seven of the order, it says the respondents, which is the government, are ordered and directed to facilitate Amy's return 14 days from the date of this order. and then transmit it to everybody, file status reports about it and what you're doing to facilitate, which is a page out of Judge Zinnis' book and Judge Boesberg's book about facilitation requirement. Now, Kilmer Obrego Garcia, it took a United States Supreme Court decision, and even then the Department of Justice manufactured a fake criminal case against Kilmer, which is likely to be dismissed in Tennessee before they brought him back to keep him in detention.

30:03Michael Popok:137 disappeared Venezuelans. The Trump administration, even though they just got ordered by Judge Bozberg to facilitate their return for due process purposes, you can see the Trump administration is going to keep fighting that. I'm not sure. I'm not as confident as you are, Dina, that they're going to bring back Ms. Boyoza. They don't like to admit mistake or defeat, even though this would be easy. While Donald Trump's busy giving pardons to, you know, former NFL players for their corruption, which he did the last couple of days. Why don't you take pity and call it mercy? Call it, you know, you know, I mean, all these people that are being pardoned for fraud and billions of dollars wiped off the books.

30:47Michael Popok:Give this poor girl, okay, an amnesty and give her a student visa and let her come back to Babson College and let her be an American in the future and give her a path to citizenship. How about that? But I'm not sure he's going to do it, given these other cases.

31:06Dina Doll:Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm just hoping because right now I don't know if the Trump regime is as focused on this, to be quite honest. I mean, you and I are focused on it because this is part of our, you know, making sure we see every illegal move they're making. But they are a little bit more focused on Epstein. And I think they took such a hard line with the Kilmar Abrego Garcia because it was in so much the news and they needed to see that they weren't backing down. And I can sometimes be an optimist and maybe to a fault. But the fact that the facilitation doctrine even become part of our new legal theories, you know, Judge Zinnis will be in the history books as really being willing to stand up, the first one to really stand up.

31:51Dina Doll:And it really isn't about, I mean, I agree with you, the mercy of her of like, gosh, isn't this exactly the kind of person we want in this country who wants to get an education and contribute to our society? But also just frankly, her due process rights were violated. And if it's that easy, if they think they can show it, no skin off their back, go ahead and show it when she returns. Yeah, I know we're going to be talking about Pam Bondi in a little bit, but it just feeds into their whole mentality with Trump's personal mentality of never being able to accept a loss. But the actual lawyer in front of the court will be the one held in contempt.

32:32Dina Doll:So perhaps that particular lawyer might not want to go quite as far as Trump would.

32:40Michael Popok:And here, you know, just to your point, she's not a member of Trenton Aragua. She's not a narco terrorist. She's not right there. She's not a drug gang. She's a female. She's a lovely young girl, woman who's in college. OK, you do what you know. So that is the perfect poster child to, you know, where he could be the bigger person, although I don't think that's even possible with Donald Trump. But we will see and we'll continue to follow that. When we come back, we'll talk about what I think is a turning point in the public's perception of the Department of Justice and Pam Bondi and her performance at the Oversight Committee hearing, the Judiciary Committee hearing.

33:22Michael Popok:And then there's some new breaking news about the Epstein files, which I want to, with Dean, to bring everybody up to speed on. And then we'll also talk about Don Lemon and this bombshell of a new motion that he just filed in the last 24 hours in that particular case. But we're going to take a quick sponsor break. For people that know our show, the reason we talk about our sponsors and talk about the ways to support Legal AF is because, let me be frank, without our subscriber base, without our audience, without their fervent support of the things that we do, Legal AF, Midas Touch, Legal AF YouTube channel, we'd be off the air.

34:00Michael Popok:You would go to where you thought your favorite show was, and it just wouldn't be there any longer because we just can't keep it on the air. We can't keep our producers and our editors, and we can't keep 12 videos a day going up on Legal AF. And, you know, Dean and I are involved with, you know, a handful of podcasts, you know, new ones like Unprecedented that she and I are now doing, which you can find over on anywhere you get your audio podcasts about the United States Supreme Court. I've got one called The Intersection on Tuesday nights. I've got the Legal AF podcast, you know, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

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35:17Michael Popok:Dean Adal writes with us. I do two lives a day. And I'm running a 35 % off sale on annual membership comes down to about 650 a month on Legal AF Substack. And then of course, we've got our pro I love watching my various haircuts, or the need for haircuts over time. And the graying of Michael Popox, not even the graying of America. This is the Dina Dahl doctrine. For all of us under the Trump administration. And I'm so glad to have Dina Dahl here as well. So let's take a break from our pro-democracy sponsors. And here they are. Scaling a business that takes the right expertise at the right time.

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38:10Michael Popok:We've worked out a special offer from my audience. Receive 30 % off your first subscription order. Go to armrud.com slash legal AF or enter legal AF to get 30 % off your first subscription order. That's A-R-M-R-A dot com slash Legal AF. Welcome back to Legal AF with Michael Popok and sitting in or I don't like sitting in. That's our guest anchor, Dina Dahl. Ben is doing some fun things with his family. And I, as he would for me, stepped in and said, of course, we'll. And I'm sure Dina would love to come on and brief our audience about all things legal AF. So Don Lemon, and this is about Don Lemon, Georgia Foote, but this is about independent journalism, which is Donald Trump's, one of his main goals as any dictator fascist is to crush First Amendment freedom of press and freedom of expression.

39:11Michael Popok:He said it a year ago. It's in Project 2025. He's used his Federal Communications Commission to go after reporting and bend the knee of companies like ABC, CBS, 60 Minutes, and the like. He's working behind the scenes right now to try to get CNN into the hands of a crony friend of his, a billionaire, trillionaire, a family led by Larry Ellison of Oracle, trying to put his big fat thumb on the scale. But the one thing he can't control is like what you and I do on YouTube. And what you, even though it's owned by Google, I mean, you think he could, but he hasn't yet. And if that happens, it'll be you, me, Ben, the brothers riding around in a van with a shortwave radio.

40:02It'll be pirate radio in your neighborhood like a Waymo broadcasting.

40:13Michael Popok:That's what's going to end up happening. But he can't get us. So he goes after Act Blue, try to take away their First Amendment expression through money. goes after corporate media. I'll hold up your deal. You like that license? You better this, that, and the other thing. They're going after the view of all things. Whoopi Goldberg is now going to be, and Joy Behar is now going to be, because, oh, they're putting on people. Well, they're not doing equal time under the equal time rules. And so they go after Don Lemon, and they don't just go after Don Lemon. Don Lemon was, whether you want to call him embedded with a group of protesters, or of course they knew that they were going to be doing protests.

40:55Michael Popok:Don got the lead on it and he went to the church in St. Paul in the middle of January where they were demonstrating not to interfere with the house of worship, as the indictment puts it, or people's First Amendment expression, but to protest inside the church about one of its leaders being involved with ICE and its, frankly, unchristian policies and approaches. I mean, you know, there's a lot to be said for what was going around during Christmas, which is, and I've been to Bethlehem to see the manger, okay? I mean, the location where they think it was. You know, that, you know, Mary and Joseph would have been deported, removed, removed, and deported with little baby Jesus.

41:48Michael Popok:So they picked that place to protest. Don Lemon, Georgia Foot, another journalist, go there. Every judge that looked at it, from the chief judge of Minnesota to a magistrate judge, said Don Lemon, his producer, Georgia Foot, journalists, First Amendment right. You want to put the other people in jail for violating various constitutional and civil rights laws because they're interfering with somebody's right to worship based on a law that was to protect people from being bombarded with abuse on the way into abortion clinics, by the way. But not the press. So Judge Schultz said it. Judge Schultz said it to the appellate court, basically exonerating Don Lemon.

42:38Michael Popok:But they finally, knowing that federal judges wouldn't issue arrest warrants and wouldn't approve of criminal complaints, they went into a grand jury and they got a grand jury indictment. But this Trump administration, this Department of Justice is so lawless that they are known for mischaracterizing the facts. That's called lying about facts about a case. We've seen it before. That's a domestic terrorist. That's an assassin. No, that's Renee Good, who you murdered in cold blood. And that's Alex Preti. So we know they misstate the facts, especially in this particular case that we're talking about.

43:17Michael Popok:And they misstate the law all the time. And so Don Lemon brought a motion to unseal the grand jury transcript in order to be under the argument that you can no longer give this Department of Justice the presumption of regularity, which is a doctrine that says before this administration, before this corrupt Department of Justice, we are going to presume, unless you can show us proof otherwise, that what transpired with an indictment or the actions of a prosecutor are in the regular course. But you can't give them that any longer. You can't give them the presumption of regularity. You can't rubber stamp it anymore.

44:02Michael Popok:Before I turn to you, Dina, about the new filing, let me play two examples or show one and then an audio of where the Trump administration has completely misstated the law as it relates to Don Lemon. Harmeet Dillon, the head of the Civil Rights Division, doesn't know her constitution. And the fact that they misstated the law in public in an interview, Lord knows what they did before the grand jury. Look, we know from Lindsey Halligan's debacle going against James Comey and Letitia James that she went in and violated, according to a magistrate judge, the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment rights of Comey and Letitia James.

44:54Michael Popok:Lord knows what they did to get an indictment against Don Lemon. And that's the point of the motion. But let me show you Harmeet Dillon being interviewed on Fox and her misstatement of First Amendment law, which likely infected what happened in the grand jury room. Let's play it. From Sunday when I first saw the video that Don Lemon himself put out about his conduct that day,

45:20Dina Doll:it was clear to me that we had the predicates for pursuing face act and conspiracy. We did our homework, sent prosecutors there to the ground, took affidavits, took evidence.

45:31Michael Popok:They buttressed the case that we could witness from Lemon's own testimony and statements and admissions against interest in his own videos.

45:40Dina Doll:And we have aggressively and very rapidly sought legal process. Now, I will say it's been a little frustrating because for 48 hours, between the time that we sought these arrest warrants and the time that we were able to make arrests and say what the judge did in refusing to sign off on lemons, you know, it had to stay silent. We have certain protocols here at the Department of Justice. But he is not out of legal jeopardy and he has lawyered up.

46:09Michael Popok:He has a prominent lawyer and, uh, you know, we're going to pursue this to the ends of the earth. Good. Yeah. Uh, so let's, let's break that down for a minute. He, I love, I love when the department of justice and Harmeet Dillon, who I'll just say it out loud is a political hack of the first order. She failed up. She wanted to be the attorney general. She didn't get it. She wanted to be the chairperson of the Republican National Committee. She got the consolation prize. She didn't get it. So they gave her the Civil Rights Division to effectively put out a business. So she goes on and he lawyered up.

46:46Michael Popok:You mean he got a lawyer to defend himself against a criminal charge? Yeah, he lawyered. I guess we all need to lawyer up, don't we? But the statement that his badge as a journalist is insufficient to overcome the criminal law that she talked about, it's the exact opposite into the criminal law. Congress, when they passed that law, made it clear that if you're properly exercising First Amendment rights, media, journalists, you're not going to be criminally prosecuted. And yet you have harming. So Abby Lowell, who represents a number of targets by the Trump administration, including Letitia James, including Lisa Cook on the Board of Governors, He said, there is an example.

47:32Michael Popok:Lord knows what they said in the grand jury room, which is why we need a copy of the transcript, because look what they're saying in public. And then he said in the briefing that, and they're also mischaracterizing or lying about the facts. And they used for that example, one of Don's co-defendants is an activist, and they posted a photo. I don't know if we have it. If not, I'll get it. They posted a photo of his co-conspirator, and they used AI to darken her skin and make it look like she was crying. There it is. Yeah, Nakima Levy Armstrong was in the picture on your left. That's what she looked like when she was being arrested, not on the right.

48:18Michael Popok:So if they're willing to lie, Dina, about this basic facts in public, Lord knows what happened behind the closed doors of a secret grand jury hearing room, right?

48:31Dina Doll:Absolutely. He should win this motion for sure. I mean, him deciding alone to what Lindsey Halligan did to Comey and the misstatement of the law in itself would be a reason to reveal this. And also because of all the statements he cites from Bondi to Trump to Emmett Dillon talking about how he was really guilty before they were finished pursuing it. The magistrate judge gave the DOJ an opportunity to revise their affidavit if they had more evidence. They didn't do that. Instead, they went to, as you said, the circuit judge. He wasn't willing to do it either. And so they what on earth did they say to the grand jury?

49:11Dina Doll:I mean, Dylan was involved with California GOP politics. She, as you said, is a political hack. And Don Lemon, as an independent journalist, there is nothing more risky to an authoritarian regime than an independent reporter with a microphone. Because we see not only the consolidation of media power, but a lot of those media owners run in the same circles. And we've seen them be willing to bow to Trump. It's not that hard to call the boss, right, and say, hey, tone down your reporter. Nobody can do that to Don Lemon in Georgia for, and that's why they're so threatening and so powerful and why there's an attack on them.

49:48Dina Doll:Now, this FACE Act requires there to be an intentional disruption of the First Amendment right to worship, which is what they are using for the protesters, and the protesters will have their day in court to play all of that out. The reason why it is so astonishing and why we realize that this is really so authoritarianism, that they're going after Don Lemon and Georgia Forts, is because they were reporting on what the protesters and the parishioners and pastor were doing. I mean, I went to journalism school, right? I mean, I can think of no other way to actually protect somebody's First Amendment right to worship than to interview the pastor and the parishioner who made it super clear that they didn't like those protesters there.

50:33Dina Doll:Don Lemon, in fact, amplified the voice of the churchgoers. Let's say they weren't there, weren't live streaming it. There was no recording of it. You would have a hearsay account of what exactly did the protesters even go inside the church. The parishioners said yes, the protesters said no. The irony is that by Don Lemon being there, he amplified the concern in some ways of the church parishioners. Yes, he amplified the voice of the protesters of why they were going there, because as you said, this really unchristian detainment that's happening. but he also amplified the voice of the prisoners.

51:14Dina Doll:And that is why it was so hard, if not impossible for the DOJ to get an indictment against him and why it is essential to see what exactly they said to the grand jury in order to get it.

51:29Michael Popok:Absolutely. Let me read to you from the filing. And then I want to show you both Don Lemon, our audience, and Georgia Foote, because I don't want them, these human beings who are doing this hard work of being journalists, holding a government accountable as part of the fourth estate. I don't want that to be lost either. Here's what Don Lemon's lawyers wrote in their introduction, which I thought was very, very powerful. And you and I are both lawyers and we can admire great legal writing. I often do. Sometimes when I see amazing legal writing, I like just, I put it into a drawer that I keep for like the future.

52:08Michael Popok:Here's what they said at the introduction. Grand jury proceedings are presumed regular and with some exceptions ordinarily protected from outside scrutiny. But the government has squandered that presumption here. Its conduct has been highly unusual, nakedly political, and inconsistent with practice in this district. Multiple judges considered the government's evidence, in quotes, against Don Levin and Georgia Fort and declined charges. Undeterred, the government took the prosecution. President Trump demanded to a grand jury. In the United States of America, we do not prosecute, the brief continues, journalists for doing their job.

52:50Michael Popok:That happens in Russia, China, Iran, and other authoritarian regimes. And yet the government sold this unconstitutional mess to the grand jury. And therefore, the grand jury proceedings must be disclosed to us to ensure that the government did not mislead or misinstruct it. Particularly, they say about the grand jury on page 10, the grand jury, we're going to talk more about the grand jury next, about what it did as a firewall to protect our rule of law about the attempt to indict six members of Congress last week, or earlier this week, sorry. Here's what they said about the grand jury. The grand jury is a check against unfounded prosecution, a bulwark between the accuser and the accused, citing to the founding fathers related to that.

53:38Michael Popok:They then went through an entire series of dozens of cases just in 2025 and a little bit of 2026 in which federal judges have had to say probably for the first time in their lives that this is a lawless, rogue administration and Department of Justice who no longer can be given the presumption of regularity, who are going after their political enemies without regard to the rule of law, case after case after case after case. citing back to the two cases we talked about, the case of Letitia James and James Comey, in which judges like Judge Fitzgerald, Judge Novak, Judge Curry, all looked at it and said, I mean, Judge Fitzgerald, who is the magistrate judge for James Comey, said, I see three constitutional violations alone in the presentation to the grand jury.

54:32Michael Popok:Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment, which never would have been, just to educate here for a minute, never would have come to light because grand jury proceedings are, there's no judge sitting in the room. They're down the hall, you know, but a prosecutor presents the case. The grand jury sits in judgment and they decide whether there's probable cause to indict, probable cause to indict somebody for a crime. that crime that has to be proved in the court of law beyond a reasonable doubt. So probable cause to indict, but beyond a reasonable doubt to convict. That's why people are presumed innocent until, which is another bulwark against rogue prosecutions.

55:14Michael Popok:And then it's all supposed to be done consistent with the Department of Justice manual and the principles of federal prosecution, which have effectively been put in a wood chipper by this Trump administration, and everybody knows it. So I would be shocked if the judge in this case does not grant this motion and take a look, at least in camera, meaning the judge look at it alone first, what happened during the grand jury proceedings. Don Lemon has come out post indictment. You saw a little bit of a clip there that what now passes for journalism on Fox is snickering, sneering, and giggling like eighth graders watching a school play or a musical and giggling through the performance.

56:06Michael Popok:That is what now passes for it on Fox News. All you hear is Don Lemon coming out swinging and the Fox News anchor or host, whatever she's supposed to be laughing under her brow. I mean, that is now reporting for Fox News. Let's play Don Lemon, though, in his response. First off, I'd like to thank everyone again for their support. To my colleagues, countless journalists around the world, the Lemon Nation, my family and my friends, you all have showed up for me in a real way, and I am extremely grateful for that. I feel it, I feel it, I feel it. For more than 30 years, I've been a journalist, and the power and protection of the First Amendment has been the underpinning of my work.

56:48Michael Popok:The First Amendment, the freedom of the press, the bedrock of our democracy. The events before my arrest and what's happened since so that people are finally realizing what this administration is all about. The process is the punishment with them. And like all of you here in Minnesota, the great people of Minnesota, I will not be intimidated. I will not back down. I will fight these baseless charges and I will not be silenced. thank you very much and i want our public to know and we're listen to be frank i'm i'm friendly with don lemon i sat next to him at ben my salas's wedding i i've you know i've supported him you've

57:26Dina Doll:been on his show yeah i i was celebrating new year's with him i was on his live no he did he had a lot of remote people so we did like a watch party yeah so yeah but i would

57:39Michael Popok:defend even if i didn't know the guy i would be defending him as hard and i don't know georgia foot, but I want people to know more about Georgia foot. Let's play the Georgia foot clip.

57:48Dina Doll:Today shows me that we are moving together. And so to all the media who made a statement on behalf of me, thank you so much. As I reflect as a journalist who has worked in media for more than 17 years, I leave this federal courthouse today with one question. Do we have a constitution?

58:12Dina Doll:I should be protected under the First Amendment, just like all of the journalists who I've been advocating for, too. I've been advocating for mainstream media journalists who have been brutalized for months. Do we have a constitution? That is the pressing question that should be on the front of everyone's minds. And so to everybody who showed up today, thank you. Please continue to support the other people who are being charged. Obviously, because there's ongoing litigation, there is not much that I can say beyond what I'm saying now. But amplifying the truth, documenting what is happening in our community is not a crime.

58:55Dina Doll:And the questions that were asked a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning by concerned community members, those questions still need to be answered. And as a journalist, I am committed to continuing to follow the story until their questions are answered. Thank you so much.

59:13Michael Popok:A proud and honorable person. I'm glad to call her a fellow journalist and commentator. I now will continue to follow Georgia Foote's career, and I think our audience should as well. Let's switch gears, Dina, and talk about grand juries in another context. Donald Trump didn't like a video that six members of Congress led by Alyssa Slotkin, Senator from Michigan, and Mark Kelly, Senator from Arizona, other members of Congress who have served our nation proudly as members of the intelligence community and or the military. But all they did was state a fact, an immutable fact about the code of military justice, the Nuremberg principles, and the rest, which is, if you've sworn to uphold an oath as a federal officer in our military, you cannot follow an illegal order of your commander-in-chief or any commander.

1:00:08Michael Popok:That is not a defense. And it was a reminder not to give up the ship, that they had their back, that we have their back, and that you can't just do something that you know is wrong and against the Constitution and law and military justice. that's just a restatement of what is in the code of military justice. Trump didn't like it, said hang them from the highest tree, and George Washington would hang them. Right on cue, Pete Hegseth said, he called them the seditious six, even though 10 years ago when he was at a military academy on a video that Elisa Slotkin's office caught, he said the exact same thing about an illegal order.

1:00:52Michael Popok:And we knew that the Department of Justice out of the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office led by Janine Pirro, you know, she's the one that goes after anybody Donald Trump says go after. Oh, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell for cost overruns on a building? Yeah, I'll criminally investigate him. You know, she's the one that can't get indictments. You know, guy throws a salami sandwich. I'm not making this up. Guy throws a salami sandwich at an ICE officer, a paralegal. I think he worked for the Department of Justice. And she tries to indict him for assault on a federal officer. So apparently they went in.

1:01:27Michael Popok:They went in to indict six members of Congress and sitting senators for the video. And what happened?

1:01:35Dina Doll:I mean, it's astonishing. That sentence right there is a huge wake up call trying to indict six sitting senators for a public service announcement. They are so against speech. It's insane. So many things, the deportation of students who have spoken out, what they're doing with Don Lemon, what they're doing with the senators, because speech is a foundational bedrock for any democracy. But our founders were well aware of the risks of a government having too much control over the everyday person. That is something that they dealt with, with the monarchy. So they, some things they did not protect us about, right?

1:02:18Dina Doll:I mean, there's a whole heck of a lot the founders did not get in, right? Right, right. Slavery was allowed. Women couldn't vote until not that long ago. They did not protect us from the oligarchs and the billionaires because a lot of them were. but they knew the government was going to try to wield their power over somebody in a criminal trial. And it's perhaps one of the most strongest protections in the Constitution for the everyday person is in the criminal justice system. And that's what we're seeing. There's thresholds, like you pointed out, the probable cause. There's certain standards and thresholds the government must meet.

1:02:55Dina Doll:And normally, as people always said, you can always have a diet of a ham sandwich because the threshold is quite low. Most prosecutors have never wanted to bring criminal cases that they didn't think they could win because prosecutors always talk about their record. Right. Public, they're always like, oh, it was undefeated. They only want to bring winning cases. You've never really been in this situation where they are being directed to bring cases for political purposes that are unwinnable. And that's why we've seen not only a lot of failures of the grand jury to be able to indict, such as here with the six sitting senators, but also we've seen them go to trial and jury after jury ruling against the government.

1:03:35Dina Doll:You know, in Los Angeles, there was a grand jury, the tow truck driver. There was an ICE, another ICE arrest, and the tow truck driver towed the ICE vehicle and parked it around the corner. I think the ICE vehicle was around the corner, I think, for 13 minutes or something like that. They tried to charge him with a felony for that for years, punishment, years in jail and the jury there didn't convict. We're seeing the DOJ bring cases that are unwinnable for the pure purpose of persecution. And thankfully so far, our criminal justice system has enough safeguards in place to push back on a lot of that.

1:04:15Michael Popok:Thank God for the grand juries. I mean, this is just the justice system, as you outlined it, rebelling. No, that's not the right word, protecting as a firewall, the lawless Trump DOJ administration. Federal judges, as I started the podcast tonight, federal judges in 93 districts ruling 93 % of the time against Donald Trump. The juries not convicting when there is insufficient evidence. Now look, when there's sufficient evidence in a jury, I believe in the jury system, So like, so like, you know, and I believe in appeals. So when the judge in Milwaukee got indicted and convicted of interfering with ICE's operations to pick up somebody, Hannah Dugan, I'm like, all right, well, I wasn't there when the jury ruled.

1:05:15Michael Popok:So subject to an appeal, you know, that was the will of the jury. You know, a grand jury indicted John Bolton. you know, with a legitimate prosecutor in Virginia about, you know, him perhaps violating the Espionage Act. Okay, subject to he's innocent until proven guilty and an appeal right. Okay, that happened. I get it. I reported on it. But juries are rebelling. And judges, because Donald Trump has crapped all over the Department of Justice and just has ripped away a reputation that was centuries in the making in just a matter of a year, reducing it to rubble and being completely untrustworthy, what did they think the impact was going to be?

1:05:59Michael Popok:No, they don't get the benefit of the doubt in court any longer. The tie doesn't go to the runner. The judges and magistrate judges are no longer rubber stamps for what comes out of the Department of Justice's mouth, which they used to be. And so magistrate judges are rejecting the Department of Justice. Judges are rejecting it. Juries are rejecting it. And now grand juries. So effectively, the entire justice system is groaning under the strain, but is holding, is holding. That's why Donald Trump has to lash out at boogeymen like Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society. Oh, you told me to get these judges on.

1:06:34Michael Popok:These are the wrong judges. Forget that. Even Trump judges are ruling against Donald Trump, you know, time and time and time again. So I think that's a great Great report, great briefing for our audience. And put that right in the long line of failed indictments so far. You know, they're 0 for 3 against Letitia James. Letitia James, the New York Attorney General, who I'm going to be interviewing next week. I'm so happy about this. Along with 13 other attorneys general at their conference in San Francisco. And we'll be doing actually three panels. And I'll be doing some individual interviews as well.

1:07:16Michael Popok:she, one of the grand juries not only would not indict, but they wanted to publicly announce that they were returning, they were not returning a true bill of indictment, that they were going to no bill it, which is unusual because they usually just go home and there's no indictment. No, they wanted to come back in open court and announce that they weren't going to indict Letitia James. And when the government found out about it, the Department of Justice, they freaked out and they asked the judge to seal it so that you and I and the public would not know that the grand jury had gone that far. And the judge said, well, I don't know why they want, I can only speculate, he said, as to why they wanted to announce that in open court.

1:07:54Michael Popok:but having them made that decision to do it, I am not going to seal it to save you the embarrassment. Just shows you the grand juries are fighting back. And as Don Lemon said in his filing, to kind of bring this full circle, the grand jury is a check against unfounded prosecution, a bulwark between the accuser and the accused. And citing to a case of the United States Supreme Court in 1974 called Calandra, the founders thought that the grand jury is so essential to basic liberties that they provided in the Fifth Amendment that federal prosecution for serious crimes can only be instituted by a presentment or indictment of a grand jury in order to protect citizens against arbitrary and oppressive governmental action.

1:08:47Michael Popok:And therefore, every defendant, every American, every person has a constitutional right to an independent and informed grand jury, period. End of story. Something that Harmeet Dillon, you know, the number five in the Department of Justice doesn't seem to understand. Todd Blanche, the number two in the Department of Justice. Pam Bondi, the number one in the Department of Justice, or the Solicitor General, the number four in the Department of Justice, John Sauer. This is basic UNI and con law, constitutional law 101. Learned, ingrained, right? I wouldn't be able to take that position if I worked for the Department of Justice because it's so ingrained in me.

1:09:30Michael Popok:I don't know about you. We spent five weeks, five weeks in constitutional law in law school on Marbury versus Madison. or, okay, by a former Solicitor General of the United States, the late Walter Dellinger. Okay, so I can't. I'm allergic to the concept that our Constitution doesn't provide under the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments these basic rights, which is how we broke away and why we broke away from the monarchy of England. It's the foundational principles of our existence, our very existence. And yet, the Trump administration and its political hacks just blithely pass it over like they're running through a stop sign.

1:10:24Yeah.

1:10:25Dina Doll:I mean, the law is there to serve the people. The government doesn't need the law. They have the power. The law is there to serve the people. And so I 100 % agree with you. Those of us who care about our profession and got into this believe in that fundamental principle. And they are trying to twist it and thankfully not very successful in all cases.

1:10:46Michael Popok:So well put. So we're going to take a little breather here, a little bathroom break for those of us and other things. But there's a lot of different ways to support what we do. If you want to vote, early voting has started. If you want to vote for Legal AF, hit the subscribe button for Legal AF. On Midas, hit the subscribe button. Go over to Legal AF YouTube and become a member or a paid member on Legal AF YouTube. We've got a dozen videos a day, including Dina Dahl. You'll see regularly there. We have podcasts like Unprecedented, which she and I do at the intersection of law and politics and the Supreme Court.

1:11:22Michael Popok:Every week we've got the Court of History with Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz and the guests that they get. Mind-boggling. Court Accountability Action about federal corruption in our court system up to the United States Supreme Court does amazing work. A couple of amazing lawyers out in California do a show called Civil Action with their videos. We've got Dave Arenberg, Florida law guy. We've got Adam Klassfeld of All Rise News. We've got the American Civil Liberties Union, regular reporting by Democracy Forward. Dina's been with me from the beginning, right? That's quite a roster, right? I know.

1:12:06Dina Doll:I was thinking that. It's amazing. Yeah, I mean, October, 14 months, something, 15 months. Remember that phone call I had with you?

1:12:15Michael Popok:I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to, you know, that's where we are. Yeah, absolutely. And of course, we talked about our Substack, which is a great way to get live reporting. I do it sometimes with guests like Dina and Adam Klasfeld and sometimes by myself. Lots of reporting there, lots of written commentary and essays. You can only find on Substack. Become a paid member to encourage you to do it for Valentine's Day weekend. 35 % off. Put a heart around that for monthly membership on Legal AF Substack. And then we've got our pro-democracy sponsors. Some of them have just joined us. Some have been with us, Dina, like for like the whole ride, like for six years.

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1:15:10Michael Popok:And right now, IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20 % off all IQ Bar products, including the ultimate sampler pack, plus free shipping. To get your 20 % off, text LEGALAF to 64000. Text LEGALAF to 64000. That's LEGALAF to 64000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Welcome back to Legal AF at Saturday. I'm Michael Popak, and I'm joined with our guest anchor, Dina Dahl. And I thought a great way to wrap the show, Dina, and last but not least, is this turning point. I don't know if I want to debate it or discuss it with you, that I think has happened now with Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice of the American people.

1:15:56Michael Popok:I think there's been a complete breach. I think there's the American people now see through, having watched Pam Bondi twice at an oversight committee hearing, that know that she lied to the American people when she said in her confirmation hearing that she'd be an independent Department of Justice head. She's nothing more than a partisan political hack who can't even bring herself to acknowledge the suffering of Epstein sexual abuse survivors and victims, one of which is my client, Lisa Phillips. There were a lot of moments in the six or seven hours. There were just some that were just too far even for MAGA.

1:16:33Michael Popok:You've got Eric Erickson, who is a huge right-wing influencer, who wants her gone, who thought the moment for him, and I'm going to play it, about the tie in Epstein with Bondi, is when she refused in response to a question from Jamie Raskin to talk about how she was going to investigate and prosecute those people that are in the three million pages, including dozens of men and other powerful people. And instead of talking about it from a Department of Justice standpoint and giving people some sort of comfort, including the victims that the Department of Justice was going to do this and not continue to cover up, she instead became some sort of, I don't know what, it was just this bizarre moment where she, It was almost like they gave her that binder, which she obviously had, and she felt like she had to get in the last talking points about the economy when we're talking about sex abuse.

1:17:30Michael Popok:And she felt like she was running out of time. So she had to shove it in there. It was the weirdest thing. But for people like Eric Erickson and Laura Loomer, who hates her, who's a right wing, a right wing influencer over Donald Trump, calls her Pam Blondie. This might have been the moment. I mean, the whole thing for me was the moment. But let's play the response of Jamie Raskin when she starts touting the economy instead of responding to the question about who she's going to prosecute next about the Epstein files.

1:17:59Dina Doll:The Dow is over$50 ,000.

1:18:01Michael Popok:I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader, as I hear, Raskin. The Dow is over$50 ,000 right now. The S &P at almost$7 ,000. And the NASDAQ smashing records.

1:18:16Dina Doll:Americans 401ks and retirement savings are booming. That's what we should be talking about.

1:18:23Michael Popok:We should be talking about making Americans safe. We should be talking about, what does a Dow have to do with anything? That's what they just asked. Are you kidding?

1:18:33Dina Doll:Mr. Jordan, Mr. Jordan. Committee will be in order. Mr. Jordan, am I going to get an extra 45 seconds added to my time? The committee will be in order. The time belongs to the gentleman from Texas. Ms. Bondi, the attorney general can respond.

1:18:49Michael Popok:Thank you. The Dow has shattered 50 ,000 for the first time. This is crazy. They said it couldn't be done in four years,

1:18:59Dina Doll:yet President Trump has done it in one year.

1:19:03Michael Popok:And Eric Erickson took a look at that and said, this alone should have her removed as the attorney general. What was your, we got a few more clips to play, including one about Epstein and the survivors being, let me play that first. Let's do, then I'll turn it over to you. Let's play the clip now, now the infamous clip, which I think is the final nail in Pam Bondi's coffin, where all she's asked to do was to acknowledge the suffering and speak to the victims who all raised their hand and said, no one in the Department of Justice, the FBI has spoken to them. I asked Lisa Phillips when she was on the show with me, has anybody, Donald Trump, Department of Justice, anybody sat down with you?

1:19:49Michael Popok:I mean, Donald Trump sits down with anybody in the Oval Office. And her answer was no. Let's play the clip. To the survivors in the room, if you are willing, please stand.

1:20:03Dina Doll:and if you are willing please raise your hands if you have still not been able to meet with this department of justice please know for the record that every single survivor has raised their hand

1:20:20Michael Popok:when the photo came out of that it was Pam Bondi staring down at her pad rather than turn around and acknowledge any of them in the room. For me, it is, I actually was, there it is. Thank you very much. And my client is right above Pam Bondi's head, Lisa Phillips, there as well. So for me, the first oversight committee hearing was such a debacle. I didn't think she'd make it to the next one. But Trump keeps trotting her out, like the quarterback that keeps getting, I felt like it was the Super Bowl again, like the quarterback that keeps getting sacked a dozen times and getting beat up at the line of scrimmage, but they have no other choice or they keep trotting them out.

1:21:04I mean, she's getting, I mean, any other era, she would have not made it to this hearing, let alone act like this at this hearing.

1:21:12Michael Popok:What did you make of it?

1:21:14Dina Doll:Yeah, I mean, she was speaking to an audience of one Trump and he was happy with it. He posted afterwards how much he liked it. I thought both Raskin and Congresswoman Jayapal did an excellent job. That image where Bonnie refused to turn around and apologize for the fact that they released so much private information illegally about the survivors is devastating. Never mind the fact that they're unwilling to prosecute, investigate, meet with them at all. So that is going to be, again, we're talking about history books today. that picture is going to also be on the history books. But the irony is that I actually think her comment about the Dow Jones was maybe perhaps the one time she was telling the truth.

1:22:00Dina Doll:Because Trump, this Epstein class, that is true. All they cared about was the money, right? They were so willing to not investigate these billionaires and tech people and all the people. We haven't even, I think, scratched the surface yet to find out all the people. But they were willing to give a sex trafficker like Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell a pass, in a large part because of the money. And so although it seemed like a non-sec order, like how was she talking about the Dow? The irony is I actually think that's exactly how Trump thinks about it. Trump thinks, I don't want to get in trouble.

1:22:40Dina Doll:I don't want my rich friends to get in trouble because they're giving me money and doing who knows what behind the scenes to keep this under wraps. So ironically, I think that was revealing. And, you know, I also think part of the reason why she acted that way, the bluster, the non-responsiveness, is because she really couldn't say anything that was going to be true. And we saw Kash Patel, when he was trotted out, basically lie and say Jeffrey Epstein didn't traffic to anybody else. That's a complete lie. He can now be perjured for that testimony, never mind impeached. And she knows. I mean, she is a lawyer, right?

1:23:18Dina Doll:As much as we feel like she's a failed lawyer, she is a lawyer. She knew. She could not answer any of those questions in the way Trump would have wanted her to without lying. And so I think her bluster was actually an attempt to probably protect herself because there is no way to truthfully answer those questions in a way that doesn't reveal how much they Trump and Bondi and the rest of them are covering up with who knows how many co-conspirators or abusers that are part of that Epstein class.

1:23:55Michael Popok:Yeah, there's a lot of magical thinking. I didn't realize there were so many people who were biting their fingernails and white knuckling the release of the Epstein files. You know, from Howard Lutnick, the cabinet secretary, to the general counsel for Goldman Sachs, to the head of Paul Weiss, a major law firm in New York. All these people knew that they were in or thought they could be in the Epstein files and were holding on for dear life to their careers. and except for the people that are in Trump's inner circle, like Trump and Howard Lutnick so far, everybody else has paid the price, especially in the last two weeks.

1:24:29Michael Popok:General counsel of Goldman Sachs, probably the greatest financial services company in the world, she had to resign in disgrace because of her close relationship with Epstein in which she was guiding him on how to attack victims and rehabilitate his reputation and became friends with him after he was already convicted of child prostitution charges in Florida, which predated his indictment on child sex trafficking, and talked about massages and things with him. Okay, she's gone. But again, the magical thinking of these people, like, they're the smartest people in the room. Oh, my emails will never be disclosed.

1:25:08Michael Popok:Yeah, F that. So she's gone. Then now we have an explanation as to why Paul Weiss, I'm scratching my head, why among the dozen law firms that settled, that Paul Weiss Law Firm was the first firm to settle for$40 million of free pro bono work, which set the standard. Eventually it became$100 million for other firms. I was like, that's so weird. I know people at Paul Weiss. It was a competitor firm. I worked at Skadden Arps. I'm like, and I know people from my class that work at Paul Weiss. I'm like, what happened there? It all comes down to Brad Karp. Brad Karp was the head of, until yesterday, was the head of Paul Weiss.

1:25:47Michael Popok:And now the question is, is the reason he led the firm to settle so quickly is because he was trying to curry favor with the Trump administration to keep the Epstein files under lock and key because of his unholy relationship with Epstein through the head of Apollo, a major financial services firm, and Leon Black. Where they were in the Epstein files, Karp at Paul Weiss was trying to figure out how to get a survivor victim deported in order for her not to bring charges against Leon Black for sex abuse. So here's a guy that thinks part of being a lawyer is to deport a victim of child sex trafficking or sex trafficking so that they don't talk.

1:26:35Michael Popok:So now it's sort of now I know why Paul Weiss settled. I'm just not sure his partners know that he wanted a quick settlement there. Yeah.

1:26:44Dina Doll:And he was the public facing of the whole capitulation. He tried to say, oh, it's going to be fine. We're going to just do some pro bono. And yeah, he reviewed Epstein's 2008 plea agreement and gave advice about that. And Leon Black, I mean, he's the one who testified, if you remember, during the to congress about that 2016 uh election interference that he had been in russia with trump at a strip bar oh right so and leon black is a client of drag carp and that's how he meets epstein i mean there yeah you really start to connect the dots and honestly popock i think we're just starting to your point about like we are just barely elon musk's brother is tied into epstein

1:27:30Michael Popok:through one of the victims, okay? A brother we don't usually talk about, you know? And then even out by you to do the West Coast swing, Casey Wasserstein, who's the grandson of Lou Wasserstein, who's, or no, Wasserman, Wasserman, Wasserman, Wasserman, Lou Wasserman and Casey Wasserstein, who is a huge talent agent out in Hollywood. He's the chairman of the 2028 Olympic Committee for LA, right? He just resigned and has to sell his company in disgrace because he was playing footsie in emails with Ghislaine Maxwell, of all people, while he was married, talking about massages and other things. I mean, so I just did not realize how many people were white knuckling in America the release of the Epstein files of women and men of the rich and powerful.

1:28:19Michael Popok:It's just mind boggling. Leon Black gave Epstein$160 million for advisory services. I mean, it's just –

1:28:30Dina Doll:Lawyers don't make that much for trust and estate planning. Right, let alone – Everybody might be doing it.

1:28:36Michael Popok:So then you've got – just to round out this segment, you've got this Donald Trump trying to make lemonade out of lemons because of the disclosure that in 2006 – 2006. Let's keep the timeline here. He reported to the local police chief for the small billionaire enclave of Palm Beach, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago sits, that he thought Jeffrey Epstein was doing disgusting things, that all of, quote, unquote, New York knew about it, and that Ghislaine Maxwell, you're the one he's thinking about partnering and said nice things about him, was evil. This is in a written report taken in intake by the Palm Beach chief of police.

1:29:26Michael Popok:That's 2006. So in 2006, if Donald Trump knew about Jeffrey Epstein sexually abusing girls and young women, then how do you explain that in 2019, he denied knowing that when asked by a reporter? And then I'll throw one more piece into the timeline. 26, 2006, that. 2010, Jeffrey Epstein gives a video deposition in which he takes the Fifth Amendment about Donald Trump and young girls. Let's start with the 2006 police report and the 2019 denial by Donald Trump of what he admitted to in 2006, which was that he knew that Jeffrey Epstein was doing immoral or dirty things under the table. Let's play the clip from CBS News.

1:30:19Michael Popok:A newly surfaced record in the Epstein files alleges Trump told the Palm Beach police chief 20 years ago about Epstein, thank goodness you're stopping him. Everyone has known he's been doing this and that he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present, but got the hell out of there. That contradicts Trump's claim he was unaware of Epstein's crimes.

1:30:38Dina Doll:What did Jeffrey Epstein mean in his emails when he said you knew about the girls? I know nothing about that.

1:30:44Michael Popok:The White House press secretary could not answer if the account was true.

1:30:47Dina Doll:Look, there was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006. I don't know the answer to that question. What I'm telling you is that what President Trump has always said is that he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club. Yeah.

1:31:00Michael Popok:When Carolyn Levitt looks nervous and doesn't look like she's telling the truth, you know something's wrong because she's always, as the chief propagandist, always defending Donald Trump. Well, I don't know if that call took place. All right. Now the police chief of Palm Beach County lied about a call he had with Donald Trump in 2006 to report that. I doubt that. And then let's play. Now it all comes together, right? When Jeffrey Epstein is being deposed in a case under oath in a video in 2010. Here's Jeffrey Epstein taking the Fifth Amendment about his relationship with Donald Trump and about Donald Trump and young girls play it.

1:31:40Dina Doll:Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump?

1:31:46Michael Popok:What do you mean by personal relationships?

1:31:49Dina Doll:Have you socialized with him?

1:31:51Michael Popok:Yes, sir. Yes? Yes, sir. Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?

1:32:06Dina Doll:Though I'd like to answer that question, at least today, I'm going to have to assert my 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendment rights. Yeah.

1:32:16Michael Popok:So now it all sort of comes together. So what do you make of it, Dina, about Donald Trump's knowledge even going back even earlier in 2005, 2004, him telling the New Yorker magazine that Jeffrey Epstein likes young girls, likes young women. I mean, that's all consistent. What didn't track is when, as he's running for office, he started to change his tune about his relationship, about his BFF Epstein and his wingman for going after women through modeling agencies and phony beauty pageants, and then denying there on the fly that he knew about Epstein and young girls. What do you make of all of it?

1:33:02Dina Doll:Well, for one, a liar just can't keep track of their lies. And secondly, I mean, reading, I read that Virginia Jufres book, or Nobody's Girl, and she said anybody that spent a significant time with Epstein knew what he was doing. The young girls were always around, partially if not clothed at all. The pictures on the wall, she's like, you could not have spent a significant amount of time without knowing. Trump is one of his oldest and longest friends. He knew, he always knew, probably participated. There's a lot of evidence on that. More to be revealed. So he just can't keep his story straight.

1:33:38Dina Doll:He says the thing he wants to say. Trump is the most letitious person in general. The fact that he actually hasn't sued based on this, I think tells you everything. He threatened to with Trevor Noah. I haven't seen a filing yet. But he will never sue based on these claims because it opens him up to discovery, which would only show the truth of the matter. He, you know, even Cindy McCain, no dog in the fight, said years ago, everybody knew this about Epstein. Everybody knew this about Epstein. And he was going to social parties with him, checking, you know, we see the videos of what he's checking out, goggling, you know, the model agency.

1:34:15Dina Doll:He knew. He always knew. But livers just can't keep their lives straight.

1:34:19Michael Popok:Yeah, that's right. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. And this will be, you know, this Donald Trump has spent years trying to get out from under the stench of the Epstein relationship. And the reason he can't get out from under it is he will never level with the American people. If he just took to a podium and said, I had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. We owned a modeling agency together. We did beauty pageants together. I was single for most of it. We had women. I believe they were all over age, you know, of appropriate age. I didn't know much about his personal life. I didn't know about the massages and this and that and the other thing.

1:35:00Michael Popok:I suspected he liked young women, but not that he was sexually abusing them. and et cetera. And I will be at the forefront to protect victims and survivors and release everything and lead my Department of Justice and my FBI to bring to justice those that abused those women. This story would be over, but he can't bring himself to do it because A, he doesn't know what the heck is in the files. He knows he did bad things. He knows he did bad things.

1:35:31Dina Doll:Do you think, I actually think that's why he doesn't say anything because i fundamentally think he doesn't think he did bad things and i don't even know if he thinks that what epstein did was bad well we know what he

1:35:42Michael Popok:did last summer to paraphrase from a movie so who is he fooling i mean i but you know i think like

1:35:50Dina Doll:really really he doesn't believe like the reason why he won't quote come clean is he really doesn't think he did anything wrong and i don't think he thinks epstein did anything wrong and that's That's really the base problem here. Well, that's the problem.

1:36:02Michael Popok:And then, therefore, it will be the first line in his obituary. It will be a stench, an indelible stench, that has carved itself into the Trump administration and Department of Justice that he will never be able to erase. And he wonders why. But the Dow is at 50 ,000. But this and that. Why are we still? We're still talking about it. because it has a fundamental defect in character. Potentially crimes has to do with abuse of women and sexual abuse of fragile and disadvantaged people. And it's a - And children. What is it? And children. And children, right. Yeah, maybe because you're best - I'm sorry.

1:36:46Michael Popok:Listen, I'm not my brother's keeper, but I also wasn't best friends with a indicted child sex trafficker and a convicted child sex trafficker. And if I was, I'd go, wow, who knew? Wow. I mean, if I had a friend that it turned out behind my back or under was a major like cocaine dealer or trafficker, I'd be like, holy shit. Who knew? But like if I like ran with him and I was on the powerboat in the middle of Miami Biscayne Bay and he was dropping packages off the side, I'd be like, hmm, maybe I'm complicit in something here. But this is what Donald Trump, as you said, will never admit because it's political suicide for him to admit it.

1:37:34But I guess the byproduct of that is this is an issue front and center to the American people.

1:37:41Michael Popok:They've already made up their mind. I mean, if there's anybody in America that hasn't heard about the Epstein scandal that's a voter, I'd be shocked at this point. People have made up their mind already about Donald Trump, the illicit behavior, the immorality, the lawlessness, the abuse of women. This is not the first. It would be like if we heard about this about Barack Obama, we'd all be shocked. Like Barack Obama? But Donald Trump said he could grab a woman by her genitalia and get away with it because he's a celebrity and jam his lizard tongue down their throat because he's a celebrity. OK, he we had a case involving E.

1:38:23Michael Popok:Jean Carroll where multiple women took the stand against great personal sacrifice to testify about being sexually assaulted by Donald Trump on airplanes at Mar-a-Lago. OK, you know, he paid off dozens of women, including former beauty queens and strippers. I mean, this is this is Donald Trump. This is why I say I don't know how he could ever maintain a defamation case. His reputation literally cannot be defamed. He doesn't have a good reputation that can be sullied. This is always, which actually came up in a recent, in one of the cases involving him saying that he was defamed by the Dow Jones and by the Wall Street Journal.

1:39:05Michael Popok:The lawyers for the Wall Street Journal famously wrote in their pleadings that Donald Trump literally, his reputation, cannot be defamed by a birthday book with a pornographic cartoon supplied on behalf of Donald Trump into Epstein's birthday book. But we need to follow it. And yes, every time she sits in that seat, Todd Blanche sits in that seat, FBI Director Prakash Patel, they're going to get asked questions about what are they doing for the survivors and the victims. And it's the right question to ask. And we're going to continue to train our sights on it here on Legal AF. Listen, we've reached the end of our Legal AF episode with Dina Dahl and Michael Popak.

1:39:49Michael Popok:We thank everybody for being such great supporters. You know what to do to support us. hit the free subscribe button on Midas Touch. Do the same thing on Legal AF YouTube channel. If you can swing being become a paid member, all the better that helps with giving us the resources to continue to grow, to meet the moment. And then of course we've got, in addition to Legal AF, the YouTube channel, we've got this amazing thing you may not have yet discovered called Substack. Go on to Legal AF Substack. I'm running a Valentine's Day special, 35 % off annual paid membership only on Legal AF Substack.

1:40:25Michael Popok:Dina, I'll give you the last word. I'm so glad you sat in today, but let's give you the last word in commentary.

1:40:32Dina Doll:I'm so glad to be here. You know, we're starting to see the cracks of the foundation and we just hear where all of us in this community are opening the cracks with information to further divide MAGA, dilute their power. We can't, you know, keep going with this path, But it's hopeful starting to see him lose so much support, which he is, even among that MAGA base. Absolutely.

1:40:56Michael Popok:Sixth Republic. I said to give you the last word that I was going to comment. That's the last.

1:41:00Dina Doll:You and I love that.

1:41:03Michael Popok:Hopefully I'm going to see you in California next week. We're going to try hard to make that happen. So until then, shout out to the Midas, Mighty and the Legal AFers.