Legal AF - 3/12/2026

19:43Popok:Wait, stop right there. That might be the funniest segue in the history of legal AF. Continue. you.

19:50KFA:Did you see the reporting that Donald Trump is obsessed with men's shoe size? Oh, he just gave Marco Rubio shoes. That apparently you can see there's a gap because they're too big because everyone lies about their shoe size to Donald Trump because Donald Trump actually said out loud that you can tell a lot about a man by their shoe size. And so he gives out Florsheim shoes. I didn't even know. People still wear Florsheim shoes? Florsheim shoes. He gives them to all the men who are around him. He asks them their shoes size. There you go.

20:24Popok:Is this a picture of all the$145 pair of shoes?

20:28KFA:He's the best. Salty, find the one that shows Marco Rubio. It shows a gap that it doesn't fit him. And that people are afraid not to wear the shoes that Trump is giving out. And like I said, they lie about their shoe size because of him. I mean, this is... Who our president is. It's just bananas.

20:47Popok:You notice he doesn't hand out gloves. Those tiny hands.

20:52KFA:He does have, he has unusually small hands. Look at that. That's Mark. That's the floor. Shime shoe that was given to him.

21:01Popok:They look beat up,

21:02KFA:but it's clearly too big. And that's what was reporting. Did you hear,

21:09Popok:we'll talk about it later during Pam Bondi segment. Did you hear that Marco Rubio, And at least Marco Rubio and Pam Bondi have been living in military barracks recently.

21:19KFA:I sure did.

21:21Popok:They don't even live at home. They live in a barracks. She's so not liked that they have to stick her in an army barracks.

21:29KFA:I wonder who's paying for that. You and me. Yeah, exactly.

21:33Popok:You and me. So let's talk about how this is playing at home. this i'm gonna bomb my way to popularity how's it going not well not well so we just had a series of primaries and other things in the last week another another time for america to who's got a pent-up demand to vote to get into a voting booth and vote in georgia of all places in new hampshire of all places. I want to put this in perspective. Yesterday, 17 people in an open primary ran for Marjorie Taylor Greene's seat. Congressional District 14, Northwest Georgia, couldn't be any redder, couldn't be any more MAGA, okay? Donald Trump won that district by 37 points, okay?

22:29Popok:17 people run. 12 are Republican. Three only are Democrat. The rest are independents. And there's a runoff. The candidate that Donald Trump supports, Clay Fuller, who's a district attorney up there somewhere, he got 34 % of the vote. But retired Brigadier General Sean Harris got almost 40 % of the vote. He's a black Democrat in northwest Georgia, and he's in the runoff, okay? In a district where Trump won against Kamala by 37 points. New Hampshire, okay, in a district that had not gone Democrat in 10 years, went Democrat yesterday by 10 or 12 points. But look, Listen to these numbers, Karen. In 283 races of various types, state Supreme Court, state legislature, Congress, Assemblyman, whatever it is.

23:33Popok:In 283 races since Trump's been president, the Democrats have overperformed, meaning they beat whatever Kamala Harris did, and not by a little, by a lot. In 253 out of 283 races, in nine state house races for the state legislature, the Democrats are 9-0 in flipping seats. Not one Republican has been able to flip a Democratic seat in that time period. In all races, the Democrats are 27-0. They haven't lost yet in special elections or elections since Donald Trump has been elected. and that scares the shit out of the Republicans at the midterms. What's your takeaway about how people are voting when they get the opportunity to in opposition to Donald Trump?

24:25KFA:I mean, I think it's crystal clear that right now, and if the midterms were held today, I think that we would flip the House for sure and potentially flip the Senate. I mean, I think people see that he's out of control that this is not what they voted for. Prices are not going down and he's covering up for pedophiles. They're not doing real investigations. They're not going after real criminals. They're deporting people who, you know, who are not only productive members of society, but really just people who are members of the community and they're going in heavy-handed. American citizens are getting shot and it's just they are so unpopular out of control rogue got us into this war that nobody asked for and i think people are are turning against him including republicans you know there are a lot of republicans who are turning against this president i mean christy noem with her with her 220 million dollar glossy campaign that that is i couldn't believe it when when someone, I was reading about how blockbuster movies, Top Gun 2 didn't even cost$220 million to make.

25:41KFA:Okay. Just to put it in perspective that you can take some of the biggest films that look like they would be quite expensive to make. And they did not cost that much. $220 million so that she can put herself on horseback and do her hair and makeup and run all over the place. And Republicans are just sick and tired of seeing this and seeing the waste and the abuse that's going on at all levels, whether it's covering up the Epstein stuff and covering up for their friends and for potentially for members of this administration and for wealthy people, whether it's only going after Trump's enemies and not prosecuting real crime, lying to the American people, taking credit for things that didn't actually exist.

26:28KFA:strong arming, whether it's universities or law firms or others, just to do what they want, taking over the media and really trampling on First Amendment rights and frankly, trampling on Second Amendment rights, right? What did they say when Alex Preddy and Renee Good, when Alex Preddy was shot and killed in Minnesota, what did they say? They said, oh, well, a protester shouldn't bring a gun to, if it was a peaceful protest, he shouldn't bring a lawful gun, even if he's allowed to carry it. Oh, gee, interesting. They've never said that before, right? They've never claimed that before. What was Kyle Rittenhouse doing?

27:08KFA:Exactly. What was Kyle Rittenhouse doing? Look at Jan 6. How many of those guys were armed? And those are, you know, wonderful, peaceful people. So I think the American people, Trump can try to say whatever he wants, people can see with their own eyes exactly what this administration's about. It's about enriching themselves, enriching their friends and families, going after his political enemies, and getting us involved in things that nobody wanted. Meanwhile, prices are going up, jobs are going down, and we have no faith or trust in our government anymore. And I think people are, just to answer your question, where are we today?

27:44KFA:I think people are realizing the one most important power they have is this ability to vote, despite the fact that Trump is trying to take that away from people. He's threatening to not sign any new bills into law until the Save America Act is passed, right? This is the bill that he wants to pass that essentially will eliminate almost all mail-in ballots and absentee voting. And it's because he is worried that if you let people actually vote, if you give the American people the ability to vote and you don't take over the elections and you don't militarize the elections, you don't federalize and make them national and you allow people to vote however they can, however they choose, however the states choose to allow, I think that we'll see that they are going to, that Republicans are going to lose and lose big.

28:32KFA:And they know it and they're saying it out loud and they realize what trouble they're in among all voters, among all people. Of course, there's the diehard MAGA who, no matter what, all I'm hearing them say when people confront them and say things like, but what about the fact that you said no new wars? Or what about the fact that gas prices have gone up? Their only response is, well, it's still better than what Biden did, right? That's their only talking point, the tried and true MAGA people. But they're really losing a lot of the people who voted for Donald Trump and they know it. They see it.

29:09KFA:These, these, these, these elections that you just talked about, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and there was one in New Hampshire and others that are clearly going to give them a run for their money. People are voting Democrat and voting against MAGA and voting against the Republicans. I mean, Congress is not, has given up their job. Even if you don't like Donald Trump and you still want to be somewhat of a Republican or be conservative, they're not going to allow that to happen in Congress anymore because Congress has been completely co-opted and taken over by this president. They do nothing that is independent anymore.

29:44KFA:I was surprised that a Republican senator, I'm sorry, a Republican congressman is the one who actually asked that question of Kristi Noem about the$220 million ad campaign that she said was approved by the president directly, which got her fired before she could get off the stand that day. You know, even Republicans are giving up and saying we've had enough because it's that rogue out of control and just not what not what the American people want.

30:17Popok:Absolutely. Well, I know what they do want. I think they like supporting Midas Touch and Legal AF. And we're so glad that you're here on the Legal AF midweek edition. um the there's so many different ways to support what we do here on um independent media like this one we've got as part of the ecosystem legal af the youtube channel where we do about a dozen now videos a day um all sorts of amazing contributors adam classfeld all rise news we've got uh shan Wu, former general counsel for the attorney general, Sean Wilentz and Sidney Blumenthal with Court of History, Dean Adal does a show with me called Unprecedented about the United States Supreme Court, Court Accountability Action, American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Forward, all under one pane of glass over on Legal AF YouTube channel.

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32:03Popok:And with Jordy and others kind of curating this collection of sponsors, it's what keeps the show on the air. You know, without, you know, we're not owned by corporate media. You know, we don't have a parent company to report to. So this is how we keep our point of view without censorship brought to you on a regular basis. And let's take our first break for our sponsors. Well, I was getting ready to talk about the news and politics today, and my cat Chanel decided she was the headline. She doesn't care about politics, but she has extremely strong opinions about her food. If this show ever runs late, it's because she refuses to let me talk about law and politics until her Smalls cat food is handled first.

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34:55Popok:For a limited time, our listeners get 10 % off their first bidet order when you use code LEGALAF at checkout. That's 10 % off your first bidet order at hellotushy.com with promo code LEGALAF. Again, for a limited time, our listeners get 10 % off their first bidet order when you use code LEGALAF at checkout. That's 10 % off at hellotushy.com with promo code LEGALAF. Welcome back to LEGALAF at the Midweek with Karen Freeman-Ignifolo and Michael Popak. The Democrats, speaking of Democrats, a couple of things that'll kind of fit together. One, as you mentioned earlier, the SAVE Act, that's dead on arrival.

35:44Popok:John Thune, who's the Senate majority leader, has made it clear, especially given the current polling, that he has no interest whatsoever of eliminating, you know, 150 year, 200 year tradition of the filibuster, which is the power of the minority, the party in minority, which could which he knows could be the Republicans very soon to block a bill or a law that they don't agree with by. back in old timey times, like Mr. Smith goes to Washington, you literally went to a podium for like days on end and you gave a speech or you read the phone book or whatever you needed to do to fill in for a week's worth of time.

36:25Popok:You know, you read the entire Pickwick papers or whatever you did. And that was a filibuster. And then hopefully the voting would die down. You don't have to do that anymore. You can just say you're going to filibuster. And if you're going to filibuster, and the Democrats would say that now as the party of minority, in order to get the vote on the SAVE Act passed by the House already, which, as you noted, Karen, would require people to come up with citizenship papers. Many people, 20, 30 percent of the people, especially women, don't have, which is show us your birth certificate or show us your birth certificate and your driver's license match in terms of names.

37:03Popok:Well, they don't for many, many people. or show us your passport. Many people don't have passports or other citizenship cards that frankly don't even exist. And all that's going to do is make people who tend to vote Democrat have a difficult time voting. It's also a takeover of the state role in federal elections. See, there's a reason our framers and our founders who did not trust the new federal government did not want the federal government running its own elections, and they gave it to the states. So now the feds are like, no, we want to be able to purge the voters from federal election. Yeah, that's exactly the reason why the founders didn't want you doing that.

37:42Popok:Why it's in the Constitution. It's in the Constitution. It's a little bit murky in the Constitution, but generally you're right. And then, of course, that combined with the 10th Amendment, powers that are not with the federal government are reserved to the states, and 200 years of precedent, we got going for us. So they They want to, of course, they want to penalize transgender people. Again, I mean, can we get off the back of transgender Americans? It's an obsession. It's an obsession. They're like 1 % of the population. They're disadvantaged to begin with. They're a fragile population to begin with.

38:16Popok:Do you really need to keep heaping all of this? Yes, because Donald Trump thinks that's a winning strategy for him. So between all this voter ID bullshit and voter role purging, it got out of the House. But now the Senate, where I was going with this long-winded story, is that in order to get the vote to the Senate floor, which would be able to pass with just a simple majority, which they have in the Senate, you got to get it past the filibuster, which means you have to have 60 out of 100 votes, which the Republicans don't have, to implement what's called cloture, C-L-O-T-U-R-E, to kill the filibuster and then let the thing.

38:58Popok:So that's like the weird thing. You need 60 votes in order to take it to a simple majority vote on the Senate floor. Thun has said, he's effectively said, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it because he's afraid that, and people like Mitch McConnell has whispered in his ear, we're gonna be the minority party soon. It could be any day now. And we need the filibuster when the Democrats are in power and have all three houses, all three branches of government. He's not going to do it, no matter how much Donald Trump is whispering at him and State of the Union addresses and all this other bullshit. And all MAGA has gone crazy.

39:37Popok:Elon Musk, the end of American democracy. If we don't remove the filibuster, we have the SAVE Act. I mean, he's barely an American voter. And the most ironic one was I read that Mark Meadows is back, who just avoided barely being indicted by Jack Smith for being an insurrectionist, the chief of staff for Donald Trump in Jan 6, who also was charged with voting twice. He fraudulently voted himself. So this is this moment to pop back into the public consciousness about, you know, along with these other wackos. So that's that's going to die. So that's good. You know, we're trying to. OK, so you got that.

40:19Popok:Then you've got the one you and I will talk about. Talk about the Democratic National Committee bringing a lawsuit to smoke out whether Trump is going to try to use the military to scare the shit out of people during Election Day.

40:34KFA:Yeah, well, Trump has said out loud several times that essentially we should nationalize or federalize the election. And people are worried. What does that mean? And so the Democratic National Committee has, they've sent these Freedom of Information Act requests, which is how a lot of lawsuits start. You get information from the government and you file these requests for, it's a Freedom of Information Act request and government agencies are required to respond. There's certain exceptions and things they can keep out. When I worked in government, we used to get them all the time. And you have to actually go through your records and see what do we have to give over and what are we allowed to keep out.

41:20KFA:And some agencies have entire departments that are devoted and staff devoted just to Freedom of Information Act requests because they're so voluminous. luminous. And truly any person can file a Freedom of Information Act request. It doesn't have to be someone big or someone from a big organization or entity. You and I can file it. Anyone can. Average Joe citizen can. And so many whistleblower and other types of actions begin with information that's gleaned from the Freedom of Information Act. Of course, news agencies are one of the biggest sources of Freedom of Information Act requests of the government that they then analyze and report on.

42:04KFA:And the Democratic National Committee filed, I think, four each for various departments, including the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense. and they served several of them to them asking for information about potential employment of federal agents and troops to polling places to drop boxes and to election offices and they said these records may not exist but if they do exist either tell us and respond or if they don't exist tell us. And most of them went ignored. I think one was answered that said, oh, it's going to take time. We can't get back to you for six more months.

42:50KFA:But the rest were ignored. And so they brought a lawsuit in D.C. in federal court, essentially driven by this fear that Trump is going to follow through with these statements and these suggestions that they're going to take over the midterms. And, you know, there's so many different ways he can do it. He can do it out loud by declaring some kind of national emergency and martial law and sending the troops in to seize voting machines and like they've done in Georgia. And now, you know, after the fact, and recently a grand jury subpoena was issued and the same thing happened in Maricopa County in Arizona, taking those voting machines and ballots and things like that.

43:34KFA:So, you know, They're already sort of figuring out how to do this and what to do, but this lawsuit is to try to find out and demand information so that Democrats can prepare in advance for what Trump has in mind. Because we know he has something in mind. We just don't know exactly how he's going to do it. Is he going to do it by deploying military at the polling places? What about ICE agents to try to scare people off from coming out to vote? Are they going to do that? You know, which is why they asked the Department of Homeland Security, are they going to have military planes fly over and scare people from going out to the polls?

44:10KFA:Are they going to use, you know, subpoenas and other things to steal the ballots after the fact? Are they going to somehow declare, like I said, this is some kind of emergency so that they stop the elections altogether? I mean, we know that they're contemplating and considering all of these things. Do they have a plan for what they're doing? I would actually probably argue, given how they've gone into Iran, they probably don't have a plan yet because they're not very good planners. But they are testing and seeing where the pressure points are and where the opportunities are, because if there's any places where the Republicans lose, lo and behold, you're going to see them claiming fraud.

44:52KFA:You're going to see them claiming some kind of emergency or some kind of issue that requires federal intervention. And so this is a lawsuit that was filed by the Democratic National Committee to try and get this information and really try to stop this in its tracks in advance.

45:16Popok:yeah i think that's the right move by the democratic national committee because we don't want to wake up on the day of the election and see troops there let's let's and you know you know the trump administration there's an email somewhere where they're planning something or an executive order or something like that so that you know there's three different or three or four different ways that we can make sure that the vote isn't stolen and the democrats are on to all of them One of them is to defeat the SAVE Act in the Senate by threatening the filibuster. That seems to be effective. The other one is to make sure that under the current rules, that Trump doesn't try to do, you know, military flyovers.

45:55Popok:You know, you just see Philadelphia or Georgia, you know, like the Blue Angels just suddenly appear pissing everybody off. I mean, do I have a legitimate fear that they're going to open fire on people in the line? No. But, you know, if it keeps one person home, three people home, five people home who don't want to, you know, be subjected to it, I've voted my whole life. I find it very uncomfortable whenever I see a cop with a gun hanging around a polling place, you know, even if it's within the law. It's just, you know, you're just there to exercise your most privileged responsibility and right to vote and to see law enforcement there, you know, one way or the other.

46:37Popok:It takes on, it's sometimes, unfortunately, even if they're just there to vote, it takes on sort of an ominous quality. That's why there's laws against it. there's actually federal law that says that an officer or anybody in the military can't be at a polling place or use unless they're there to repel the enemy, a foreign enemy. But, you know, we've talked about all the various ways that the Democratic attorneys general are ready. They're doing tabletop exercises about Donald Trump's instincts, about how he could try to to seize voting machines or use the National Guard again. Or the good part is, you know, some of what he's done, he did too early.

47:17Popok:Like we know the National Guard trick and we've got good case law now at the Supreme Court level on it. But, you know, ICE and Border Patrol are still roaming around. The federal security officer is still roaming around. You got, you know, Carolyn Levitt, Levette who won't, you know, we won't, I love her. She, she just put on her gravestone one day. We won't rule out anything. We won't rule out. The president will not rule out using ICE troops or ICE forces around election and polling places. Why can't you rule that out? I don't understand. Why can't you say that you're not going to violate the law on the day of the election?

47:50Popok:But with all of these shenanigans, I just get the sense, Karen, I want to see what you think from talking to people because you and I interact with a lot of people. I think people are willing right now to crawl through chicken wire on their bellies in order to vote against Donald Trump. That's my sense.

48:09KFA:Yeah, I think you're right. I agree with you. I have a question for you. Speaking of the Supreme Court, what do you make of the fact that the Voting Rights Act decision has not come down yet? Yeah, that's the third thing that's in our favor for the election because, well, let's frame it.

48:27Popok:October, they have a second oral argument about a case that we call Calais out of Louisiana where Mike Johnson's from, about whether redrawing the map to make black representation consistent with the demographics of the state violates the Voting Rights Act or not or the 14th Amendment. Now, the MAGA 6, including Roberts, has been just itching to throw away the Voting Rights Act, came out of the Great Society and President Johnson, Martin Luther King and all the great leaders, just throw it into the trash, trash bit of history. and they've been chipping away at it and section two of it. And we're afraid that that decision is going to allow and give license to states in the deep South to redraw their maps, claiming that, oh no, oh no, it looks like we're getting rid of all the black people.

49:24Popok:That's not what we're doing, right? We're just increasing the Republicans, see? And put blinders on. These are the same states that were monitored under federal oversight and had to have all their maps approved for decades because of systemic and historic racism in those very same states. Now, freed of that, they've gone back to doing historic and systemic racism again. And the fear when they said that case was going to be heard in October is that there was going to be a way for Donald Trump to have those maps redrawn and pick up like 20 seats out of the 435 on the congressional map for midterms.

50:07Popok:but even though they held the oral argument in October, we're now in the middle of March. They were so cocky, the states of the deep South, that Louisiana called a special session of their legislature, legislation, legislatures in end of October, in case that ruling went their way to redraw the map. And when it didn't come out in October, nor November, nor December, They said, fuck, they said, F it, we're going back to the old maps. And now we're in March, really, April. And it's just too late. So a couple of things happened, in my view. Donald Trump bashing the Supreme Court justices that he needed, like Amy Coney Barrett and Gorsuch, and saying that they were embarrassments to their family on the way into the State of the Union address, may have backfired.

51:01Popok:Certainly didn't make any friends on the court on decisions that had not yet been made. So I don't think they're bending over backwards to help Donald Trump at this midterm. One of the ways to tamp down an out-of-control president is to make him lame duck at the midterms and have a wipeout. So that's one theory. And I think that's not a bad one. The second one is that it's going to be a bad decision against voting rights and that the justices in the minority, no pun intended, like Ketanji Brown-Jackson and Kagan and Sotomayor, are taking their sweet time, which they're allowed to, to write their dissents.

51:40Popok:And until the of censored done, that the opinion doesn't come out. That's why most major decisions do not come out in February, notwithstanding the tariffs. They usually come out at maybe March, more like May and June. I gave an example, the Dobbs decision to take away a woman's right to choose and destroy Roe versus Wade. It was officially published in June, like the last opinion on their way out for summer vacation, but it leaked, a draft leaked in March, right? And then it sort of hardened positions and it ended up being ultimately the final decision. But it didn't come out officially until June because it was circulating in March with all these different pieces and parts.

52:29Popok:So if I'm the three liberals, the moderates, I know I'm on the losing end. Fuck it. I'm not going to help. I'm not going to get it done fast.

52:39KFA:When's it too late, though, for the states to wreak havoc and redraw the maps and reclaim these seats? I mean, when is it like, because, you know, people are already.

52:50Popok:We've had primaries already. We've had three rounds of primaries. Some would argue that this is too late. March. Now, April, certainly. Unless the red states are going to rerun primaries and redraw maps and have candidates scrambling. And even that chaos, Trump doesn't have the power. The red states are like, we're not doing that. So we're in the mode now. Most observers believe that this is it. The maps are the way they are. Five plus Texas, maybe five plus California to compensate. A couple here, a couple there. With one exception, Virginia, the great Commonwealth of Virginia goes to the polls in April about their maps, and that could be plus 10 Democrats.

53:35Popok:Wouldn't that be ironic if after all of this, the one that got the bulk of the new seats were the Democrats?

53:42KFA:Absolutely.

53:43Popok:Isn't that great? And even within the plus fives and minus fives, political scientists and others that have looked at elections say it's not that simple because you may have so pissed off the electorate that like in Texas, they may have thought they made five new Republican seats, but they might have endangered what was once a Republican stronghold that now becomes purple or blue because people are so pissed off. So it doesn't end up being a net plus five. Maybe it's a net plus two because while making five new, they lost three over here, right? And California, you'd be like, maybe it's not plus five.

54:22Popok:Maybe it's plus 10 because people are so animated to vote. You know, this is a wave election, a tidal wave election, which people think it's going to be based on the data. Then we can end up, Democrats can end up with 240, 250 seats in the House. They could get not only the majority in the Senate, but like who, they could get a lot of seats. And we don't know what's going to happen. We've never had this terrible of an administration, maybe Jimmy Carter, of an administration coming into the midterms in terms of economy, consumer confidence, right direction, wrong direction, favorability. You put all that, you run that race a thousand times, Donald Trump gets wiped out in the midterms if we vote, as long as we vote.

55:06KFA:Yeah.

55:07Popok:Yeah. So, yeah. So, I don't know. I was just going to say, from your lips, from your lips. That's it. Now, our lips to our audience's ears. We're so glad you're here together. This is the community and fellowship that we've worked so hard to build. And I'm glad we get together twice a week with Legal AF for short. Other ways to support what we do. We've got, of course, the YouTube channel. Come over there. 12 videos a day at the intersection of law and politics. I think you'll really enjoy our other commentators as well and contributors. Legal AF, the sub stack, where I'm doing live reports on a daily basis, bringing guests sometimes, as well.

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58:09Popok:Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeliteme.com slash legal AF and use promo code legal AF at checkout. The only way to get 20 % off is to go to joindeliteme.com slash legal AF and enter code legal AF at checkout. One more time, joindeliteme.com. slash Legal AF, code Legal AF. Welcome back to the midweek edition of Legal AF. Pam Bondi, Karen, is heading for a roasting of her own making at the Oversight Committee hearing about Jeffrey Epstein. I don't think she's personally long for the Trump administration.

59:01Popok:I think the firing of her buddy Kristi Noem demonstrates that Donald Trump, to save his own ass, will fire anybody at any time. The only difference is, whereas Kristi Noem may have lined her own pocket or those of pockets around her with this$220 million ad campaign, Pam Bondi has not personally, as far as I know, within the administration, benefited financially. and she does know where all, as Ben Micellis put it on Saturday, know where all the bodies are buried. So maybe he holds onto her a little bit longer, but she's doing terribly. She's lost a lot of the Republicans. I mean, in order for her to be forced to appear before the oversight committee about the Epstein scandal and her cover-up involvement related to it, five Republicans, not just a couple, five Republicans crossed over and joined the Democrats to issue that subpoena, which is not a great sign for her.

1:00:02Popok:That she is once that's one thing you say about Trump. Once he thinks a cabinet member has lost support from mainstream Republicans or those that support him, you know, you know, the the his. His view of them and therefore their longevity in the cabinet, you know, is not great, usually after that. And now we've got new reporting that Bondi's doing so poorly and she needs protection from who knows who that she's had to move into like a military barracks, like an army barracks because of threats against her. Well, when you're the most corrupt attorney general of all time, more so than even Nixon's attorney general, he went to jail.

1:00:49Popok:These things are going to happen. You know, it's ironic if she is being threatened by foreign entities because of her role like in Maduro, she wasn't even there in the press conference. This was not a Department of Justice operation taking out Maduro in Venezuela or the Ayatollah. That was not the Department of Justice. That was barely the Department of Defense, you know, and Donald Trump's own erratic behavior. What can we expect, Karen, with Pam Bondi, and how long? Let's just make a bet here. Do you think she makes it the second year of his administration?

1:01:26KFA:I mean, you know, I don't have a crystal ball, but she does not seem to be doing well. She's not at many of the press conferences that you would think she would be in. She doesn't seem to be in his inner circle. She hasn't accomplished the task of going after Trump's political enemies. She hasn't been able to install United States attorneys effectively throughout the United States to keep getting rejected. Indictments are getting thrown out. And of course, the handling of the Epstein files has just been a thorn in the side of Donald Trump. It's one of his biggest criticisms. He is the number one person who appears in those files.

1:02:07KFA:And the victims aren't happy, and Republicans aren't happy, and Democrats aren't happy. They're losing a lot of Republicans to this issue because of how it's being handled. And we know that Trump likes to blame others, right? That's sort of how he is. And he's completely disloyal, no matter how loyal you are to him. And I think she seems like she's going to be the next fall guy after Noam. Could be Pete Hegseth. But I thought I didn't think he'd last as long as he's lasted. and she is going to have to testify before Congress soon. And, you know, I think she has a lot of questions to answer. I mean, she did horribly at the last hearing that she testified at where, you know, she answered questions that were not relevant to the questions that were being asked.

1:03:02KFA:She attacked members of Congress. She had these burn books with her. She was doing surveillance on members of Congress, looking up what files they looked at in the Epstein files, right, because they have to go to a portal to go look at the unredacted files that members of Congress have access to. And what did Pam Bondi do after they left? She went in and had people go and search and look and see what were they looking up? What were their search history? I mean, they were mad at Jack Smith for ordering toll records, ordering phone records of members of Congress just to see what numbers they called in and out and for how long.

1:03:44KFA:Try going and looking at their search history and seeing what they're looking up in the Epstein files. I mean, that is surveillance. That is the kind of thing that, frankly, prosecutors need a search warrant for. You can't just go in and do that. So I don't think they're going to like that. I hope they've become much more prepared this time. You know, last hearing that she testified at, I was actually really disappointed with the questioning. Members of Congress, including the Democrats, especially the Democrats, many of them spent a lot of their time just giving speeches, essentially, using the time that they have for their questioning to give their talking points and give speeches and not ask many questions.

1:04:28KFA:And the Republicans did the same thing. And when they did ask questions and she, you know, she quote unquote answered, she didn't answer. She went on the attack. She called them names. She, you know, called, you know, she called Jamie Raskin a washed up lawyer. You know, he's actually a constitutional scholar. She, you know, accused them of all sorts of things. And it was really offensive. And I think she really, I think hopefully members of Congress, especially the Democrats, are going to be much more prepared this time now that they've seen what she's like and what she does. And I was actually reading something this morning that was put out by Barb McQuaid.

1:05:14KFA:She writes a column for the Cafe Insider. She's a former United States attorney from, I think, Michigan. She's an excellent lawyer and really smart and former prosecutor. And she wrote this thing about essentially how should Congress handle Pam Bondi's testimony about Epstein. And she pointed out what I just said about how don't spend your time, don't waste your time giving speeches. Let's get some real answers. And frankly, if she doesn't answer a question, the next person should continue to ask the same question, right? If you use up your time and she's not answering a question and it's a really good question, then the next member of Congress should follow up and ask it.

1:06:00KFA:If you ask it one way and she won't answer it, ask it another way. Ask it a different way. You know, come up with the questions that we really want answered and don't let her off the hook. And, you know, she also points out about perjury, right? You need to be very specific and precise with perjury to be able to bring a perjury prosecution if someone lies. You know, if they say they don't remember or if they give an opinion, that's not perjury. So you have to really be artful on how you ask those questions. And so she was sort of talking about that and gave some examples of a list of questions that House members should ask.

1:06:37KFA:You know, one, who is the person at the DOJ who's responsible for all final decisions regarding redactions, right? Number two, in February 2025, you said in an interview with Fox News that an Epstein client list was sitting on my desk right now to review. Did such a list ever exist? If so, what list were you referring to? Has it been produced? If so, please identify where it appears in the database. If such a list exists and has not been produced, why not? If such a list does not exist, why did you publicly claim that it did? You know, and she gives several more questions like that. But it just really shows, I think, we need to get to the bottom of certain things.

1:07:15KFA:We really need to get answers. And members of Congress need to work together to when she, because you know she will, when she refuses to answer or she kind of dissembles or avoids or talks about the stock market, you know, which I don't know if she can talk about anymore, or prices of things or starts to attack, then the next person should do it. Don't let her off the hook. You know, people who know how to ask questions, cross examiners, litigators like me and you who have done hundreds, if not more cross examinations. I mean, it's an art and there's a lot of lawyers there. And if they're not members of Congress, they certainly have them on their staff.

1:07:52KFA:They really need to, I think, come up with the questions, look at Barb McQuaid's list and be precise and get the answers from Pam Bondi once and for all so that we can figure out exactly what happened and start to get to the bottom of it. because we can't sit here and be the only country. You know, you've got the UK, you know, taking royal title away from Prince Andrew and, you know, demoting, you know, the current prime minister is in trouble because the person that he, you know, Keir Starmer is in trouble because the person he made a diplomat to the United States appears in the Epstein files and frankly, a lot more than he said he did.

1:08:32KFA:You know, but yet there's no accountability here. There's no one's getting arrested here. Yes, some people are losing their jobs or getting publicly shamed, but there has to be real accountability. And there has to be, there's a sprawling network that needs to be looked at and potentially prosecutions need to be brought. You know, we know, for example, that there's a prosecution memo that listed several people that should have been charged along with Epstein and Maxwell. Where is that? Who are those people? What happened to those investigations, et cetera? So I really think that this is an opportunity.

1:09:09KFA:We have a second chance. And I think we really need to get to the bottom of a lot that's going on.

1:09:15Popok:Yeah, listen, what I've told people as an independent commentator and journalist is I don't know whether the 13 or 14-year-old, who's now an adult, was forced to perform oral sex on Donald Trump. and she bit him and he hit her. But you know who else who doesn't know if that's true or not? The FBI. And that's the point. I don't know whether there are bodies buried at the New Mexico ranch that was owned by Epstein, but neither does the FBI. And that's the point. I mean, you can't just clear by press conference Donald Trump of all wrongdoing every time there's a bad document in there. There are so many bad documents in there for Donald Trump and still claim that you're doing your job as the chief law enforcement officer.

1:10:09Popok:I agree with you. I hope that the inquisitors of the Senate and the House are prepared. I had Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut on between her first appearance and her second appearance. And I basically said, I called him out in a nice way. I said, Senator, you're a former attorney general, lawyer, all that, you know, are you ready? You know, you know, she's got the burn book and she's going to try to distract and dissemble. Are you ready to do hard hitting cross-examination? She said, Michael, we are ready. And they did do a better job the second time around. I mean, look, Ted Lieu came out and said, you should resign during this hearing because you just lied under oath.

1:10:51And to give people some comfort and confidence as we end the show today, The statute of limitations for lying under oath to Congress, which we call a 1001 charge, is five years.

1:11:04Popok:This is 2026. That means if she lies at that next hearing, we have until a new, hopefully democratically led Department of Justice has until 2031 to bring a case against her. And that is the High Wire Act that we're watching those closest to Donald Trump perform. It is remarkable to me. Listen, I've been close to power. I've never been power drunk, and I've certainly never been in the White House or the inner, inner, inner circle of the White House. But something happens to these people who had decent resumes. I mean, Todd Blanche had decent resumes before they got into these positions, but they have just become inebriated with power and magical thinking is the rule of the day.

1:12:01Popok:I mean, things that I would in my private life and private practice would be like, I'm not doing that. I would risk jail or losing my law license. When you get in there in that hermetically sealed world of Donald Trump, it's just throw caution to the wind. We're having so much fun. Whee! Like, is it really we? She's so worried about losing her bar license. She's creating new rules to try to give the Department of Justice the first bite at the apple about whether somebody like her committed an ethical violation. But one day, and that day is coming soon, not soon enough, but that day is coming relatively soon.

1:12:39Popok:Pam Bondi, the other Department of Justice personnel who are complicit, not the ones that are still standing strong. The leadership of the Department of Justice, from the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Assistant Deputy Attorney General, the number three, the number four, all going down the line, all of them will be judged, right? Not by their maker, but by bar regulators, right? By federal prosecutors in the next administration. And they act like that they enjoy the immunity protection and insulation that their boss does. I just don't understand it. Maybe they've been promised pardons.

1:13:30Popok:Who knows? Well, maybe, but that's not going to stop them from losing their bar license. Yeah. And being shut down and put out of business. And they may be. Maybe all of them, listen, anybody that's going to sign the first day in office and let 1 ,600 people out of jail and out of being Jan 6 insurrectionists, maybe in your welcome package into the White House, along with your Wi-Fi password.

1:13:58KFA:And your military housing.

1:14:00Popok:Military housing. Maybe there's a sheet there that says, get out of jail.

1:14:03KFA:In your Florsheim shoes.

1:14:05Popok:Florsheim shoe gift certificate. Then you've got the pardon sitting on your, I don't know, maybe. And you may be right about that because they are acting like they don't have a care in the world, right? Yeah.

1:14:19KFA:It's amazing.

1:14:20Popok:It's amazing.

1:14:21KFA:Absolutely amazing.

1:14:21Popok:And you've been close to power. You've been in power. But it didn't drive you mad.

1:14:27KFA:No, I'm the opposite. I love being, you know, number two. I love being the one behind the scenes. I love being the one who, you know, gets shit done and let the other people deal with, you know, all that stuff. So I'm the opposite of that. I don't have that genetic. I don't have that fiber. Yeah.

1:14:47Popok:I mean, I know people, we've talked about it before on the show. I know people that were close to Todd Blanche, friends, lunch buddies, and they don't recognize this person that is number two in the Department of Justice. Yeah, I've heard the same thing. Yeah, they're just like, wow. I mean, Rudy Giuliani went crazy. And I know people that were close to Rudy that were just like, who is this guy? But something happens when you get in close proximity, fly too close to the sun, and you get into this presidential world. People know I worked for and with Howard Lutnick back when he wasn't the Commerce Secretary.

1:15:22Popok:And I don't recognize this guy. I know people that work for him or worked for him that don't recognize this guy.

1:15:28KFA:I think I would be starstruck, though, if I met Barack Obama. I think. Oh, yeah. I'm just thinking of, like, who could I possibly meet that I would be having a hard time formulating a sentence and getting the smile off my face and, you know, being starstruck. And I think it might be him. Yeah.

1:15:44Popok:And if I worked for him, Lord knows what I would do. Right? Okay, Barack. Okay, boss. Maybe that's what happens. You just get so. But I think you're right. There's something else going on. And maybe it is the pardon thing. But that won't get them out. Welcome package.

1:15:58KFA:I love that.

1:16:00Popok:Wi-Fi password. And oh, look, a pardon is right in my package. But I'm so glad you're here, Karen, with me every week. And our audience is here with us. Thank you for supporting us.

1:16:11KFA:And we missed you, Popak, last week. We missed you when you were gone. But you were on Disney Cruise and couldn't get good Wi-Fi.

1:16:18Popok:No, Wi-Fi sucks at sea. I'll just let you know that now. And of course, thank you for being here. The podcast does great because of our audience. and we're so blessed and so honored for your support. Come over to where you get your audio podcast from. This is where you get your audio podcast from. Apple and Spotify, five-star reviews and comments. Always very, very helpful. YouTube ranks us separately. So the watches are really important. The views are really important. Sending it off to friends and family, asking them to continue to join our audience. Really important. And our audience here, of course, our fervent support from our audience.

1:16:54Popok:And then you've got Legal AF, the YouTube channel, right? It's kind of a brand extension, if you will. And a dozen videos there about every hour over on, it has new content over on the YouTube channel. You can become a member. You can become a paid subscriber. There's different ways to support what we do. And then you've got the Legal AF Substack as well. If you don't know about Substack, not just for Legal AF, any interest in your life, any hobby, avocation, something that you've always wanted to learn, you know, go over to Substack. There's an expert over there that's really interesting and really fascinating that's writing about something you've always wanted to know.

1:17:39Popok:And hopefully you'll find that with us on Legal AF. So we appreciate you being there. And thank you again to our pro-democracy sponsors. Karen, you know what time it is. it's time for feet i mean for the last word

1:17:57KFA:uh well you know it's funny um my mother is this unbelievable crocheter and i think i'm going to head over to substack to see if there's a crochet substack so i can learn because i need to learn these things right my mother didn't teach me so i'm going to head over there i didn't realize the breadth of what you can learn at Substick and what the topics are. So, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that and give a shout out to my, my wonderful mother and, and try to learn, learn her skills.

1:18:27Popok:Are you about to announce crochet AF?

1:18:32KFA:Settle down. You know, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see if I have the patience.

1:18:40Popok:So, yeah, seriously. So glad you're here. So glad our audience is here. And until Saturday, with Ben Mycelos and me. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal Eye efforts.

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