Legal AF - 3/21/2026

30:57Popok:Sound familiar? I mean, James Carville, the great Democratic strategist, some people who don't really know who he is, and he's got that folksy way about him, they're like, who is this guy? That's one of the major reasons that Bill Clinton became president of the United States twice. And he said he thinks if there's this wipeout of the Republicans making it no fun anymore to be president, if the House and the Senate turn to the Democrats, that Donald Trump will resign. You know, whether that's true or not, the fact that we're even talking about that, even talking about Donald Trump's resignation or the 25th Amendment taking him out because he's incapacitated, shows you where he's at with the electorate.

31:43Popok:And the fact that that even has mileage and resonance. And we're going to cover that and so much more when we come back in the second half of the show. We're going to talk about this new Pentagon ruling, which puts back in legitimate media to cover and to expose the Department of Defense and Donald Trump during time of war. a new ruling involving Judge Boesberg and Jay Powell, and kind of an alignment of stars and planets that I've never seen before, where the chief judge of the Supreme Court, the chief judge of the federal court in D.C., and the Federal Reserve chairman all came out swinging against Donald Trump in the same 48-hour block.

32:30Popok:But this is where we are as a society. Also, FBI agents fighting back against their firing for doing nothing more than doing their job. And if you just kind of wandered in, you're on the Legal AF podcast. I'm Michael Popok. No Ben Bysalis today. I'm riding solo so Ben can enjoy his family and family time, which of course he deserves, as we all do. Many ways to support what we do in the legal AF universe. You're here on the podcast. So we have audio versions. So I think by now people know we're on YouTube and on audio, but some people only think we exist on one. If you watch us, great. Come over and listen to us on Apple and Spotify.

33:16Popok:Leave five-star reviews and comments. It helps the rankings and the algorithms and keeps us in the top of the charts in both places. if you listen to us, come over to YouTube and watch us. If you always wonder what Ben looked like, here's your opportunity. Then we've got the Legal AF YouTube channel, which I've built, I curate, I'm the executive editor for. We have 12 new videos every day, usually four of mine to start the day. And then we bring in people like Adam Klasfeld of All Rise News, Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz, our resident historians on Court of History. We've got Court Accountability Action.

33:55Popok:Dina Dahl is over there with me on a podcast we call Unprecedented. We've got It's Complicated, another podcast, just an amazing group of people. And all they want to do when they get up in the morning for the time they brush their teeth, to the time they go to bed at night, is to make some sort of content that you'll find interesting and informative at the intersection of law and politics. We also become a member. You can become a paid member. That's what keeps editors like I have tonight getting paid and keeps us on the air. This is how we fight back. And then we've got Legal AF Substack, a whole other community, which I also curate.

34:34Popok:We have about nine or 10 pieces of content there, including the actual court filings that we use for our hot takes. I do two lives a day over there. There's just a velocity at Legal AF Substack that can't be matched even on our YouTube channel so that these are the ways to become card-carrying members of the Legal AF community. And then we've got our sponsors here for the podcast, some of which have been with us since the very beginning, some of which are new. All have been curated and located by Jordy Mycelis, one of the brothers that you guys all know and love, and me here. So, and let's take a break for a word from our sponsors.

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37:38Popok:Just text legal, L-E-G-A-L, to 64000. That's legal to 64000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Text legal to 64000 where message and data rates may apply. Welcome back and thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors and all that support us. Pam Bondi, once again, the Epstein scandal, the cover-up of the cover-up of the Epstein scandal, Donald Trump's relationship to it, those in his inner circle's relationship to it, Pam Bondi's handling of the Epstein scandal and documents is back on the front pages again, mainly because of her. You know, she's inept. I've called her, the kindest thing I can think to call her is just a crash test dummy that's running the attorney general's office.

38:27Popok:She's a political hack. She's an admitted political hack who has no interest in being an independent chief law enforcement officer in America that can be trusted. She's just an arm of the Trump campaign. You see it whenever she appears before the House or the Senate. You'll see it again now that James Comer, who is the Oversight Committee chair, has issued a subpoena probably because of a failure by Pam Bondi to negotiate to give her testimony. He's brought her in. He's going to bring her in in April related to the Epstein scandal and what is the federal government's role in it, including under her watch.

39:04Popok:Can't keep pointing to, well, why didn't Biden do it? And why didn't Obama do it? You know, like, OK, well, why didn't you do it when the law says you had to, including revealing the documents that implicate thousands of people? I mean, you have 1 ,200 victims and survivors. One of them, as we know, full disclosure, is a client of mine, Lisa Phillips. How do you, they didn't victimize themselves. You know, where are the perpetrators? Where are the predators? Europe and the rest of the world has woken up. 40 or 50 people have lost their jobs or their royal titles over it. Where are the predators of the United States?

39:45Popok:And why aren't they, why is the FBI going after them? You know, why is there a press conference announcing that they're opening up investigations? And if it ties back to Donald Trump, then just appoint a special counsel, Pam Bondi, and just get out of it. Because that is what the Department of Justice and the statute says, the Department of Justice manual and the statute says about a special counsel. When you have a conflict of interest or there's an appearance to the public of impropriety or of a conflict, you appoint a special counsel. And that's what they should do. if Donald Trump really wants to be exonerated and cleared by a special counsel now related to Epstein now would be the time so she didn't like the subpoena so she and I guess Todd Blanch her number two and probably Donald Trump said why don't you go down and do some and give a voluntary briefing about the Epstein files and maybe you won't have to go in under under oath and do it behind closed doors, no less.

40:43Popok:So she, you know, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you know, Bondi and Blanche head down to Capitol Hill and the House Democrats weren't having any of it, calling it a farce, calling it not an appropriate substitute for her sworn testimony under oath and cross-examination, trying to get her to commit to testifying and that she wasn't down there trying to get out from under it. Let me show you a clip of her and Blanche basically admitting that mistakes were made in the Epstein rollout, but again, trying to defuse any kind of attack on her. Or again, she wants to get out of having to come down and give her testimony in April.

41:30Popok:Let's play the clip. I think it was less than 1 % error. Todd, do you want to add to that? Yeah, no, that's right. We said from the beginning that any mistakes that were made, and there should be no mistakes. And so when you say lawyers have said something, that's not a fair question, and you know it. Because we took pains to protect victims. When someone identified that there was a victim, we immediately pulled that document down, fixed it, and put it back up. Immediately. Immediately. And so, of course, we don't ever want to do anything to re-victimize anybody that was victimized by the horrible crimes of Mr.

42:07Popok:Epstein. And we didn't. And we didn't. To the extent that mistakes were made, and there were mistakes made because of the reasons the Attorney General just said. But when they were identified to us, we fixed them immediately. I am so tired of watching people in the Trump administration attack the media for doing their job and asking questions. Putting aside Don Lemon and Georgia Fort in Minnesota, who are still subject to these manufactured criminal charges for reporting about a peaceful protest, or trying to, we'll get to the story in a moment, in the Pentagon trying to criminalize journalists asking questions, which is what they're supposed to be doing.

42:46Popok:I'm so tired of watching senior leadership in the Trump administration, including Donald Trump, go after the media with, cut it out. And that's not a fair question. And I mean, you are not there. Check the name on the door. You are not there to debate with the media or try to distract or divert attention from their question by making it personal about them. You're there on the taxpayer's dime. to give honest service as a public servant and stand there and answer the questions. And if you can't deliver that, if you can't do that as part of your job, then leave, then resign in disgrace, like people are starting to do around the Trump administration.

43:35Popok:So the Democrats showed up at this thing and looked around and said, what is this supposed to be? This is a briefing in some sort of marble hallway here. And then James Comer, who obviously has a tenure, among other problems, he decides that he's going to attack Representative Summer Lee, who's from a district that covers Pittsburgh and is the first black representative out of Pennsylvania. and say to her, first of all, talk about a misogynist. He starts trying to lecture her about, well, what do you want? You want us to put chairs around in a circle? Will that satisfy you? I'm like, is this really happening?

44:19Popok:Make it stop. And then he used the B word against her, which is on so many different levels is completely inappropriate. You know, stop your bitching. And some people, I did a video about the Democrats walking out on this after Pam Bondi refused to commit, recommit to complying with the subpoena. And now there's talk that some Republicans are in favor of withdrawing the subpoena because they don't like the way Pam Bondi was treated. What about the way Summer Lee was treated? So I did a video about it. Then I said, look, I know some people are like, well, when did bitching become the same thing as calling somebody a bitch?

44:59Popok:I'm like, okay, maybe if you're on the receiving end of it and the person that's saying it is some guy from white guy from Kentucky and you're a black representative and you receive it that way, maybe we should defer to the person who's got the comment hurled at them rather than what you in the comfort of your living room or wherever you're watching the show, whatever you think. I took it that way. But more importantly, Representative Summer Lee took it that way. Here's a clip of her walking away from this briefing and how she reported what happened to her. So I just walked out of a fake deposition, fake hearing with Pam Bondi where Chairman Comer called me a bitch.

45:44So here's what actually happened. We had already subpoenaed her because she has not been in compliance with our subpoena and the Epstein Transparency Act to release the full, complete, unredacted Epstein files. She has been withholding them. She has been obstructing justice since last July. And a couple weeks ago, we finally got bipartisan support to subpoena her, to bring her into our committee to ask questions. Now, today's attempt, a sham of a hearing, was your attempt to bypass that. Multiple times we asked her if she would come in and she would talk to our committee on the record under oath in the public.

46:24She refused to do so. So instead of directing any more questions to her where she's not under oath, where she can continue to lie to us, I directed my questions to our chairman to see if he would compel her to comply with the subpoena that he signed and that he issued. He could not respond. I asked him if he did not come, if he would hold her in contempt, move with contempt proceedings like he did with other people who he said did not comply with our subpoenas. And instead of answering this simple question with a yes, of course, he said that I was bitching and that I was wasting his time and that we didn't have to talk about this anymore.

47:01So that's where we are. That's why we are trying to move to impeach her. That's why we introduced those articles of impeachment, because it is clear that she has no intention on cooperating with Congress. She has no intention on cooperating with the American people. She is not seeking justice for survivors or anyone else. She is there to run cover for Donald Trump, for his allies and for herself. And it's time that we get her out of there.

47:25Popok:I mean, you can't watch that and not come away bawled over and impressed by Representative Summerlee. By the way, she did that. I sit in a chair and do my commentary. She did that on the run in the halls of Congress from what looks to be an iPhone. And then I had a special delight because, you know, again, I've done a couple of thousand videos. but to have one of the people that's the subject of the video not only indicate that they've watched it but and support it but then comment on it back to Comer it's just a just a special delight I think we have the actual posting that we'll put up there's summerly commenting about it and me responding we got your back because you have our back she said in her posting on my video that next time you use the B word against me, it better be under oath and in a hearing room with a court reporter.

48:25Popok:And I totally agree with that. And so Bondi is trying to continue to gather Republican support to avoid being removed and impeached. Of course, she's troubled, you can tell by Kristi Noem being removed and fired. Donald Trump has a number, a replacement for her waiting in the wings. It's actually the guy that she keeps leaning on, Todd Blanche, the number two in the office, who if Pam Bondi ever gets fired or resigned or gets a social media post by Donald Trump thanking her for her service, don't be shocked if it's Todd Blanche that steps into the role as Attorney General. But these are important matters about the cover-up and what the Department of Justice is not doing to pursue justice in the names of the victims and their survivors, because they're being directed by the president not to follow leads, because I'm sure, just as I said at the top of the show about Robert Miller's passing, I'm sure he believes it could be the end of his presidency, because there's just going to be, there's so much interaction between him and a indicted child sex trafficker and a convicted child sex trafficker in Ghislaine Maxwell, that even he's sitting in his 80-year-old dotage.

49:50Popok:He can't remember all of it, and he certainly doesn't want anybody looking into it. So we'll continue to follow that story closely here on Legal AF, the podcast, and all in our ecosystem. Let me switch gears and talk about the Pentagon. Back in the start of the administration, Donald Trump in making the press the enemy of the people and trying to capture mainstream media, when he couldn't do that, he would try to take away their credentials to report from the White House press briefing room or the Pentagon briefing room. And when it came to the Pentagon, they passed a whole series of new regulations about credentials that let the Pentagon decide whether a reporter posed a national security risk, banned and barred them from having any communication outside the chain of command or outside the press briefing room with anybody in the military.

50:50Popok:So no knocks on the door, no cups of coffee, no going to their house or meeting at Denny's or Starbucks. That's where the press does its best work, to be frank. The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the coverage of the Vietnam War, and all the wars. It's when some junior officer bumps into a reporter or a reporter makes sure that they're on the playground or the park at the right moment and conversations happen. That's all been effectively criminalized and banned by the Pentagon. And Judge Friedman, who is a senior status judge we haven't talked too much about on Legal AF, although we admire him, a Clinton appointee.

51:33Popok:He got the case brought by the New York Times about the First Amendment. And what Donald Trump did, if you're not already repulsed by Donald Trump, is that he took out corporate media, mainstream media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and all of them. And he replaced them, get ready, with Laura Loomer. Yes, yes. That right-wing social media crackpot who lives like in a trailer park in the panhandle. No, nothing against people in trailer parks or the panhandle. I'm just illustrating where she's at. Mike Lindell, the pillow guy. Okay. Tim Poole, podcaster. James O 'Keefe, head of Project Veritas and who got indicted for trespassing, these are now your Pentagon press corps.

52:29Okay.

52:30Popok:So, and I give a lot of, I give a credit because I've always thought the press should just stand up and walk out on Carolyn Levitt, the press secretary, and even Donald Trump had turned their back on him when they bash female reporters or are abusive. I just like stand up and walk out. Now, I get this is their job, and they feel like they got to be in the room to hear it. But, you know, how are you going to discipline the Trump administration and make them stop abusing you if you continue to show up every day for work? And the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, they walked. They were like, we're not signing this new credentials thing.

53:08Popok:We're not agreeing that it's criminal for a journalist to ask a question. And they walked out. And so on a final judgment, this case is over except for the appeals, Judge Friedman ruled that the press corps, particularly the New York Times' First Amendment right, Fifth Amendment rights, have all been violated, that the purpose of free press is at the very heart of our constitutional republic. I mean, many of the framers and founders were authors and even publishers. Benjamin Franklin, a publisher, you know, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, you know, the writers of the Federalist Papers, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote all the drafts of history and of our governing documents.

53:55Popok:You know, the power of the pen or the quill over an out of control executive branch is what our founders and framers envisioned when they put it in the first of the amendments. And so for Donald Trump to come in and say, I'm going to, you know, alter the landscape of how the press is able to cover my administration while at the same time declaring that I'm the most openly accessible, transparent president of all time. Just because he wanders around on Air Force One and he can never stop himself, he never turns down in interaction with the press, doesn't mean that the press isn't being denied their ability to do their job and to root out corruption.

54:41Popok:This is what Judge Friedman said in his ruling about a 250-year-old principal about the government not suppressing political speech. Those who drafted the First Amendment believe that the nation's security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech. As the Supreme Court said 50 years ago, we have learned and continue to learn from what we view as the unhappy experiences of other nations where government has been allowed to meddle in the internal editorial affairs of newspapers. Regardless of how beneficent sounding the purpose of controlling the press might be, we remain skeptical, intensely skeptical, about those measures that would allow government to insinuate itself into the editorial rooms of this nation's press.

55:38Popok:especially and certainly at time of war. It's necessary to bring sunshine as the best disinfectant, as Judge Brandeis once said, especially when the country is at war and people have to either, the public either has to believe in that and support it or reject it and know who they're going to vote for in the next election. And this has all been violated by Pete Hegseth, the Department of Defense, and ultimately by Donald Trump. This will go up on appeal. We're getting Laura Loomer. No, they can leave Laura Loomer. Oh, the other one was Matt Gaetz. So Laura Loomer, Matt Gaetz, Tim Pool, and the pillow guy.

56:21Popok:They can leave them there. But of course, they have to rescind all of these regulations that criminalize journalists doing their job. So we'll follow that Pentagon ruling as it inevitably makes its way to a couple of levels of appeals. Let's talk about Jeb Boesberg, the chief judge in the federal court in D.C. As chief judge, he's also responsible for all things grand jury. Now, you'll know Jeb Boesberg or you'll remind you that Trump's had it out for Boesberg since he presided over the grand juries that ultimately indicted Donald Trump. Yeah, same guy. And he was also the guy, the judge who got the case, you know, a couple of months into the administration, when Donald Trump tried to use the Alien Enemies Act in an unconstitutional way to send 200 men to El Salvador's torture prison without due process.

57:26Popok:And he tried to put a stop to it with a series of orders that were violated. The case is called JGG. brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. In the JGG case, after Trump violated it, by continuing to ship these men there, and then later, by the way, they're not even in El Salvador. They've now been horse traded, prisoner swapped with Venezuela before we went to war with Venezuela. Yeah, thanks. And after those orders were violated, this is the judge that brought two separate criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration. So they have had it out for Bozberg. They tried to defund him.

58:04Popok:A representative from Texas tried to take away funding from one federal judge. That didn't work. They tried to impeach him. That didn't work. They tried to get him removed from their cases by judicial – they filed a complaint against him with the Judicial Ethics Board. That didn't work. Donald Trump bashes him, including in the last day or so, saying that he's erratic, irrational, Trump derangement syndrome. The only person for me that is suffering from Trump derangement syndrome is Trump. But yet, you know, it's a lot of projection going on. Donald, oh, he's got to be removed from all of our cases.

58:44Popok:He's got a political agenda. Yeah, he doesn't. So he's the one that threw out last week, Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairs, effectively, it's criminal prosecution because he found that it was a bad faith prosecution because there was no evidence that Jerome Powell is benefiting personally from the cost overruns to remodel, you know, two buildings as part of the Federal Reserve compound in Washington. Like, where's the proof that he's putting money in his pocket? Sure, there's cost overruns. I'm sure when you start digging into a 100-year-old building where you barely have the blueprints, you're going to run into things you didn't expect.

59:23Popok:Where'd that come from? I mean, I've done construction cases before. But to claim that he's personally liable, criminally liable, Judge said there's no evidence. And I asked the federal government to show me their evidence. And they're not even showing it to me because it doesn't exist. Now, the government has come back and asked Judge Bozberg to stay his decision, arguing that he applied the wrong standard. In the interim, he also went out of his way to reinforce the grand juries. In case after case after case, we're not talking dozens of cases, grand juries around the nation, especially in D.C., have rejected Donald Trump's U.S.

1:00:04Popok:attorney's offices and their attempt to indict his political critics or his political targets. over and over again in DC. And the last straw for Bozberg apparently, as the chief judge over all things in DC that are grand jury, is when Trump and Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney and political hack stalwart of Donald Trump in the District of Columbia, tried to indict six members of Congress, senators and Congress people, all in the military, formerly in the military or the intelligence community, because they told the military, you cannot follow illegal, illicit, unconstitutional orders, which is consistent with the code of military justice.

1:00:49Popok:Trump didn't like it. Hexeth started calling them the seditious six. And then Pirro comes around and tries to prosecute them. Grand jury said, no way. They're not going to indict sitting members of Congress for exercising their First Amendment rights of criticism. And so the reporting was Pirro dropped the case or isn't going to pursue the case. So now the new rule that Chief Judge Bozberg issued is that whenever a original grand jury investigation, which means the criminal case starts with the grand jury, not with a criminal complaint prepared by a prosecutor, then in that case, if the grand jury doesn't return an indictment, in other words, they don't indict the person, that has to be reported to the magistrate judge on duty that day.

1:01:36Popok:so that there's knowledge by the court system of how unsuccessful the indictments are going, which in a way reinforces the grand jury. I mean, grand juries are acting out now, much like judges, against the Trump administration. It's one of the firewalls that's protecting our rule of law right now. Now, Jeanine Pirro doesn't like the fact that Bozberg has blocked her ability to investigate criminally the Federal Reserve chair. Even though, frankly, that helps Donald Trump get his new pick to be the Federal Reserve chair when the current term expires on May 15th, get him confirmed, a guy named Kevin Warsh.

1:02:17Popok:That's not going to happen while the criminal case is going on against Jay Powell. Jay Powell says he's not going anywhere while the criminal case is going on. His term runs until 2028. and Tom Tillis, North Carolina senator, who's on the banking committee, said, I'm not going to confirm Kevin Warsh as Donald Trump's pick unless the criminal case is kicked. So Donald Trump has created this Catch-22 where he refuses to give up on the case, and yet that means his pick won't become Federal Reserve chair. And it's all been falling on the shoulders of Jeanine Pirro, who got pissed off at the media.

1:02:57Popok:this is back to my point about totally inappropriate attacking the media, when they asked her about, hey, how come grand juries don't like your cases? Let's play the clip. Why are grand juries so skeptical of the cases that your office has been granted? Oh, cut it out. Do you know how many convictions we've got? Cut it out. You're in one lane. We have cleaned up this city. A historic number of rejections. A historic, really? I'll tell you what's historic. What's historic is that I prosecute everything other than 10 % of the cases where the United States attorney before me didn't prosecute 67 % of the cases.

1:03:28That's what's historic. I'm willing to take a not guilty. I'm willing to take a no true bill because I'll take all the crimes and put them in. Thank you.

1:03:40Popok:First of all, that was such a word salad of a response. They used to jump all over Kamala Harris for whatever her syntax. I barely understood what she was trying to say. Sometimes when I watch Janine Pirro, I don't know if I'm watching Cecily Strong from Saturday Night Live, doing her janine pirro or it's janine pirro it's that uncanny of an impersonation except for the red wine bottle i guess but i have no idea what she's talking about she i guess she's i prosecute 90 the other guy did 67 you're in a lane and and historic yeah it is historic the the department of justice is is not supposed to be losing at the grand jury level right or on the judge level and now judges are rising up.

1:04:25Popok:It's not just all the orders that I talk about, and I talk about a lot of them, where judges talk about what the framers wanted and the founders wanted, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and all of that, and reminding us what the Constitution says or the Declaration of Independence. They're doing it in the courtroom during oral arguments and hearings where they're chastising, excoriating the Department of Justice before them for violations of orders, decorum, their defiant tone or attitude. But when they're not on the bench, they are joining together in a way I've never seen in my 35 years of my legal career, sitting federal judges, meaning they're currently federal judges.

1:05:09Popok:They're not retired. I know retirees that are like, all right, well, I don't have to worry about it any longer. Let me speak out. But you're on the bench and you're speaking out. It's so courageous and so proud of it. We just had a group of six federal judges from California, Minnesota, Florida, and D.C. joined together in a panel discussion. It's up on Legal AF YouTube today. And here is a judge that I know well, Judge Beth Bloom, Southern District of Florida. I knew her when she was on the Miami-Dade County Circuit Court. I think I had the last case in front of her before she was elevated to become a federal judge.

1:05:51Popok:But here's her and her comments about attacks on the federal judiciary and what sitting judges are doing about it. I can't speak for all of the judges, but I know that the judges that I've had the pleasure of working with that have spoken out is there are two constants here. One is there's been an escalating rise in attacks on judges. Social media has certainly served as an amplifier of messages that are being made against judges. And the other is there's been a rise in threats. And it's the time now, and thankfully it was clarified through the ethics opinion that judges are permitted to speak about illegitimate threats and attacks on the judiciary, not only those that occur to the individual judge, but throughout the judiciary.

1:06:50And I think the larger reason is the threat to our rule of law and judicial independence. And judicial independence doesn't protect the judges, it protects the public. So if the judges Judges cannot ensure that their decisions are followed, that they're able to do their job without fear or favor. And judges are doing their jobs. They're courageously doing their jobs in light of these escalating attacks and threats. But if they can't do that, then the rule of law in our democracy is at risk.

1:07:25Popok:If you ever wondered what a federal judge's chambers looks like or her office looks like, now you know from federal judge Beth Bloom. So important now at this moment against great public sacrifice and risk for federal judges, even though they have lifetime appointment, you know, to be abused and doxed and attacked by Donald Trump and those around him, which have led to death threats against federal judges and their families, which are on the rise, a political rhetoric in this country, as we know, that led to, and there's Judge Reyes, that led to, you know, assassinations and murders across both sides of the aisle.

1:08:11Popok:Happens all the time. It's not right. I grew up, I missed, you know, because of my age, I missed the tumultuous 60s of the civil rights movement and the death of RFK, JFK, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and the rest. But, you know, I was a high school student and college student when Reagan was there was an attempted assassination on Ronald Reagan, the Pope just before that. You know, his press secretary, unfortunately, suffered a tremendous injury from a bullet. I'm talking about Ronald Reagan's press secretary, James Brady. You know, this happens. It's not just what happened with Charlie Kirk, you know, a year ago or the attempted assassinations or whatever that was with Donald Trump.

1:09:01Popok:And it starts with unhinged minds and violent rhetoric, which is promoted by the Republicans. It's not the Democrats. I mean, what are the Democrats doing? The Democrats are in the streets blowing whistles against ICE and ICE is responding with guns, murdering and executing American citizens on the streets because of Donald Trump's policies. Yeah, it's not the left wing rhetoric that is the that is endangering federal judges. It's the right wing rhetoric. But the Trump administration doesn't want to acknowledge it. They've eliminated all offices in the FBI, the Department of Justice that focused on tracking right wing violence in this country.

1:09:45Popok:They've cut all ties with organizations like the Southern Poverty Center that track an anti-defamation league, which track the rise of these kind of groups because it wants to bury its head in the sand and not acknowledge that they exist. But we know they exist. And of course, federal judges do, too. We're on Legal AF, the podcast. No, I'm not on an extended rant and I'm blocking out Ben Misalas. Ben is not here with me today. I'm riding solo like he did for me when I was on a family trip. Ben is on a family trip, well-deserved rest and respite for him. And shout out to Ben Misalas and his lovely family.

1:10:28Popok:So many ways to support what we do here. and we need your support. It's not ego. I don't want people like, oh, you know, we need the comments because it makes me feel good. Yeah, it does make you feel good. But the reason we need it is so we can be robust and muscular and so that we have the street cred as independent commentators and journalists to oppose the billionaires and almost trillionaires that control corporate media and are used as a vehicle for Donald Trump. I mean, even though I critiqued and made fun of corporate media and the fact that Donald Trump ignored my destuch and Legal AF when he talked about changing the landscape of media, you know, there's no getting around it.

1:11:20Popok:The original crown jewels of corporate media, You know, CBS and soon-to-be CNN are in the hands of supporters of Donald Trump and the Ellison family. You know, Facebook, Apple are bootlickers for Donald Trump and donators to all of his respective, you know, ballrooms and libraries and the rest. So, you know, it's starting and then you've got ABC that's because of its affiliates and its TV station owners want to play nice with the Trump administration. So they're willing to take the Jimmy Kimmel's off the air and they're willing to settle over something that was not actionable that George Stephanopoulos said about Donald Trump for 16 million dollars and so on and so on and so on.

1:12:17Popok:So when you take ABC and CBS and CNN and then MS, what used to be NBC, but I don't know, they got embarrassed by their own heritage. So now they're MS now. I don't quite know how they're going to survive in terms of being owned by a large corporate parent. But supporting us, you're going to get a return on your investment. We call it an ROI, right, in the business world. You're going to get a tremendous, and you have hopefully gotten a tremendous ROI. So what we do with a dollar is like what mainstream media would do with a million dollars. But we still need your support. So that takes the form of podcast support on our Apple and Spotify platform where you just plug in Legal AF, five-star reviews and comments.

1:13:07Popok:YouTube keeping us at the top. you know, we're regularly, this show is in the top 20 or 30 of all podcasts in the world rated by YouTube. And the reason for that is the work that I do on my videos, but of course the podcast itself. And that's, that's with your support, right? So that's, that's, that's the podcast world. And we've got the YouTube channel, which is, you know, 1.1 million people strong, 11 or 12 videos every day, fair amount for me, I appear on Midas Dutch as well. But then all of our contributors, like Court Accountability Action and our podcast with Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz, our resident historians, and Adam Klasfeld of All Rise News, and the American Civil Liberties Union, and Democracy Forward is on there with us with a playlist.

1:14:04Popok:We run, we try to make it one-stop shopping, right? So all things law and politics. Supreme Court, oral argument, live report, we're there. With the live stream, I usually do a pregame show related to that. So you become a member, and then we have a new since January, paid membership. It's like five bucks a month, but it does go into the till, goes into the kitty, helps keep us growing. I got to grow. I got to bring in new contributors, new channels. We got to compete as best we can as economically as we can with the other people. Otherwise, we'll be drowned out and that we cannot let happen. And then we've got the Legal AF Substack as well, which I do two lives a day.

1:14:47Popok:We've got our postings there for all of our filings. And it's an amazing community. If you don't know about Substack, come on over. We're regularly in the top 10 of all news, US news, rising news on Substack. And then we've got our sponsors. And we really appreciate them because they appreciate our point of view. They don't tell us what to say. They don't censor us. I guess the only way to censor us by having sponsorship is if the sponsors decide not to sponsor us. And we have so many sponsors that want to be here talking to our audience that they're not missed, I guess, is the way to put it. So here's a word from our sponsors.

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1:18:10Popok:Results not guaranteed. Cancel anytime. That's smartcredit.com slash legal AF, smartcredit.com. Welcome back and thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors. You're on Legal AF podcast. FBI agents who have been fired by Kash Patel, fired by Pam Bondi for doing nothing more than their job, such as working on Arctic Frost, which was the code name for the investigation into the election interference of 2020, and Donald Trump and other people's role in it, which Special Counsel Jack Smith at the top as the prosecutor. These were FBI agents who had long and illustrious careers, who got frequent awards and promotions.

1:18:56Popok:And if they're doing something bad. There's a way to get rid of FBI agents. There's a whole manual that outlines discipline and reprimands and termination. Well, two FBI agents in particular, whose names are now anonymized, have brought their case against the FBI for wrongful termination and to be reinstated, to have their careers that were dashed by Kash Patel because Pam Bondi and Kash Patel have been trying to root out all of the, you know, the merry band of partisan hacks, they called them at one time. They're partisan hacks. These are just FBI agents who like were assigned to work on it. These two people in particular, they barely worked on the investigation.

1:19:44Popok:And yet why do they have to have their careers ended, especially after Kash Patel lies to the American people under oath during his confirmation process that he's not going to, he doesn't have an enemies list, and he's not going to be firing people who worked against Donald Trump on his investigations. And he did exactly that. I'm fortunate enough to have, and it's up on Midas now and on Legal AF as well, to have interviewed for you Liz Toulis, who's at the, full disclosure, she's a partner at the Perry law firm, Donya Perry's law firm. I'm of counsel at that law firm, but I did not work on this case and I have no insider knowledge.

1:20:25Popok:So I had to bring in Liz to talk about the filing and why it's so important. And it's very important for Liz too, because as you'll hear, she was a longtime member of the Department of Justice. She was like the assistant director of federal program investigations in which she represented the government in claims related to harassment, discrimination, terminations, and that type of thing, and also worked in the Southern District of New York, the once proud Southern District of New York prosecutor's office, and now is in private practice. Here's a clip of my interview with Liz Tullis about this brand new lawsuit that was just filed in the last 24 hours.

1:21:02Popok:Let's play it. What that represents is really a disregard for not only just the constitutional rights of our clients, but all the norms and and procedures and principles that have defined what the Department of Justice is and what the FBI has been for basically their entire existence. So, you know, if people don't bring these suits to challenge these actions, it's unclear that there'll be a chance not only to vindicate their rights, but to get courts to say to the government, you can't do this. This is unconstitutional. This is not right. And let's make things right. And this is personal to you, I would imagine, because you have a background at the Department of Justice, U.S.

1:21:51Popok:Attorney's Office, and all of that, including you were the assistant director, right, of the division's federal programs branch. You dealt with anti-discrimination and employment matters on that side of the case, right? And now you're out in private practice. Does it when you when you got when you consider taking this case, I think our audience likes to hear about how lawyers make decisions to take cases. Right. You get a phone call. I'm sure you and I take cases all the time. I've I decide not to take cases all the time. Why did this case matter to you? Sure. So when I first started with DOJ as an AUSA in the civil division in the Southern District of New York, U.S.

1:22:32attorney's office many, many years ago, you know, we were told you do the right thing for the right reasons without fear or favor. And that was, you know, how we went about our jobs. And to me, to see the principles that defined my work as a DOJ lawyer seeming to be disregarded and not honored in the way that really are crucial to what being the Department of Justice means was really, really difficult for me. And to have these clients come who really are the perfect example of what's gone wrong.

1:23:06Popok:Yeah, so Liz Toulas, a phenomenal lawyer, took this case, you see, for a very good principle and a very good reason and took the stand there. Interesting side note, the judge that's going to decide whether it stays John Doe, John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 versus Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, and they stay anonymous, is none other than Chief Judge Jeb Boesberg as the Chief Judge in D.C. So we're back again. We batted around. We're at the top of the order, and we're back with Jeb Boesberg, who's going to make the decision. Once he makes the decision about whether the – and they had to file a motion for that, which of course outlined, as we're talking about political violence, that FBI agents in the past have been roundly doxed and with violent rhetoric attacked and swatted, you know, when somebody calls in a phony crime that's happening at a house to send a SWAT team there, hoping that somebody gets shot.

1:24:10Popok:All these things happen. And so those are that and the political rhetoric and the way that Donald Trump turns up the heat against people like these poor FBI agents are grounds to keep them anonymous. Generally in criminal cases and in civil cases, we bend over backwards under our rule of law to have everything in the open and in the public. You get indicted in the public, not by some star chamber, some secret chamber. You get indicted in the public. You get to clear your name in the public. And things that are filed in the case or happen in the case are generally available to the public. It's one of the great ways I'm able to do my job because I'm able to access.

1:24:48Popok:I mean, I think it's also because I have a fair amount of legal background and training and experience, but I'm also able to get access to the things that are filed on the court docket. Sometimes they're redacted for various different reasons. And sometimes those reasons change and the black tape comes off and we get to see, oh, that's what got filed back four months ago. Sometimes I start my reporting with, we didn't know it, but three months ago, the following motion was filed. It's because it was redacted. It was hidden. It was sealed from public view. But generally things are not. My gut is he's going to keep it as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 for the very good and meritorious reasons that are outlined in Liz's motion.

1:25:31Popok:Then it gets assigned to a judge once the anonymous part is resolved. And these cases are important just to show you how corrupt the Trump administration is. You know, they use Chuck Grassley, the 92 year old senator, to try to out many of these FBI agents. There was a list that early on we reported on that Donald Trump's FBI had or Donald Trump's DOJ through Emil Bovee, now a Third Circuit Court of Appeals judge, had the FBI that was then headed by somebody not named Kash Patel. It was then by a senior administrator who was not aligned with the Trump administration, ordered him to prepare a list of all the people that worked on the Trump case.

1:26:18Popok:Well, we knew what they were going to do with that list, right? That's the enemy's list. When all of that happened, that list and documents about Arctic Frost got brought over to Chuck Grassley. Chuck Grassley dumped it into the public domain and buried in there are the names of these two people. I mean, I know that from the reporting. I'm not here to out them or connect the dots. And certainly I didn't ask Liz that during our video because I would never do that. But this is where the Trump administration, working hand in glove with MAGA senators and congresspeople, this is where they are. And this is why we call it out.

1:26:57Popok:We platform these kinds of stories so that you understand it. One last programming note here as we end the show. So on Monday at 10 a.m., the Supreme Court is holding oral argument concerning Election Day in its definition, concerning your mail-in ballot, your absentee ballot. Because if they rule in favor of MAGA, that Election Day is Election Day, and there goes mail-in ballots, right? There goes mail-in ballots, certainly ones that come in after Election Day that are postmarked on the day of. And the Democrats argue this isn't about fraud. As long as the person's intention to vote is demonstrated before or on the day of the election, that's what matters.

1:27:48Popok:When the post office or somebody delivers it, it shouldn't be left to the vagaries of the United States Postal Service as to whether my constitutional right to vote is being undermined or not. That sounds like a very good and logical argument. The Republicans are like, no, make everybody wait in line. They'd love to get rid of mail-in balloting outright. And this would be the first step. Make everybody wait in line on one day. Get rid of computers, get rid of optical readers, have everybody fill out pieces of paper. Why don't we use a carrier pigeon? Why don't we use smoke signals? Why don't we make it harder with more barriers to vote?

1:28:24because the Republicans want to take away your vote.

1:28:29Popok:They call it vote fraud, vote fraud and voter integrity. It's not, it's voter suppression. It's taking away your vote. Democrats don't want fraud and we've never had fraud of any outcome determinative nature in our country. Fraud in our electorate is 0.0004%, no, 1%, 0.0001%. It happens in the entire state of Georgia, eight out of tens of millions of ballots were found to be fraudulent. You know, there's entities that look into these things after everybody signs a penalty of perjury that they're not committing voter fraud. Then it's investigated afterwards. Eight in the entire state. So what are we talking about?

1:29:16Popok:Even if you multiply that across 50 states, you're talking about three or 400 ballots out of 100 million cast? This is not outcome determinative. Democrats are in favor of lowering the barriers to entry, making voting easier, not fraudulent, easier, you know, ATM machine, okay? Longer hours, longer early voting days or more early voting days, drop boxes, and, you know, other things. Every time we raise one of those issues, the Republicans say, fraud, this is, it's not fraud. There's no fraud. State of Washington, all they do is drop in ballots. There's no voting in person and it works just fine.

1:30:00Popok:So that's just a Republican red herring to use the F word of fraud to try to steal your vote. Democrats are onto it, Legal AF and Midas Touch are onto it, and Democratic leaders are onto it. Now, let's see if the Supreme Court is onto it or not. So we'll know relatively early. I'll do a briefing around 9.30, 9.45 Eastern time on Monday to start the live feed, but then we'll have the live feed with the nine justices. Yeah. Solicitor, it's going to be the state of, I think, the state of Louisiana or Texas, and then opposing groups, and then the Trump administration wants to be heard from. So it's going to be a couple hour hearing, but we'll know right away on voting and balloting where the justices stand.

1:30:52Popok:And I'll be able to report back to you here on Legal AF, the podcast, Legal AF, the YouTube channel, Legal AF, the sub stack. Have I left anything out? Legal, Wednesday night, Legal AF, all kidding aside, Again, it is heartwarming and rewarding that our audience has been such fervent supporters of everything we've done from day one and has grown with us to make us the top rated law and politics podcast in the world, in America, certainly. And regularly, as we said, top ranked. But that's not because, I mean, it would just be Karen, me and Ben talking regularly, you know, or kibitzing. But the fact that you're here with us and that you matter to us and we matter to you, that's what's important.

1:31:39Popok:That is what's going to be the driving force into the midterms and beyond. We just need to keep it together. We need to stay together. And we need to, as we are, resonate on that same frequency, learn the information. We curate it for you so you can get it firsthand. And then that gives you what you need knowledge-wise. to, to debate, to make your own decisions and then to debate this in the, around the kitchen table, around your social media, in the public square of ideas. That's what matters. That's, you know, an educated voter is what we're looking for. Educated and voter going hand in glove.

1:32:22Popok:Glad you're here with us. Ben Mysalus will be back next Saturday with me. And of course, all of his hot takes over on the, on here on the MyStutch Network. I'm Michael Popak. Catch me on Legal AF YouTube channel. Catch me here on the Midas Touch Network and on our Legal AF Substack. And I thank each and every one of you. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.

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