Legal AF - 3/28/26

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32:09Experience the most trusted magnesium for purity, potency, and performance. Plus, it's non-GMO, vegan, and gluten-free, making it a choice you can feel good about. Go to qualialife.com slash Legal AF for 50 % off. And here's a bonus. Use the code Legal AF for an additional 15 % off your order. That's Q-U-A-L-I-A life.com slash Legal AF. And then use code Legal AF. Thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. Welcome back to Legal AF. thank you to all of our sponsors the discount code for all of those sponsors is in the description below you know what i want to talk about we'll talk about epstein in in a moment and the indy deposition the con deposition the hard drives i think it's important that we touch upon this but i i just want to start by talking about the story that politico broke about how the acting ice chief Todd Lyons has reportedly been hospitalized twice for stress while carrying out these ICE Gestapo kidnappings and throwing people in concentration camps.

33:19Officials saying the intense pressure, especially getting yelled at by Stephen Miller, has affected his ability to think straight. He's described as always being sweaty and red faced and nervous and that he's like frozen in time and doesn't really know what to do because he's so worried about getting yelled at and he's so stressed out about his job. Part of the story is they say that they carry around a defibrillator around him because they're afraid that when he has these panic attacks, you know, he'll pass out and he won't be able to breathe. I'm not making that up. That's in the story as well.

33:57And so it's a story about the head of ICE who has constant panic attacks. They get so bad, he gets hospitalized because the stress of his job is too much for him to bear. Okay, Popak, why, you know, look, let me, let's be very clear. You know, I treat the medical diagnoses part seriously, and I don't want to mock people's medical conditions. However, however, but the famous but when it comes to Todd Lyons, when it comes to ice that have killed people that have thrown people into concentration camps where it doesn't even get enough attention. how many people died last year, dozens and dozens and dozens, over 50, 50, 60 people or so died last year, over a dozen people murdered, this is called murder, not died, murdered in concentration camps last year, that we know of.

34:55I bet you the number is actually higher, because we're always learning about more people. This year, about a dozen people murdered in the concentration camps, more murdered on the street, whether it's Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, one of the reasons why I also I think there's no Kings protest. You know, it's just like enough of this. These killers, these these fascist killers who are just killing our people, who are killing our people on the streets. One of the things I said during the I Heart speech when we won that award, I was just saying, like, we got to stand up and call out these killers and call them killers.

35:29We can't both sides these issues or, you know, respect in this historical moment. But, you know, we talk about all of these, you know, these cases. But I mean, just this morning there was a case. I'll try to pull it up where a federal judge in Texas, you know, issued an order where they ordered the DOJ that like unlawfully deported somebody to Mexico and then rerouted the person to Guatemala when there was a stay away. There was a specific order that said you could deport the guy, but not to Guatemala. You know, it's kind of like a Brigo Garcia. You could deport the guy, but not to El Salvador.

36:06So you bring him to El Salvador where he can die. You could deport the guy, but not to Guatemala. You deport the guy to Guatemala. You know, there was a story that Politico ran this week as well. And Kyle Cheney does a really good job on this, reporting on this, that talked about all of the cases where the Trump regime, right before this war in Iran, was working with the Ayatollah. Trump regime was partnering with the Ayatollah in order to deport Iranian democracy followers, asylum seekers, back to Iran where they were likely killed. We don't know the ending story of all of these Iranians who were sent back to Iran who were seeking asylum here.

36:46But there were many, many, many Iranians came to America to flee the Ayatollah who Trump worked with the Ayatollah. I mean, it wasn't Trump directly. It was ICE and the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard Corps in there and sent him back to Iran. And one of the ways we learned about this, there were some hearings this week where individuals were still supposed to be deported to Iran. And the judge would ask, well, so what are you doing? And then the Trump DOJ said there are airport closure. I kid you not. This was literally what they said. There are now airport closures, recent airspace closures and airport closures in Iran.

37:27So we currently won't be able to effectuate the deportation. So you have this ice torturer, Todd Lyons. I mean, can you make this up, Popak, if you wrote this in some dystopian Shakespearean thing who goes out there, plays tough guy, and then privately they carry a defibrillator around because the guy suffers from frequent panic attacks because he gets yelled at by Stephen Miller. Popak, Popak, Popak, Popak, make some sense. in it. Sure. It makes some sense of it all. We can just talk about Epstein. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, Todd Lyons has, and we don't, we don't feel sorry for the guy. I'm, I'm not begrudging him having a medical condition, but you know, it, it also reminds me of the Scarlet Letter.

38:16I mean, is he, is the problem here is because he's carrying so much stress because of the illegal and unconstitutional and lawless rogue things that his department is doing. I mean, just to turn something on its head, now that we've seen Greg Bovino's true stripes, who's stepped down as the head of the Border Patrol, now that he's out, he looks like a complete lunatic now that he's no longer in the office. He was crazy when he was in the office. He's even worse now that he's being interviewed, now that he's resigned or been pushed out. Same kind of thing for Todd Lyons, to see that these are the people and their true colors and their true problems that are running these major institutions that at the end, the byproduct of which is Americans and others are being maimed, beaten, killed, murdered, assassinated in the streets.

39:09I think, you know, when Scott McFarlane joined Midas to be its Washington bureau chief and anchor and daily reporter in Washington, Trump had Brendan Carr, the head of the FCC, say, you know, same job, different duty station or whatever, you know, lateral move because he came over to Midas. I'm like, well, I could flip it on its head and say, now that we see these people for what they really are, and the screen has been pulled off, the mask has been pulled off, the Greg Bovinos or the Todd Lyons of the world, we see why these organizations are so depraved and corrupted and don't have any leadership at all.

39:54Todd Lyons, just to remind everybody, is also the author, or he signed at least, the memo from May that tried to destroy the Fourth Amendment and its protections against you being illegally searched and seized in your homes and in your papers, you know, by having somebody knock down the front door and violate your castle keep. He rewrote, probably because Stephen Miller wrote it for him. He's now outed Stephen Miller. It's amazing how many people on their way out of the administration yell over their shoulder about the gremlin Stephen Miller. Kristi Noem, two weeks before she was fired. I didn't want to do it.

40:34I'm just answering to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. Todd Lyons. Stephen Miller makes me make bad decisions. I'm not blaming it on Trump, but Stephen Miller. They all think that that's some sort of savior for them. Todd Lyons writes that memo. He's had to now defend it. Congress is all over him about it. Judges are all over him about it. But we've had judges like Judge Schultz, the chief judge in Minnesota, the home of the kickoff No Kings Day today, as it should be, rightfully so, given it was ground zero for the unlawful rogue conduct assassinated to Americans on the streets. Also where Don Lemon and St.

41:17Paul, where Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested and are being prosecuted by this lawless Department of Justice, corrupted one. Judge Schiltz said, I got an idea. Since you continue to violate hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of orders in the month of January and February and March alone in this district, you release the person that I've ordered released under habeas corpus rights. Or you can have Todd Lyons, the head of your department, show up in my courtroom on an order to show cause and testify. And every time the Trump administration has had one of their senior people ordered to appear for testimony, they've chickened out tail between their legs and folded.

41:58That's a lesson to the federal judiciary as they're trying to come up with new and creative tools for their tool bag about how to handle the Trump administration. First year was like, what do we do? Can we use contempt? Should we? Second year is like, okay, now we're going to start ordering people like Alina Haba to appear in court unless the following things happen. And now every time the Trump administration has folded, they didn't want Todd Lyons testifying. They didn't want Alina Haba testifying. They didn't want Todd Blanche testifying in the Abrego Garcia case in Tennessee. This is the new magic trick that the federal judges have adopted.

42:38But the fact that I've been covering with you, I've been covering law and politics here on Midas for six years. I've been an avid follower of all things related to the presidency since it was in college and it was part of my major. Pardon me. I've never heard of a leader within the administration basically having a nervous breakdown in public and them having to admit to it that they're carrying around defibrillators. I mean, when a presidential candidate in the 60s admitted to going to psychotherapy and crying, that tanked his entire career. Now we have people admitting they're having nervous breakdowns because of the stress.

43:26Think about it. We've always, as observers, because we're outside the beehive, right? Even with Scott McFarlane hanging out in the halls of Congress and the Senate and everything, we're outside the beehive, the beehive being the Trump administration. But can you imagine what it's like to be inside this beehive with a cracked queen, Queen Bee and Donald Trump and the pressure between these out of control, lawless boot jacks like Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth? And you imagine having to work under these people. And now we see the end result. It's just a byproduct of when you have a corrupt administration, Department of Justice, Homeland Security, Department of Defense.

44:06We're seeing the byproducts. We're talking about it on the show. The Iran war and the ineptitude in its execution. Right. And what the plan was about a 90 million person country. And that has backfired. It's it's how he's handling the economy. It's how he's handling the immigration migration policy. And Americans are fully awake. You know, we're out. I don't know what slumber, what field of poppies that the Trump administration thought we fell into in the first year. But as we talk about and connect back always to the King's Day marches, American, look at the polling numbers that came out this week, Ben.

44:49You're talking about 30. This is Fox News. Fox News, his approval rating is 40 percent. And I think that's being kind. 60 % of America on Fox has completely rejected him. And if you go down the line of all the things that make up all the third rails that make up his administration, immigration policy, affordability, the economy, it's even worse. It's even worse. And there's no way out, to paraphrase a political phrase, there's no way out for Donald Trump between now and the midterms. If it is a fait accompli, if the American people vote and vote in their interest consistent with what they're observing about this administration, it will be a wipeout election for Donald Trump and MAGA consistent with all the special elections and other elections that we've seen over the last year and a half.

45:41My prediction, based on all the modeling that I've seen, the economy, the wrong direction, right direction, consumer confidence, the GDP, all the other things that go into having a heartless president as well, this could be a 240, 250-seat victory in the House. And the Senate, which you and I sort of like, hmm, I wonder if we could ever get the Senate back at the start of the administration. Not only is the Senate in play, I'm not saying we're going to get 60 votes. But I think if, again, if we register, if we vote any way we're allowed to vote and not be intimidated by it, and the streets of America are telling Trump we're not intimidated to vote and stand in line, then the 55, 56, 57 votes in the House, in the Senate as well, real possibilities.

46:33You know, using a legal analytical framework that we do here on Legal AF and not a political commentary framework has helped us seem like we're predicting the future when in fact we're just providing the evidence of the present. because political commentary often delves into presenting imagery and spin and creating, you know, these conflicting narratives where even if you like one of the narratives because it benefits your point of view, is not fully accurate and achievable, but you have these budding narratives. When you use a legal analytical framework like we do with Unlegal AF, it's not about, oh, you're reporting what the Iranian foreign minister is saying, so you must hate the American troops.

47:32Quite the contrary. What I'm trying to find out is, is Iran broken? Does it no longer have military capabilities, as Trump says? Do they not control the Strait of her moves. Trump says everything's obliterated. Does that line up with the evidence? And when it doesn't line up with the evidence, I try to gather the data and make explanations why it doesn't line up with the evidence. That's what Popak does. That's what they do on the Legal AF YouTube channel. When it does align with the evidence, I will say that it lines up with the evidence. Now, to your point, Michael Popak, when we talk about a lot of these situations that we're dealing with now, surging inflation, a shrinking GDP, a jobs recession, manufacturing jobs that are being lost, not gained.

48:26Remember, the Trump narrative that the media regurgitated was all of this money's coming in,$18 trillion,$21 trillion. We are having all this money pour in from Donald Trump's trips abroad. And using the legal analytical framework, we ask basic questions. Where is this money? Does the Treasury Department have it? We don't see it. Why does our debt continue to increase at the rate it does? We just hit, what,$39 trillion in debt last week. Why does the deficit continue to increase and not shrink? Federal spending continues to rise when the whole purpose of this fake Doge thing was supposed to decrease it.

49:07We were promised doge rebate checks, tariff checks, all these things that the American consumers weren't getting, those things didn't happen. We know from basic economics 101 that tariffs are inflationary. And we could easily predict that when you have these tariffs. Sure, a lot of American companies, I think, were doing their best to wait out the Supreme Court ruling on Trump's tariffs against the world. And the Supreme Court deemed them to be illegal. but then Donald Trump did another illegal move and said, okay, we'll do the Trade Act of 1974. We won't use IEPA, which is equally illegal as IEPA was, to which the companies basically were like, well, we can't hold the line anymore because we were just hoping we can lose money quarter one, quarter two, by not passing on so much to the consumer, even though it was being passed, lot was being passed on to the consumer.

50:04We can't hold the ground anymore or we're going to go bankrupt. But that's why we saw the increase in bankruptcies taking place at a record rate. You could also look at the increased foreclosures. You could also look at credit card delinquencies. You can look at the fact that housing sales are down. You can look at the fact that construction is down right now. And there's all these indicators out there of what's happening without this war. And now, even if the war ended, even if the war said was done today, right now, an hour from now, everyone said the war is over. The supply shock that's already occurred is such that we'll have a massive ripple on the economy, not just for years to come, for decades to come, right?

50:50I mean, if you look at the fact that Qatar Energy, The biggest producer, one of the biggest producers of liquefied natural gas, their facilities were 20 % destroyed. They account for 20 % of the world's LNG. That is a massive disruption that won't be fixed for three to five years. The LNG has to come from somewhere. That's one of the areas it was coming from, and that will have a massive ripple effect. Like if you said that that occurred without a war, that in and of itself could be one of these contagions that spread and that lead to kind of a widespread. Can I throw one more in on that note?

51:27Yeah. If the price of a barrel of oil measured by what we call the Brent Oil Index is at 109 leaving Friday, if it goes to 138, not even the 200 that is likely by June if this war continues, just to$138, this is analysts, and stays there for a month, a U.S. recession is guaranteed. I think, as you do, we're already in one. And when economists, which they often do, look back with 2020 hindsight as to this quarter in American history, it will be that that's when the recession started. all to blame because of Donald Trump. He was handed, as we've talked about before, he was handed a stable, job-creating, low-inflation, trending in the right direction economy on a silver platter by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

52:28And he promptly threw it into the manure pile and decided to rebuild the economy and global relationships along with it in his own image and those of the plutocrats and billionaires and trillionaires around him in order as part of yet another example of his vindication retribution campaign. And then see if that would work. Like, let's just totally unplug all the inputs into the American economy and all the outputs and change them in a year and see if that works. It was working before. And I am so tired. I'll just leave it on this, Ben. I am so tired of American presidencies, the Democrats coming into the American presidency, having to clean up after a failed Republican presidency and not getting the credit for it.

53:18So Obama has to come in and stop the closure of American car manufacturing and the banking system as we know it coming off of George Bush with trillions of dollars, up to it would be a trillion dollars in today's money. Joe Biden has to come in after Donald Trump, spend three to five trillion dollars to restart the heart of the American economy to create new jobs again after COVID. And now the next American president that's going to have a D next to their name is going to have to pick up the pieces from this economy with a debt and deficit that will have lasting impacts, as you said, contagions into the future for your, my daughter and future children.

54:04But again, the Democrats always have to start cleaning up the stable from a erratic, not logical economic policy that crushes the American dream. And then we start from there. You know, but it's also why I think the framework of analysis is an important thing that I hope the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF and the family of channels that work with us are utilizing not the same old media style. because the same old media style, a Democrat comes in and there's a whole set of different standards that apply. To me, the standard that should apply to Democratic, Republican administrations regardless is just the truth and the facts and actually following the details.

54:54I mean, it's maybe a little bit boring to report on the fact that helium production is down or fertilizer production is down or fertilizer that's already been bought is not making its way into the United States. But when you actually learn that helium is a critical component in how you get your MRIs, and now we have to triage helium usage because, you know, we could be having a situation where MRIs may not be able to be done in the future. We're not at that pivotal level yet, but I think it's important that we make these connections. And I don't need to have a split screen of people yelling at each other and fighting each other, you know, over certain things, you know, to get to the heart of it.

55:39You know, I did something interesting earlier this morning. I had a debate with a guy named Chris Voss. He's the, he's like a top FBI hostage negotiator who wrote this book, Never Split the Difference. And, you know, I read his book in 2019. And, you know, it was a little disheartening to me as a Chris, someone who liked his book in 2019 and his analytical approach that, you know, he seemed to be making a lot of excuses for Trump. So I brought him on the network just to have a debate with him. And a lot of the things that he was saying is, well, Trump says, and Whitcoff says, and this person said this, and this person said that.

56:13I go, yeah, but they're complete and total liars. Like you realize that everything they say is untruthful. And one of the points that he made that I countered is he said, well, you know, the hostage taker is, you know, when you have to make a deal with the hostage taker, you know, sometimes, you know, you could come up with like a transactional approach to try to resolve the problem. And I said, well, the hostage negotiator and the hostage taker shouldn't be on the same team, right? Like ultimately the goal of a hostage situation is to get the hostage taker to stand down and to free the hostages, not to find a way to build an enterprise to work with the hostage taker to make money off the hostages and compromise the value of the FBI.

56:56Like the FBI is not finding joint ventures with it. You know, you look at what the U S is doing, whether it's with Delce Rodriguez, what Trump thought he can do with Iran, like Trump's, I guess was that he and the Ayatollah would become partners. Right. And they would like make money and billions of dollars with the, like he thought that he can do what he's doing with MBS, with the Ayatollah. And, and they're saying, no, we don't, it's not what we want. You, you, you completely misunderstand, you know, our country, the history of it and the dynamic that's playing out. And now from all accounts, Trump's frustrated and he's bored.

57:29So this morning he was posting, you know, Letitia James memes and attacking her and saying, we got her under investigation again and 2020 election things and attacks on Zelensky. And it's like, dude, what are you doing? Like, what, what, what, what, what is this? What is this behavior that you're exhibiting? So anyway, the short of it is, is that to me, when you use a legal analytical framework to see things that you look at the evidence and you're not debating politically, you're just sharing evidence and gathering data. And if you have better data than me, like, like, you know, with Chris Voss, if you have better data than me and say the Strait of Hormuz is open and that Iran's not actually using Shahi drones and ballistic missiles around the neighbors and that America's interceptor stockpile is not fully reduced and destroyed.

58:14Like if you, If that exists, you know, share with me. But I don't need to say he said or she said or they said. I want to know what the facts say. So with that said, what do the facts say about where we are in the Epstein investigation? Michael Popak has not let up. He's not allowed Trump's distractions to impact the constant and consistent reporting on Trump's cover up of a child sex trafficking ring with his Department of Justice. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about Todd Blanche's comments at that CPAC a little bit more. We'll take our last break of the show. A quick reminder, make sure you subscribe here to our YouTube channel, but more importantly, subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel.

58:57Let's get Legal AF 2 million subscribers. In addition to getting Legal AF 2 million subscribers, subscribe to Legal AF on Substack as well. That Substack Legal AF is just absolutely crushing you right now. Subscribe there. Also, if you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident, you've been injured by the negligence of others. If you know someone who tragically was killed by the negligence of a company or in a car accident or crash and the family's looking for a lawyer, call or text 877-POPOC-AF or visit thepopocfirm.com. A free consultation. Michael Popoc's firm represents so many people who listen to this program and who watch him on the Legal AF YouTube channel.

59:36Don't be shy. It's a free consultation. the worst they'll say is that you don't have a case and i'm sure you know somebody who's been looking for a lawyer or who's been you know gone through something difficult or you or someone you know in your family may be experiencing that reach out 877 popoc af or visit thepopocfirm.com available 24 7 and in all states throughout the united states they have people ready to answer your questions for free they'll answer your questions in the initial consultation all right let's take our last quick break of the show popoc you'll break it down when we're back See you soon after this quick break.

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1:02:10Everything is always fresh, never frozen, ready in about two minutes. No prep, no stress. I use this and you should too. Head to factormeals.com slash legal AF50 off and use code LEGALAF50OFF to get 50 % off and free breakfast for a year. Eat like a pro this month with Factor. New subscribers only varies by plan. One free breakfast item per box for one year while subscription is active. Legal AF is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The First Amendment isn't ambiguous and it isn't optional. It's clear. government may not establish religion and it may not favor one belief system over another.

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1:03:36If you care about the Constitution, the rule of law, and a government that works for all of us, not just the loudest or most powerful, now is the time to act. Visit ffrf.us slash legal AF or text the word legal AF to 511-511 to learn more and join. Go to ffrf.us slash legal AF or text legal AF to 511-511 and help protect a country that belongs to all of us. Go to ffrf.us slash legal AF or text Legal AF to 511-511 today. Message and data rates may apply. Welcome back to the Legal AF podcast. I'm Michael Popok, and I'm going to fill in here and get us to the finish line as my podcast partner and founder, Ben Mycelis, had a conflict.

1:04:29But let's get right down to all things Epstein. No, to answer that question that's often posed is the three million pieces of documents that Donald Trump finally released from the executive branch of what is evidence of the predator child sex trafficking of the crime and death.

1:05:03is and always has been a resounding no. And the more that the House Oversight Committee, and led by the Democrats, bring in witness after witness after witness, including the accountants and the bookkeepers and the money men around Jeffrey Epstein, the more we're discovering just the extent of what is missing, the known unknowns, if you will. We've always suspected, based on testimony, if you will, and interviews given by Michael Wolff, the journalist, who was the last person that Epstein spoke to before whatever happened to him in that jail cell happened, was writing a book about him, had access to his papers, to his pictures, photos, and the rest.

1:05:51We always wondered where, when the FBI seized everything, what happened to the photos that Michael Wolff said he was shown of Donald Trump with a young girl or woman on his lap and that Epstein showed, according to Michael Wolff, Michael Wolff, what happened to those photos? What happened to the hard drives that were seized by the FBI and other things? And why did, even after the seizures, why did the Epstein estate continue to have documents that they were spoon feeding to the oversight committee rather than producing them outright? Why weren't they with the FBI? And now Democrats are demanding more information about what happened to the hard drives and other data and why they were removed and where's the list of them?

1:06:51because we had Darren Indyke, who was the lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein, and he said that Epstein's hard drives had been obtained by private investigators. We also had the accountant, Mr. Kahn, testify about these things as well. Where are the hard drives that were removed from the Epstein residence? So we have that happening. Then you have, just in the last 24 hours, Bank of America joining JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank in making a major settlement, reaching a major settlement with the victims and survivors of the Epstein scandal because of their role in facilitating financially the transactions that kept the child sex trafficking ring alive.

1:07:40In other words, Epstein didn't keep his money under his mattress. There were plenty of enablers, willing or unwilling, who did not do proper onboarding, proper knowing of their customer as required by anti-money laundering laws, bank secrecy laws, the Patriot Act. I worked in a financial institution. I worked closely with the compliance department. I know what good governance and compliance looks like. And you need to know not only your customer, like his name, You have to know what are the sources of these large deposits? Why is Leon Black depositing$175 million into Jeffrey Epstein's account?

1:08:21Why is Les Wexner, who founded the Limited and Victoria's Secrets, why is he putting a billion dollars into Jeffrey Epstein's account? And then after 2008, when the cat was out of the bag and Epstein had to confess at least to participating in child prostitution in a New Jersey claim and in 2009 being indicted and all of that, why did the banks continue to turn a blind eye to whether his business practices were legitimate or not, or whether they were being used to fuel his depraved criminal enterprise? and those participated in by other people. That's why JPMorgan Chase paid a lot more, paid$250 million, and Deutsche Bank paid$75 million, and now Bank of America$72.5 million.

1:09:19So this goes into, after a deductive of about a third for attorney's fees, this goes into various funds administered by a fund administrator that will then go to those survivors that fit the class action definition, class definition. For instance, in the one that just settled yesterday to be approved by a federal judge, it's anybody who was a victim from a defined period of time. I think it's like 2008 to like 2019. And there's at least 60, 60, 60, six zero, probably more women who fit that bill and will be entitled to a part of the$52 million or so that's left after attorney's fees. There's another class action lawsuit independent of the three that I just talked about, giving the victims up to$500 million less attorney's fees in some measure of justice.

1:10:17There's a new one that got filed in the Northern District of California in San Francisco against Google and the Trump administration because of the sloppy way the Trump administration released the three million files pursuant to the Epstein Transparency Act without taking pains to protect the identity and the personal identifying information of the victims, re-victimizing, re-traumatizing them all over again. And when it came to Google, it's worse because they're profiting off of this data from the women and girls at the time's names and personal identifying information. And they did a test and put it into the complaint, the lawyers.

1:11:05They said, we went on AI mode for Google, and we put in a person's name that we knew was a victim. And we asked Google, is this person in the Epstein files? And they said, yes, they are. and then just casually said, they're in 16 emails and an exchange between this, them. Like, are you kidding me? And so, of course, there's ads around that and all sorts of things, Google being also the parent for YouTube. And so they're being sued for profiting off of the depraved failure by the Department of Justice to protect the identities of these victims and re-traumatizing them all over again. and being sued for negligent infliction of emotional distress, Trump administration.

1:11:52And the fact that the Trump administration is being sued also indicates something else. They had the chance to settle this case before the lawsuit was filed. Because before you can sue the United States of America or any arm of it, you have to go through the Federal Tort Claims Act and make a claim and give the government 180 days to consider your claim and decide whether they want to settle with it before you can go into court. So the fact that they just filed means that the government already rejected voluntarily settling with the Epstein victims, re-traumatizing them once again. They have got no problem settling with Michael Flynn, the convicted perjurer, and give him a million dollars, or Ashley Babbitt, who tried to break into the speaker's hallway and do harm to whoever was inside the chambers on Jan 6th and give her family$5 million.

1:12:47But God forbid they do anything and lift a finger to help the Epstein survivors. And that's what that lawsuit that I'm describing is all about. And this is a function of really high-caliber plaintiff's lawyers who are drilling down on these concentric circles of financial and other institutions that enabled Jeffrey Epstein and following the money. This won't be the last class action I'm gonna report on. You know, there were accountants, there were lawyers, there were certified public accountants, there were other vendors that knew or should have known that they were in business and in bed with a child sex trafficker, or at least questioned it.

1:13:33And that's why they're gonna end up having to pay. Now, Google should know better. Because they just lost in the last week in a jury trial in LA brought by a teenager who successfully convinced the jury that her mental health was harmed by the algorithm used by Meta, Facebook, Instagram, and Google, YouTube, and all that in what content they sent her away, which led to her depression, suicidal thoughts, and the like. And a jury, including punitive damages, awarded$9 million. TikTok saw it coming, got out of the way and settled with that family. That's just one person. The class action, it will be all people like Epstein survivors.

1:14:23So if they think this is a joke, juries are in no laughing. It's no laughing matter to juries, and they're not in a good mood about companies like Google and entities like Trump's administration and them being seen to be completely callous when it comes to the survivors of child sex trafficking, especially one that it looks like very sincerely that Trump is covering up about. So we got that going on. And then lastly, Todd Blanche has a knack as the number two lawyer in the Department of Justice, who's often rumored to be the guy that Trump will replace Pam Bondi with as the attorney general. But he has a knack for putting his foot in his mouth and confessing out loud and creating evidence that helps defense lawyers everywhere in cases against the government.

1:15:17I've never seen such a thing before. He doesn't have to attend political rallies. In fact, you'd think the Department of Justice wouldn't attend political rallies if they were truly independent, if they were truly not apolitical. That's what you want your Department of Justice and FBI to be. But we know those days ended when Donald Trump returned to power. We have a political hack heading the FBI and Kash Patel, former right-wing podcaster. his right-hand person was also a right-wing podcaster we've got tulsi gabbard you know we've got pam bondy who is a political hack of the highest highest degree whenever she goes to a comfort uh to a uh an oversight committee hearing she's always she's always got these palm cards where she reads out loud about the success of the trump administration instead of talking about the rule of law and corruption in her own Department of Justice.

1:16:14And so Todd Blanche goes to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee, and he says a remarkable thing, which helps every plaintiff's lawyer that is handling cases against the Trump administration for what's called retaliatory firing, that they're being fired not because they did anything wrong, but because of their being assigned to a Trump case, a Trump investigation, which they had no control over. So Blanche gets up on stage and says, I want the audience to know that everybody in the Department of Justice and FBI that worked on the two criminal investigations that Jack Smith spearheaded against Trump are gone.

1:16:58I'm like, well, that's timely because there's a lawsuit because I brought the lawyer on. there's a lawyer and she and I work, I don't work at a firm, but I'm of counsel to a firm called the the Donya Perry firm, the Perry law firm in New York. And one of their senior lawyers brought a case just in the last week on behalf of two FBI agents who had exemplary records, in fact, got commendations and merit bonuses and awards and all sorts of things. But they were assigned, they didn't volunteer, they were assigned to work on Jack Smith's team for a very short amount of time and got fired. And so if I'm the plaintiff's lawyer, that is in a deposition or a trial better, that is exhibit A.

1:17:42So Blanche killing his own case, he didn't have to go do that interview. He didn't have to say that out loud, but he did. And it's not the only time Top Blanche put his big fat foot in his mouth. We're waiting any day now, because the briefing is complete, for Judge Crenshaw in the Eastern District of Tennessee, who presides over the Kilmer Abrego Garcia criminal case. He's this close to dismissing that indictment and making Abrego a free man completely by finding that the government vindictively prosecuted the case, and there's standards for determining whether vindictive prosecution has happened.

1:18:21But the judge already shifted the burden. Now it's on the government to prove to the judge that they did not vindictive prosecuted because enough evidence was presented by the Brigo Garcia side to demonstrate that there was vindictive, at least there was a probable cause, if you will, to believe that vindictive prosecution occurred. So they met their burden. Now it's up to the government to defeat it. And the number one piece of evidence that the judge, Judge Crenshaw, used to shift the burden back on the government was a clip from Todd Blanche on Laura Ingraham's show, basically confessing that they vindictively prosecuted Abrego Garcia after they got a ruling they didn't like from Judge Zinnis in federal court in Maryland about his civil rights and civil liberties and ordering him be returned from El Salvador and the torture prison there where he was dumped off by the Trump administration without due process.

1:19:18He admitted the vindictive prosecution. And so we're waiting any moment now, and we'll report on Illegal AF and on Midas Touch about Judge Crenshaw's decision. If I was a betting person, I would say Crenshaw is going to dismiss the indictment that the government did not meet its burden. They refuse to put Todd Blanchard on the stand, consistent with what Ben and I talked about earlier tonight. They just refuse to put any leader on the stand because they know that'll go terribly for them because they'll be sworn to tell the truth. You know, it's like it's like the devil entering a church. I'm sure they'll say it burns, it burns and they won't be able to do it.

1:20:00So they just avoid the whole thing. They put on they tried to argue around some terrible emails that indicated that Washington was running the Tennessee prosecution against Abrego Garcia. And I think that's a dead bag loser. And again, Todd Blanche can't help himself by putting his silver foot in his mouth every time. And this is what we're watching because this is an out of gas. This is a gassed administration, intellectually, morally, from a judgment standpoint, because 7 ,000 people left the Department of Justice, and that's a lot, by the way, and not been replaced. the strain and stress on top leadership, the top five or six people is extraordinary.

1:20:46That's why we talked about Todd Lyons, the head of ICE, who's got crying jags going on. It's a good old-fashioned, what my late mother would call a nervous breakdown in plain sight. The reason for that is that they are so stressed out, and it's such an abusive environment inside the Trump administration. Now you understand why the policies are so warped and corrupted, because they're being warped and corrupted inside by the human beings who are the leaders, the Stephen Millers, the Russ votes. Pam Bondi, I don't really see as a leader. I think it's Trump screams at Bondi who then, in an unhinged manner, screams at the press or elected officials.

1:21:33I think that's sort of how that goes. But that is on full display with this administration, which is why we always bring it back to the politics part of the law part, which is America is noticing the unhinged, immoral, lawless quality of the Trump administration. And all of the things are just data points that Ben and I have laid out tonight, whether it's inside or outside, whether it's our adversary. I mean, Ben and I joked before we got on the air today that it's a sad state of affairs where I find that I'm trusting more the propaganda coming out of the Iranian regime than I can my own government and its spokespeople about what is really happening or not happening about the war or the ceasefire or peace negotiations.

1:22:32That's a sad state of affairs, one that the Iranians are smartly using to their credit to wage what is effectively an asymmetrical war because they can't beat the American war machine. So they have to outthink and outstrategize, use some cheap drones against the billion dollar bumper bucks busters, hit strategic and tactical targets, you know, and look like the more reasonable and logical of the two parties to the rest of the world. I never thought I'd be saying this, and I'm not an apologist for the Iranian regime, but as between the two, who looks more logical and reasonable as a stakeholder in the negotiations?

1:23:19You can put it in chat. But the American people understand that the Iranian war has only weakened the American position around the world, that the world now knows that the emperor not only has no clothes, but is cracked. It has gone bonkers. And that has weakened our national security. The war in Iran and setting the Middle East on fire and making our allies in the Middle East not trust us makes us as Americans less safe, not more safe. And the fact that it's one thing to threaten war and maybe strategically hit a nuclear facility here and there. It's another thing to show that you have no appropriate war strategy and that the world and your enemies start laughing at you, and that makes us very insecure.

1:24:08If Trump doesn't think this is emboldening Putin and North Korea and China to continue to test America under Donald Trump, I mean, then I don't know what he's watching. Putin is rubbing his hands in glee, watching an outmatched Donald Trump be outfoxed by the Iranians. You know, any chimpanzee could drop the bomb. Yeah, that's not hard. You can train anybody to push the button, control a drone. What's your strategy? What's your tactics? What's your end game? What's the exit? These are all unanswered questions because we're watching an administration that's run by infants. You know, that's no disservice to infants, but that's what we're watching.

1:25:00And that's why, to tie it and wrap it up here at the end of the show, No Kings Day, so important today, so honored that many of the No Kings protesters on the streets are people who watch and love and find community and fellowship on Midas Touch, on Legal AF. we do all that we do every minute of the day. For the minute I get up in the morning and until the minute my head hits the pillow at night, all I do is think about how to connect with, educate, activate our audience and do it in an honest way with honest independent commentary, without censorship so that you have what you need on the street, in your social media, around your kitchen table, at work, if that's still allowed, to debate what is right and what is wrong, because there is a right and a wrong, what is factual and what is a lie, and in the marketplace of ideas, in our participatory democracy, which is a contact sport.

1:26:14And I don't mean that in a violent way. This is what we're watching. The 50, 60 million people over five or six marches, the 10 million people or more today. What we're watching is people understanding that this is a contact sport, that you have to get off the sidelines and you have to get into the streets. It's the Attorney General of Arizona and that of California, Chris Mays and Rob Bonta, refer to it as the three C's. We cover all three C's between the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. It's courts, crowds, and courage, right? Talked a lot about all three C's today. It takes a lot of courage of federal judges, of the person on the street to stand up for their, our patriotism, our values as embodied in our governing documents of the Constitution and the, including the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.

1:27:26These are our governing documents. It takes a lot of courage to defend those and our rule of law from the vantage point of being a judge. But it takes even more courage to be one of 10 million people today to go into the streets against all odds and maybe a National Guard and maybe an ICE or Border Patrol or whatever other obstacles have broken out. This peaceful movement, which Midas has helped not create, but helped organize, I guess is the right way, or to have a place, a consistent place, a consistent home that lives on beyond the three or four times a year that we're able to all get together on the street.

1:28:08That is the beauty of this audience, of its commitment to Midas and Midas's commitment back to them. and by extension, of course, Legal AF. We didn't get to mention it at the top of the show, but this is the sixth year anniversary of Midas Touch's podcast. This is the fifth year, almost to the same day, fifth year anniversary of the show we call Legal AF, which you're on right now. If you back it up to when Ben and I started doing legal and political reporting together as a team, it's really also the sixth year. Some of you have been with us for the five and six years. Some of you are new tonight.

1:28:48And yet we welcome all of you to this amazing audience that gives us such pride and such a chill down our spine every time we do a video, we do a live report, or we do our podcast. and so pleased that you're here for us as we continue to grow this pro-democracy channel and that of Legal AF. The way, of course, to support what we do, become a subscriber on the Midas Touch Network, become a subscriber on Legal AF YouTube. I think this weekend we're gonna go to 1.1 million subscribers, which is fantastic. I got some great content, goes up 12 videos a day, little programming guide for the Legal AF YouTube.

1:29:34channel. This coming week, I'm going to have Representative Jamie Raskin, who is, of course, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee. He'll be joining me. Representative Summer Lee will be joining me. She's on the oversight committees about the Epstein matter as well. I think you're going to find what she has to say fascinating as we continue to grow that. Scott McFarlane, who just joined as the Washington Bureau Chief and anchor for Midas Touch is going to be doing some crossover episodes and programming with me over on Legal AF YouTube channel, on The Intersection, my podcast on Tuesday nights, exclusively on the Midas Touch network, and on Legal AF Substack, where I do two lives a day.

1:30:19Yes, I do. You're doing one, you already had one today with me on Substack, and Scott McFarlane will be joining me regularly on Substack. I'm running a special No King's Day sale in honor of our fifth or sixth anniversary. 35 % off on Legal AF Substack paid membership. We'll certainly give you a return on your investment for your support. Of course, we've got our great pro-democracy sponsors all hand-picked and curated by Jordy Bicellis over on the Brothers Podcast. So appreciate you being here. thanks for a lively set of chats tonight and for your participation if you're able to in No King's Day until my next report and for Ben Mysalus shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers

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