Legal AF 3/5/2026

22:03Lisa Graves:But this is that's what's happening here. And, you know, the Constitution of the United States starts with Article one. And Article one, they found the framers of the Constitution started it with Congress, right? Because they didn't want it to be the president, because they didn't want the president, they wanted to move away from a king, they wanted to move away from having this all powerful, unitary executive. So they said, you know, we're going to make Congress the first article, the most, in some ways, the most important or equally as important as anything else. And Article 2, you know, it goes from there from the courts and to the presidency.

22:40Lisa Graves:And, you know, the president's Article 2 and the court's Article 3. And they did that by design. And Article 1 says Congress has the power to declare war, raise and fund the military, and regulate the armed forces. And Article 2 says that the president is the commander-in-chief of the military. So he can direct military operations. He can respond quickly to threats and defend the United States forces or territory. But he can't declare war. Now, of course, that's a little wishy-washy because you can bomb people without declaring war. And that's how people justify it. So in 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution Act that was enacted after the Vietnam War to try to limit unilateral presidential wars.

23:28Lisa Graves:And it basically says you can act without prior congressional approval if there's an attack on the United States, an attack on United States forces or an emergency requiring immediate action. But Congress has to be notified within 48 hours, which Trump did with a formal report. And military action must stop after 60 days, if not authorized by Congress. And again, Trump has justified going to war and creating this emergency by giving different justifications, not all of which are consistent. And here we are in this situation where we have Congress trying to push a resolution to stop it. But even if they get enough votes to do it, he can override it.

24:14Lisa Graves:He can veto it. And I think that's where we're going to see ourselves in the coming days. But Lisa, what is your take on what's going on in Iran and this whole situation? And what can we do to stop Trump from dragging us into a war that nobody wanted, World War III? I mean, he ran on the platform of no foreign wars, America first. And there's a lot of MAGA people, not just Republicans, but MAGA people who are really ticked off about this because this is not what they voted for. another Middle Eastern or other foreign war. So Lisa, I'd love to hand it over to you.

24:52Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Thanks, Karen. Well, you know, I really appreciate your grounding this in the Epstein files because the timing of it, I just don't believe Trump's claims about the necessity of doing it just now. I think that this is another way in which this president has wielded the power of the presidency to try to shape the news, to serve himself, not necessarily to serve the interests of the American people. That may be a controversial thing to say, but as you point out, Trump said just months ago that his unilaterally bombing of Iranian nuclear sites was successful, and that the intel they had was that it was super successful, and that the threat of a nuclear program from Iran had been mitigated.

25:35Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Now, of course, that comes after Donald Trump threw out the agreement that had been negotiated with Iran, made a big deal of throwing it out. This was, you know, in the previous administration, and then, you know, did not have an agreement, a specific agreement in place that would go beyond the previous weapons inspections. But I think that, you know, unfortunately, given the actions of Trump, I think it has to be seen as this is partly about getting Trump's role in the Epstein files off the headlines. And that's really sad. You know, it's really awful to think that we would have a president that would put soldiers in harm's way, in part because he wants to do a war of choice at his whim, and that it is serving his interest, both his interest in changing the narrative, which is what something he's obsessed with, is what, you know, can he control the headlines?

26:31Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And also setting up a circumstance in which he can try to assert that we're in an emergency, we're in war, and so we don't have to have elections, we shouldn't have elections, even though America had elections in 1944, when thousands and thousands of our troops were engaged in war in two theaters, in the Pacific theater and in Europe against Hitler and against Japan and their allies. And so the idea that America cannot conduct an election just because we're at war is not true, hasn't been true through all the wars America has been involved in, in, you know, in our lifetime and beyond. But also, it is the case that you have a White House that thinks it can just assert emergency or assert emergency powers at whim, at will, whether there's an actual emergency or not, as a way to get what they want.

27:24Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Congress is debating a resolution on Iran right now. Obviously, Trump loyalists control both houses of Congress, so we don't know how that's going to come out. They may very well end up voting in favor of this war in Iran. You know, Iran has had these leaders, these ayatollahs, both Khomeini and Khomeini, basically for decades now. And they have engaged in repression of their citizens' rights. They have engaged in executions. Their regimes have executed people, just people who dissent or people who violate their religious dictates in terms of women and LGBTQ Iranians. And so, you know, it certainly is a repressive regime, but there are a lot of repressive regimes in the world.

28:12Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And the United States has said, and not always followed through, but said it's not going to be the world's policeman. And that if we're going to go to war, we need to have a plan to win that war and to exit that war. And we saw the folly of this just 25 years ago, when George W. Bush took us not only into war in Afghanistan in search of al-Qaeda in the aftermath of the terrorist acts of 9-11, but also lied us into a war in Iraq, lied about the reasons for that war. We lost tens of thousands of American citizens in that war. Hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq were displaced, and civilians and military people were killed in addition to Islam Hussein.

28:59Karen Friedman Agnifilo:We weren't welcomed with open arms coming into the streets as Paul Bremer and And, you know, Bush's Defense Department leader, you know, said we would be. We were not welcomed the way Dick Cheney asserted, in essence, we would be. And that lie cost us billions, billions of dollars and the lost lives of so many Americans in a situation in which there was not an actual plan for how to get in and get out. And I'm pretty certain right now when we're looking at what's happening in Iran, there is no actual real plan, no real exit strategy, or what are the terms of victory. So, you know, right now we're seeing speculation that the son of the leader who Trump just had killed could be the leader of Iran imminently or, you know, as the Iranian government works.

29:52Karen Friedman Agnifilo:You know, I'm not sure that it's the best outcome for someone whose father was killed to then be leading the determination of whether we're going to have a peaceful relationship with this country or not. It seems like not a good outcome. But on the other hand, you know, the United States post Nixon, post, you know, what the CIA was involved in in Chile with Pinochet, post actually the U.S. government along with the U.K. in the late 1950s, you know, destroying the democratic movement in Iran in order to preserve the oil access and prop up the Shah in Iran in the 50s. Like we have tried in the most recent decades to not have a policy of assassinating the leaders of other countries.

30:36Karen Friedman Agnifilo:But look at Trump. He not only has has ordered the killing of the leader of Iran, but he's also sent in troops to seize the leader of Venezuela. He's threatened other countries. And in fact, despite Trump's claims that he's a peace president and deserves the Nobel Prize for Peace, he's invaded or, you know, used troops against, I think, at least eight countries in the span of one year. And so we have a president who's acting unilaterally in matters of war, where the Congress in our Constitution is supposed to be the primary actor, as you point out, Karen, unless the United States itself is attacked.

31:12Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And I'll just conclude on this note, because the rationales being put forward for this war, you know, basically change by hour by hour. And one of the things that we've seen and that you mentioned is that dozens, dozens of troops have reported that they were told by their commanding officers that we are going into Iran in order to ignite Armageddon, world war, in order to begin the return of Jesus Christ because supposedly Donald Trump was anointed to begin Armageddon. That kind of talk is reckless. It's wrong. It's inappropriate. And it underscores that there is apparently no clear directive, no clear mission.

32:01Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And we have someone at the helm of the Defense Department who has been engaging in an array of disinformation, including claiming that we didn't start this war, when in fact, obviously, Donald Trump did. And we are all going to pay the consequences for it. We are already right now with gas prices jumping up just in the few days since this war was begun by Donald Trump. And I fear that it is a little bit like that movie Wag the Dog, that it is a distraction, but it's a distraction is going to cost Americans their lives and is going to cost us taxpayers an untold amount of money because this is another reckless, thoughtless, capricious act by Donald Trump with no actual serious planning for how to get us out of this war eventually.

32:54Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And in fact, the suggestion that they want to be an endless war in order to have Armageddon, which is terrifying and outrageous.

33:02Lisa Graves:Now, you know, now we know why they changed the Defense Department's name to the Department of War, because they were saying it in advance because it's all about war. You know, this I'm not a wartime, you know, no new war is president. That's all he's doing is dragging us into war. So it's it's it's actually scary, you know, and friends who are in the Middle East or family members in the Middle East. It's terrifying, actually. And my heart goes out to all of the people who have to live in a war zone right now. And, you know, the United States, too, right? We have to be on guard. And so, you know, thoughts and prayers for all of our military and all of the people who are out there having to live in this.

33:45Lisa Graves:And I hope if someone's listening that they know that most Americans don't support it. Donald Trump, although he happens to be our president, doesn't represent how most of America feels. And hopefully we can right this wrong very soon because this is just an atrocity. And I apologize for the American people for where we are right now because it's just absolutely terrifying.

34:10Karen Friedman Agnifilo:So the American people did not consent to this. In fact, as you point out in the election, the argument was that Trump would get us into fewer wars, that somehow Trump would not engage in the types of wars that he criticized his predecessors for being involved in. And yet he's disregarded that promise like so many others.

34:31Lisa Graves:Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. Well, we've reached the time where we have to take our first ad break. And we love our sponsors. They're what keeps the lights on and keep us on the air. And we're doing great. And Midas Touch recently passed the 6 million subscriber mark, which is astounding with billions, billions with a B, views of Midas Touch videos. And so Midas Touch Network is just on fire. If you're not a subscriber, please hit subscribe. This is the fastest growing independent news network. And we see what's happening to mainstream media. So this is the best place to come get your news if you want to know the truth and if you want to hear what the facts are.

35:12Lisa Graves:So that's what we provide on the Midas Touch Network. And these sponsors who sponsor us know what we're about. They don't tell us what to talk about. They don't. We have nobody who says, oh, you have to have this point of view or that point of view. but they know what our point of view is because clearly we've been going strong now for six years. And so if you like what they have and we test them all out, if you like what they have, feel free to give them a try. So we're going to take our first ad break.

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38:48Lisa Graves:Welcome back. We're back. And thank you again to our sponsors who are amazing. But mostly thank you to all of you who watch us every week, every day. The people who go on to the Midas Touch Network to get their news and to the Legal AF YouTube channel and Substack. That's also a very fast growing platform run by Michael Popok, our co-host. And that is a great place if you want to hear more content and more deep dives into various legal issues that are going on. He's really done a phenomenal job of attracting extremely talented lawyers and other individuals to come and podcast on the Legal AF YouTube channel and Substack.

39:38Lisa Graves:So definitely thank you everybody for your support and for your comments, all the comments that you leave after the show. Sometimes if I'm having a really bad day for other reasons, I'll go and read the comments just to kind of keep me going on why it is that we work so hard to bring everybody the news, the truth, because it's so frustrating for me when I turn on the news or I open up a certain newspaper or another, because I like to just get a wide variety of sources just to hear what people are saying or on social media. And I hear things, all you have to do is read something that Donald Trump puts posts on Truth Social or tweets out, or that some of the headlines that are clearly in bed with the MAGA administration, you hear what they have to say.

40:25Lisa Graves:And I always look beneath the hood. I go and I read it myself. I read the transcripts. I read the court filings. And it's just shocking to me how they don't tell the truth, that they spin things that are just absolutely total lies. For example, Trump saying that he won big in the Supreme Court tariffs case. Now, there is no way I've read that decision. There is no way that he could say he won. They struck down his tariffs and said they were illegal, period, full stop. Can't do it.

41:02Karen Friedman Agnifilo:He lost. He lost.

41:04Lisa Graves:He lost. He lost. Big loser. So that's just a lie. Like, that's not even, you know, it's like, it's like, I miss the days when Democrats and Republicans would debate issues, you know, do you, I think taxes should be raised. I think taxes should be lowered. I, you know, don't believe that in the death penalty. I do believe in the death penalty, Whatever, you know, whatever your pro-abortion, anti-abortion, you know, whatever your issues are. But we don't even deal in debate anymore. We're dealing with lies, just absolute lies. And so in this big six to three decision, which was the biggest loss and absolutely obliterated, if you want to hear obliterated, Trump's tariff policy.

41:51Lisa Graves:Trump is saying that this is a big win. And I think his justification for it is because Supreme Court didn't spell out how he has to return the money. And because they didn't spell that out, somehow he thinks that absolves him of having to return the money. But that doesn't seem to be the case. There are over a thousand lawsuits that have been filed or that have been pending. And major trade groups and individual businesses want a refund of the more than one hundred and thirty billion dollars that was collected. And the administration, by all accounts, is trying to slow walk this and and delay it so that they don't have to refund this money.

42:38Lisa Graves:And on Monday, an appeals court denied the Justice Department or the Trump administration, I should say, their request to delay refunding this money until June, which is what they asked for. So there's, I think, more than 2 ,000 cases pending in the United States Court of International Trade, which is a specialty court that I believe is in New York. And it is, they're going to be the ones who determine how this comes back and how this money comes back. And I think what people are pushing for is a global solution to get the money back, as opposed to individual cases that could drag out for years and years and years and, frankly, crush the courts.

43:23Lisa Graves:and completely stop the courts because there's so many lawsuits just to try to get individual money. Not to mention the fact that small business owners, et cetera, probably can't afford the lawyer it's going to take to get their money back, right? So rather than trying to drag this out case by case, that could go on for years. You know, I think hopefully someone will come up with a global, you know, a court will come up with a global resolution. and you know it's just it's absolutely a confusing situation that the that the that's the Supreme Court didn't define how it should be done I'm not sure it was their role because that was not really something before them at the time but but here now we're all left trying to figure out what to do but what what is your take on what's going on with the tariffs Lisa and and the Supreme Court and and that ruling.

44:13Lisa Graves:Do you see any way that Trump won that decision as he claims?

44:18Karen Friedman Agnifilo:No, he definitely lost. In fact, I guess the only way you could say he won is that there were three dissenters who would go along with basically anything he wants anytime. And that's Justice Clarence Thomas, you know, Justice Sam Alito and Brett Kavanaugh. They were wrong. That should have been a 9-0 decision because it was a slam dunk. It was clear that Trump could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose a tariff. It's clear that the Constitution specifically provides that the tariff power is controlled by Congress. In Article I, it's an express power granted to Congress.

44:49Karen Friedman Agnifilo:It was a slam dunk case, and the court should have kicked him back last August to mitigate the damage that was accruing from his unilateral, unlawful imposition of these irrational, arbitrary, and capricious tariffs that he had no power to give. And so now we're in a position where some of these some of these businesses have been out money for, you know, coming up on a year. Some of them are going to be out money, you know, as they wait for themselves to be paid back for tariffs that they that they absorbed. And that hurts American businesses. These tariffs hurt American businesses, big businesses and small businesses.

45:29Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Both big and small businesses were involved in litigation challenging Donald Trump's assertions. Those big and small businesses won. The court didn't have, you know, sort of full briefing on how to unwind such a wide illegal act, such a wide imposition of tariffs. But it found that those tariffs were unlawful and the money needs to be paid back. And every moment in which Donald Trump is not paying back that money costs us, the taxpayer, the American people, potential interest on the money that was wrongfully collected and has been and is being wrongfully upheld. And so every moment that Donald Trump is not having his administration pay back these tariffs not only hurts the American businesses that employ millions of Americans across the country, but hurts us as taxpayers for what we may be on the hook for, for the continuing retention of this money that does not belong to Donald Trump or the U.S.

46:30Karen Friedman Agnifilo:government that should not have been imposed. Some of those tariffs I'm confident will ultimately, those tariffs received will ultimately be paid back. But in the meantime, I'm certain that the American people are not going to get their money back for goods whose prices were increased as a result of those tariff costs being passed on to the American consumers because of Trump's unilateral and arbitrary actions to impose tariffs on some countries because he didn't like their leader, didn't like what they said, they didn't kiss his ring, they didn't give him a gold trophy. you know, this is exactly why no one person, no president should have the tariff power, because that power could be wielded in a way that hurts our broader economic interest, which is why it's supposed to be a congressional power.

47:15Karen Friedman Agnifilo:But we'll see what happens, what the lower courts do in terms of ordering these tariffs to be repaid. But this notion that he won is absurd. Um, it, but it is the case that he should have lost sooner. Um, so that's what I would say in response to that.

47:35Lisa Graves:So you're saying that, that although businesses may get their money back, that the consumers are not, that's your take.

47:42Karen Friedman Agnifilo:I don't think they are. I mean, it's possible that some business is going to say, oh, we're going to give you back the refund of how we jack the price up in response to this. Now, some businesses decided not to impose those costs on consumers because they were concerned that if they pass those tariffs costs, those tariffs on to consumers, they would erode their customer base because it would jack the prices up so much. So some companies absorb those tariffs. Other companies did not absorb those tariffs and increase the cost of goods that Americans were buying. And we paid those. We paid for those goods at, you know, sort of full price plus.

48:17Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And I don't know of any significant component of the business sector that was subject to the tariffs that has promised to pay the consumers back for what Donald Trump cost them.

48:31Lisa Graves:Oh, yeah. It really is a complicated thing to unwind because you can't really have the court order it to go back to the consumers because how do you know if they passed it on or not, right? Right.

48:43Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And some in Wall Street, part of what was happening last year in terms of the absurd, just really awful, grotesque claims by Pambani that we shouldn't be talking about the Epstein files because the Dow was so high. But the Dow has been high in part for, you know, for a couple of reasons. One is the AI bubble that is just, you know, growing and growing despite the performance problems and debt acquisition by the industries engaged in AI. the rest of the business sectors have been slow. In fact, jobs reports, you know, show the jobs reports before Trump took down the jobs reporting and then the external reporting about jobs and job growth since then have shown that Donald Trump has had a negative impact on the American economy and the tariffs are part of that.

49:29Karen Friedman Agnifilo:But the other part of Wall Street has been this thing called taco, which is Trump always chickens out. And so for some of these tariffs that were imposed in May and then taken down Wall Street, some of Wall Street were betting that these tariffs would not stick. And so they didn't impose, they didn't push those costs on, and they thought that they would ultimately get their money back. So that's part of what's been happening behind the scenes. Wow.

49:54Lisa Graves:Well, let's pivot now from tariffs to these lawsuits against law firms that Trump has, you know, went after these individual law firms and has now reversed. So Trump issued an executive order saying that the certain law firms were going to be forbidden from entering federal buildings, from getting security clearances, from doing business with the government. And that is just absolutely that can put many, many law firms out of business because especially businesses who work in Washington, that's their bread and butter. Right. They have to go and talk to government officials, regulatory officials.

50:37Lisa Graves:And government buildings are everything. Federal government buildings could be federal jails and prisons, federal courthouses. It could be federal regulatory agencies. It could be so many different federal buildings that lawyers have to be able to go into, do business with. And there's certain types of cases or matters that lawyers are involved in that they have to get security clearances from the government. And Trump again said, we're not going to give security clearances to those particular law firms. And he singled them out by name. And he made no kind of, there was no hiding from the fact that he was going after law firms who hired or who had lawyers on staff who he viewed were people who went after him.

51:19Lisa Graves:This is pure and simple retribution. There was no reason to go after these particular law firms. There was no sort of philosophical issue. There was no, they did something wrong and therefore they can't do business anymore. It was just, I don't like the lawyers you hired because they went after me. So I'm going to go after you. And like I said in the beginning of the show, many of the law firms capitulated and basically made a deal with Trump. And in exchange for basically lifting these executive orders, he turned around and got free legal work from them. And it actually caused a big issue in these firms.

52:07Lisa Graves:Several people resigned as a result in protests, several lawyers, not as many as I anticipated or had hoped. But, you know, these people have families to feed and jobs. So, you know, they do what they have to do. And and several of them just have huge morale issues internally. A lot of people were really upset by by the fact that they would settle. But, you know, the university started to settle and others. Right. He's been going after people one by one and people have been settling with them. But there's these four law firms who stood up to Trump and I applaud them. It's Wilmer Hale, Perkins Coy, Jenner and Block and Sussman Godfrey.

52:48Lisa Graves:And these are really big firms. And a lot of and frankly, when they go to court, they typically win. Right. Because this executive orders, these executive orders are illegal. Can't do this. And so they largely win. And they've been fighting, winning. Trump was then appealing it, right? He was appealing these lawsuits. And in a reversal on Monday, they came out, the Justice Department came out and said, we're not going to, we're going to discontinue this litigation. I think they want to cut their losses because they keep losing. And word on the street is that Stephen, and this was public. They came forward and publicly said, we're discontinuing these lawsuits.

53:30Lisa Graves:And word on the street is that Stephen Miller did not like the blowback that everyone was saying, oh, he's chickening out. You know, they didn't like it. I'm sure some of it came from the law firms who settled, who are pissed off. Like, come on, we settled. You're making us look bad. And, you know, so you're going to drop this now. So I think they got a lot of bad press because of, you know, chickening out here again and knowing that they're losing. and Stephen Miller told them to reverse it. And the four law firms got phone calls basically saying, oops, we didn't mean it. And we're not gonna drop the cases.

54:06Lisa Graves:So it's kind of bananas what's going on over there. But I wanna give a shout out to those four law firms and we should support them for fighting Donald Trump because I'm sure it's not easy. Sure, it's expensive. Sure, it's hard to go up against the giant monster king who has all the power and then some because he's taking much more power than is granted to him under the Constitution with full immunity granted to him by the Supreme Court. So taking on Trump is no small feat. He's vindictive. He's a bully. He's mean. And he is, it's got to be a hard thing to do. So I wanted to give a shout out to these firms, which is why I really wanted to talk about this today.

54:53Lisa Graves:So what are your thoughts on this, Lisa?

54:56Karen Friedman Agnifilo:I join you in that. Those firms did the right thing by saying Trump. Unfortunately, Trump's mini-me, the acting president, Stephen Miller, apparently, has intervened to try to keep this litigation alive. Trump has put far too much trust in Miller, who is just a font of terrible, stupid ideas and completely ridiculous claims about the powers under the Constitution that a president has. And Miller, you know, has asserted himself apparently according to news accounts here. And I just think this is a case where these were outrageous, unlawful orders to begin with. You know, you cannot have the President of the United States using his power to punish people basically for their First Amendment activity just because he doesn't like them and doesn't like what they did.

55:47Karen Friedman Agnifilo:They were engaged as lawyers in litigation on behalf of their clients and did nothing wrong, did nothing that would warrant the restriction of their security clearances. It was purely a pernicious, vengeful act by Trump that no president should have such power. And in fact, typically under our First Amendment, presidents don't have the power. They're not supposed to use their power to basically chill the speech that the government disagrees with, even the government in the form of one person, Donald Trump, or the government at large. And so the firms that didn't cave were doing the right thing in defense, both of their rights as corporations to be engaged in business, to have access to security clearances if their lawyers fulfill the requirements of those clearances, unlike some of the people in the Trump administration, the past administration, and this Trump administration who got security clearances over the objections of the actual officials who are supposed to protect us from people like Jared Kushner who have conflicts of interest or issues that would prevent them from having access to classified information.

56:56Karen Friedman Agnifilo:There was no allegation whatsoever that any of these firms or any of their lawyers had any such issues. And so that it was, you know, wrong. And then there are other factors that are worth knowing. So first of all, as you pointed out, and as the announcements of Trump's agreements indicated these law firms that settled with him agreed to use, you know, millions and millions of dollars worth of law firm assets, resources to aid Trump in his personal policy agenda. You know, his agenda, not necessarily the American people's agenda, not necessarily the work of the American people, because we already have government lawyers in every agency that are supposed to be doing the job of the American people.

57:37Karen Friedman Agnifilo:This was its own sort of boondoggle, in essence, of Trump being able to command the control of private firm lawyers to do his bidding. Some of them claim that those settlements with the pro bono agreement, you know, didn't necessarily give him that, you know, full control, but some control or some direction that they could, you know, use their pro bono hours in different ways. It's all very sketchy. And one of the most sketchy components of it was that one of the very first law firms, in fact, I think the first law firm to cave was Paul Weiss, whose chairman, Brad Karp, just resigned from his role as chairman of this mega firm because he appeared so many times in ways that were very concerning in those Epstein files.

58:23Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And so you have to wonder, you know, the sort of dominoes that were set up. We, you know, if one domino falls, then that may put pressure on others. So I do wonder about, you know, Paul Weiss's decision, the decision of that firm to cave to Trump and the role that Brad Karp may have played, given the fact that he was, you know, is someone who, whose name appeared. I'm not suggesting that he himself engaged in any trafficking whatsoever, but he has resigned from his role as chairman because of fallout from the revelations from those Epstein files.

58:56Lisa Graves:Yeah, he wasn't just a lawyer at Paul Weiss. He was, as you said, the chairman of Paul Weiss. Like, that was a big deal that he resigned. It was a big deal that Paul Weiss caved and settled with Trump. And so just the kind of overlap and connection, the connective tissue between Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and other people in high level positions of power like Brad Karp is stunning. It's absolutely stunning to me. All right. We're going to take a quick next ad break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the Supreme Court. We're going to talk about redistricting. We're going to talk about what's going on in Texas right now at the primary, some good news coming out of there.

59:44Lisa Graves:And we're going to now take our quick ad break.

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1:02:27Lisa Graves:All right, we're back. And let's talk a little bit about the midterm elections, redistricting, the Supreme Court, primaries. Texas is holding its primaries right now. And it looks like Tallarico has won. And if you remember, he's the guy who was supposed to be on the Colbert show. and they took it off the air and, you know, essentially CBS essentially pulled it. And then Colbert put it on YouTube and it got more views than it would have gotten by far if it had just aired. The present effect, yeah. I know. It was great. But, you know, I watched it and it was adorable. He was adorable. And he's a Democrat.

1:03:11Lisa Graves:It's the Democratic primary and he won. I think that's exciting. You know, he's kind of a good guy. He's no nonsense. He's a breath of fresh air for somewhere like Texas. So that's, I think, a huge thing that's, I think, going to be great. And, you know, look, there's a lot going on in voting and redistricting in the Supreme Court. And rather than me even trying to frame it, I'm going to turn it over to you because nobody is better at talking about these issues than you, Lisa. So why don't you tell us, kind of give us an update on where we are and make us all excited about the midterms?

1:03:46Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Well, you know, so let me let me start with the bad news first, basically, and then maybe get to some of the good news, depending on your perspective. But the Roberts court has, again, intervened in a way that has put its thumb or its fist on the scale of justice in favor of Republicans in redistricting. And that came in a decision that was issued over the past week involving New York and the maps in New York. And that was a ruling issued by Sam Alito. And it overturned, it basically found that the lower courts could not overrule a district that had discriminated against Black and Latino voters in Staten Island.

1:04:31Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And so what you had was a litigation happening at the state court level, finding that there was a district in, you know, outside of New York City in the, you know, I know Staten Island in the boroughs. You're going to tell me that after this part, Karen. But anyway, Staten Island district that the. Yes. Yes. Okay.

1:04:53Lisa Graves:Let's just talk New York City for one second. Yes. New York City has five boroughs, okay? There's five counties is really what they're called. It's five counties or five boroughs within New York City. There's New York County, also known as Manhattan. Kings County, also known as Brooklyn. Queens County, also known as Queens. Bronx County, also known as Bronx. And Richmond County, also known as Staten Island. So yes, Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island are the five boroughs that make up New York City. All right.

1:05:33Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Thank you. I was like, I think so. But then I was like, it is an island.

1:05:40Lisa Graves:And it's close to New Jersey and close to New York. But yes.

1:05:45Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Okay. So this case comes out of one of the boroughs of New York. Thank you so much, Karen. And it's a case where the lower courts were litigating this matter. And so it was in the middle of state court litigation, but the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And what happened was the Roberts Court basically blocked the ruling of the lower state courts. And one of the reasons why that's so significant is that a few years ago, probably almost 10 years ago, in a case called Rucho versus Common Cause, we had the Roberts court basically saying that the federal courts were not supposed to be intervening in elections in that way.

1:06:25Karen Friedman Agnifilo:But the state courts had the power. Then, of course, when the state courts had the power, now we have the Roberts Court saying, oh, but not here where it might it might affect our Republican district. That was the district that Republican U.S. House Representative Nicole Maliatakis, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. And so the U.S. Supreme Court has said also that no court, federal or state court, should change election laws in the middle of an election season. And we know that this decision was issued by the Roberts Court after the filing deadline for candidates in New York has already passed.

1:07:03Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And so this is another instance where we see this Roberts Court basically trying to make sure that the federal law is not used to protect, that federal and state law is not used to protect against the vote dilution of black and brown Americans. And that bodes poorly for another decision that's still pending before this Supreme Court, a decision in the Calais case out of Louisiana, where the Roberts Court is considering striking, pardon me, striking down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which was passed in 1965 to protect against changes in rules around elections that have an adverse effect on voters, in particular on Black Americans.

1:07:45Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And in that case, the Calais case, you had litigation out of the 2020 census where the white dominated legislature of Louisiana took those census results and made sure that white majorities could win in five of the six Louisiana districts and had one district that was a black majority district. And that was litigated. That map was found to be unconstitutional as for diluting the votes of black voters. And so another map was created to have two black majority districts, four white majority districts in Louisiana, where the population of black Americans in Louisiana is about one third of the state.

1:08:25Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And so it was proportionate, even though proportionality is not strictly required. And so this court, the Roberts Court, has taken up that case, and they are considering not just ruling against Louisiana, ruling against those maps, but at the behest of the Trump administration and a host of right-wing amicus brief, dark-funded, dark-money-funded amicus briefs, the Supreme Court is considering finding Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. And that would basically set a precedent. I would think I think it's an illegitimate precedent, but a precedent going forward, basically denying states the ability to protect black and brown voters from having their votes diluted and perhaps even providing a weapon for Republicans to use to challenge black majority districts in order to basically bleach out our congressional delegations to try to preserve white dominance in Congress.

1:09:22Karen Friedman Agnifilo:and in every other part of a state government. So state government, city government, county government, school boards, and the like. And so when you look at this decision out of New York that comes out of the U.S. Supreme Court, comes out of the Roberts Court, what you see is a decision by a Republican-appointed majority on the U.S. Supreme Court changing the rules in order to protect Republican seats, to protect that Republican seat in that borough of New York, even though the lower court was already in the process of fining against it, in fact, had. There was a dissent in that case. The dissent was by Justice Katajima Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

1:10:05Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And they wrote about how this court was playing politics. And so what Justice Sotomayor wrote, and I'm just going to quote it here, she says, time and again, this court has said that federal courts should not interfere with state court litigation. And then she says time and again, this court has said that federal courts should not meddle with state election laws ahead of an election. Today, the court says, except for this one, except for this one and except for this one. And so that's what's been happening is you have a U.S. Supreme Court that is engaging in these issues in a very partisan way, even though they allowed the California response, the proposition that passed to stand.

1:10:43Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And they did so in the face of basically allowing Texas to go forward with a map that, you know, redistributed Jasmine Crockett out of her seat and displaced other black and brown representatives in Texas that a lower court, a Trump judge even, had found was what, you know, was decided based on racial grounds. And I'm very worried that this Roberts court is doing whatever it can to try to help the Republicans preserve a majority in the House of Representatives in this cycle. And I'm worried in part because I saw this playbook. We saw this playbook before. In the 2022 election, even though a court had found that in Alabama, the map was inconsistent with federal law, was a violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Roberts Court allowed a map to go forward in Alabama that helped Mike Johnson become the, you know, basically helped the Republicans get control of the House and ultimately helped Mike Johnson become the leader of the House, the majority leader of the House of Representatives.

1:11:53Karen Friedman Agnifilo:After that 2022 midterm, then the Roberts court said, oh, hey, Alabama, you have to redraw that map. But the damage was already done. The election was not going to be rerun. The House majority had already changed. And then similarly, in this Texas case, this emergency order from last December, the court allowed that redistricting to stand even while it was concerning this Calais case. And that sent a signal to other states that they should go forward, they could go forward with the redrawing of maps that Donald Trump has insisted he needs in order to keep control of the House of Representatives.

1:12:29Karen Friedman Agnifilo:and expressly has said he needs to keep control or he will be impeached or there will be investigations of his actions. Because if the Democrats get control of one or both houses of Congress, they will have the power to actually, you know, hold this administration accountable, issue subpoenas, have hearings, investigative hearings, and also have the power to not just roll over with every legislative demand or even, you know, acts of war. And so Trump is doing everything he can to try to basically pre-rig the 2026 election so that he can win no matter what. And we're also seeing these other maneuvers, like the suggestion perhaps that we should federalize or nationalize elections, that he should have control over all the voting rolls, and that if any time he loses, it's an illegitimate election result that he can't lose, basically, and that he won't accept any loss.

1:13:22And so that's why I think so many Americans are coming together to say they have to make the turnout so big that those kind of machinations cannot take hold.

1:13:32Karen Friedman Agnifilo:And so on the good news part, and I'll just say this in my personal capacity, not my organizational capacity, I am so glad to see the election results coming out across the country with so many Democrats winning in Republican districts. so much more, so much bigger turnout in some places, because I think the American people, including districts where there's a Republican majority, Democrats have been able to win, because I think there's a portion of Republicans who agree that this administration is out of control, that we need to have limits on Donald Trump's assertion of power. And the only way that we can really successfully do that is through the ballot box.

1:14:10Lisa Graves:Yeah, that is, I'm seeing the same thing across the country. And it gives me a lot of hope. And we do have to go out and vote and vote in record and record numbers. A couple other things going on today. You've got the Justice Department. Again, Jeanine Pirro, who is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, in another one of Donald Trump's retribution, just his quest for revenge, wanted an investigation into Joe Biden's use of Autopen. And frankly, they couldn't even build a case because there is no case. So another fail, another L, another loss for Jeanine Pirro, who also tried to indict those members of Congress, like Mark Kelly and others, for putting out that video, basically telling service members, you don't have to follow unlawful orders.

1:15:03Lisa Graves:But this was just the fact that our taxpayer dollars are, that people are spending their days looking into cases like the auto pen one. It's embarrassing. It's a waste of money. And even they, even in this justice department determined they can't bring that case. There is no case. So that was good news. And I also am seeing, and I, this is just, I'm seeing it in, you know, certain headlines, but I haven't read the transcripts or seen it myself yet, that Kristi Noem is testifying today before Congress, and she's being questioned. And apparently, she's being grilled on her affair with Corey Lewandowski.

1:15:43Lisa Graves:So very interesting. Even Jamie Raskin, I'm hearing kind of went after her because, you know, she's having an affair with her lower level subordinate, and he's, you know, getting paid a lot of money, etc. And she's steering contracts to businesses that he's affiliated with. That's, those are the allegations. The fact that, and people have been whispering about it for a long time, the fact that she's being asked about it is stunning. So I look forward to hearing what, what she says about that.

1:16:16Karen Friedman Agnifilo:The other part of the contracts, you know, the spouse of one of the other high officials at the, at the Homeland Security, like really it just, it smells, you know, as they say, something smells in Denmark. It really. Oh, Tulsi Gabbard, right? No, no. The other, the other, uh, the other spokesperson and spouse, like there, you know, the, the, these no bid contracts that DHS.

1:16:37Lisa Graves:Oh, right, right, right. I saw that. Yeah. The other thing is, and this was her, this was her spokesperson who, uh, used to be her, used to be her spokesperson and left and just left. Yes. This was her. I saw that. And she's, they, they put a contract in where you didn't have to bid and she's weird, you know, millions and millions of dollars, like hundreds of millions of dollars to this friend of hers, essentially.

1:17:02Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Yeah, it is really crazy. And also, you know, like, I don't think any department secretary needs a plane with a bed. You know, I understand that the white, that the, you know, Air Force...

1:17:11Lisa Graves:Maybe the Secretary of State, because they travel overseas, and, you know, yeah.

1:17:18Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Let me just say, once I was on, I was once on a plane headed to Denver with Federico Pina, who was the transportation secretary. And they tried to move him up to first class. And he said, I cannot. I am a civil servant. Even though I'm the secretary of the department of transportation, I don't get to just use taxpayer dollars to sit in first class. That was in the Clinton administration. But here we are 25, 30 years later, and we have a DHS secretary demanding her own private jet to jet around America, because her role is predominantly domestic, with a bed. I don't think, you know, regardless of the allegations about Corey Lewandowski and, you know, all that other drama that was what was asked about today, and I think legitimately asked about, you know, we need answers to those things.

1:18:02Karen Friedman Agnifilo:But why are we spending our taxpayer dollars for that kind of luxury travel for any of these, any of these exec branch officials? It is really outrageous and gross.

1:18:12Lisa Graves:Apparently, apparently she fired a pilot because he forgot her little, there you go, Ice Barbie finally cornered on her alleged affair with top aide. And apparently her husband was sitting in the background. But, you know, she apparently, Corey Lewandowski, who was on the plane with her, had to get off and switch planes. And the pilot forgot to bring her blanket, her special blanket. And she fired him. Like, what is going on? And as you said, this is taxpayer dollars. I was a government employee for 30 years. everywhere I went, I had to fly coach, you know, exactly what you were saying. And I wanted to, like, I wasn't going to spend extra money, you know, like taxpayer dollars.

1:18:51Lisa Graves:It's irresponsible. And we're just not allowed to do that. And I still fly coach, but that's another story. But yeah, pilot fired over Christie Gnome's missing blanket and the constant chaos inside DHS. She, she can't be long for this world. I mean, her, she is, I think one of, one of the many, but biggest disasters of the Trump administration, right? I mean, and they should look, they should have known it all along from the fact that before they even hired her, she like bragged about killing her puppy, right? I mean, outrageous. I mean, just sociopathic. Right, totally. And, you know, it was a window into how she would train her ICE agents to just go kill American citizens.

1:19:32Karen Friedman Agnifilo:Well, and you know, Tom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina who's not running again, really took her to task, including over some of these issues. Like what her judgment is just so, so out of whack, really. So, you know, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens next. But I just want to say, Karen, it's a joy to be on this program with you. It's a joy to be part of the Legal AF podcast network. It's a joy to be part of Midas Touch. I always enjoy our conversations. I always learn something. And I'm just grateful to have the chance to have these conversations. Support you and Popak and the whole gang.

1:20:07Lisa Graves:That's amazing. Thank you for saying that, Lisa. I learned so much from you. You're like a true scholar. And so I absolutely, I'm a practitioner, you're a scholar. So I learned so much from you and I'm absolutely so thrilled to be doing this with you. And thank you so much for, for stepping in. And we've reached the end of another midweek edition of Legal AF. Join me and Michael Popok every Wednesday or Michael Popok and Ben Micellis every Saturday and again subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel, sub stack, join the Midas Touch movement and the Midas Touch network and subscribe there and just come on board.

1:20:52Lisa Graves:We have a big boat with a big tent and we need as many people as possible to defeat this orange administration. so join us join us yes and and and let's let's defeat them let's win let's get back to like a normal society that we can all recognize so yeah right good to see you lisa to see you thanks everyone bye-bye