Legal AF - 4/15/2026

29:57So how did this hurt your reputation in any way? um you know I I had a question actually um about this did because the the allegation here is that Ghislaine Maxwell is the one who collected all of these birthday cards right and had different people in Jeffrey Epstein's life to from uh you know from this 2003 birthday book uh writing letters to him and that Trump's was one of them because we know they were close friends back then did Todd Blanch ask Maxwell about that when he went and and interviewed her for hours and hours

30:32Popok:and hours about whether whether that was Trump she denied knowledge of of any particular page in that book he didn't bring it with her with him to crook as he didn't want to to cross examine him her she admitted that she that her mother had made a similar book for her father and she thought it It was fun. So, because who makes, like, I had a 50th birthday. I mean, I didn't get a several volume leather scrapbook, you know, from Michael's, you know, with people's submissions in it. But she did that. And so she admitted to the veracity of the volumes, but conveniently could not remember who contributed what to whom and where.

31:20Yeah, but I can imagine, look, she put a lot of effort into this. and curated the book and handpicked the people who were going to be in it. I am certain that, and Donald Trump wasn't who he is today in 2003, right? He was a businessman, you know, guy who hung out with, you know, one of the guys who hung out with Trump and others. And he, look, he had some money, but he also was an uneven, let's put it that way, businessman with some very unsuccessful businesses and bankruptcies, et cetera. So it wasn't like you couldn't get to him and talk to him directly, right? I think she would have known if it wasn't from him.

31:59I mean, she reached out to him directly as she did everybody else to provide it, told them what to provide, gave them the specifics. And so what is there's this Donald Trump imposter out there that did this instead and copied his exact signature. And if she didn't ask Trump to do it and someone else sent it in purporting to be Trump, wouldn't she have said, that's weird. I didn't ask Trump for this. I mean, it just, it just from a makes no sense standpoint, just even if she doesn't specifically remember exactly what happened, it just, it just totally belies common sense that that's, that it's fake and that he didn't do it.

32:37So I think, look, for many reasons, this is not going to go anywhere, but the judge dismissed it without prejudice, which means Trump can refile this$10 billion lawsuit, an absurd amount that he claims he somehow was defamed and damaged and harmed because of this. And that means he can refile it and try to allege facts of actual malice, which I don't know how they're going to do, right? Wall Street Journal, they sourced it 10 ways to Sunday. They gave him a chance to comment and they published what he said. They saw it themselves and they got it from the Epstein estate. So they got it from the horse's mouth and the book is legit.

33:28So I don't know how they refile that and how this is ever successful.

33:32Popok:I don't know how they refile it without violating rule 11 for bad faith filing. There are no facts to support that the Wall Street Journal knew that this was false. All they reported on is that they saw that they were given a copy. The journalists saw the actual submission and that it appeared to be in Donald Trump's hand, but they didn't have it tested. That is proper reporting, you know, and they did their job. They asked Donald Trump for comment. He said, I didn't do it. They asked the FBI for comment and they said no comment. They asked the Department of Justice for comment, and they didn't respond.

34:10Popok:Okay, with that and having actually seen the goods, you run a story. And then it turned out the story is actually true because the Oversight Committee got a copy of the entire book and published it. We published it. It's on Substack for Legal AF. It's on Midas. You can go find the Epstein birthday book. And then you can be the judge. Just like in any courtroom, the jury is the ultimate trier of fact about whether something is authentic or not. They're the handwriting experts. You know, yeah, people testify, but you don't need a handwriting expert. A jury is competent to determine that. If they refile, I think they slither away, take their loss, just like they just dismissed the case against the Guardian and some other things.

35:02Popok:and they go off into the night and pick their battles. Because if they try to refile this, Judge Gail, who I know well, took under advisement whether he's going to award attorney's fees or not, which could be a half a million dollars or more. I know the lawyers involved, including Andy Lavander, and he's not cheap. And if they get awarded their attorney's fees, That's a half a million dollars that Donald Trump's going to have to come up with himself. You know, and the rest. So organizations should figure out how to sue Donald Trump for defamation with all that he says about them. Right. Fake news.

35:45I mean, and they can prove actual malice against him because he lies. Right. He actually lies. Like people have to start becoming more offensive against him.

35:55Popok:Agreed. I totally agree. We're going to talk about some judges that have gone on the offense of what has happened to them, like Jeb Bosberg, the chief judge of the D.C. court with a new ruling that just came out. Oath keepers and proud boys. I want to talk to the former prosecutor and Karen Freeman-Knifolo about the seditious conspiracy leaders who got the highest counts. Many of them kept in jail because they were so dangerous before trial. And now with the Department of Justice and Janine Pirro are doing about that. And then we'll touch on the Manhattan DA and the reports that they are investigating.

36:32Popok:Eric Swalwell, I know Karen has no involvement in it. She's long gone from the Manhattan DA's office. But I'd love to get your perspective about what an investigation of life could look like here on Legal AF. So many ways to support what we're doing. One day left, everybody. Oh, yes. The Webby Awards. It's the Oscars for podcast nerds. and our podcast Legal AF is up as is The Intersection, a podcast that I do on Tuesday nights, both up for best new and best news podcasts. It's up to you. It's the People's Voice Award. That's the one we want to win. It's going to be a barn burner. It's going to come down to the last day.

37:13Popok:If we could push our way through there with your help and turning out the vote, we will. It's all for free. The links are below in the notes tonight. vote for the intersection and vote for the Legal AF. And there's other, if you're like, if you're into podcasts, there's lots of every, there's every type of podcast in all different categories. Over last year, and I'm sure it's close this year, 5 million people voted. Thousands of podcasts were up for it. We made it to the final five. And now it's up to you to select who it is. And then of course, the other ways to support Legal AF is Legal AF, the YouTube channel, where we're at almost 1.1 million subscribers, 12 videos a day, lots of amazing contributors at the intersection of law and politics.

37:59Popok:Look right here. This is the Oscar. This is the gold YouTube award for going over 1 million subscribers. There it is. It's all because of you and your fervent support of this community. And then we've got Legal AF Substack, which we do some tremendous writing. I do live reports there and commentary, put all of the documents that we use. We put them up on Legal AF Substack for you. And then we've got our pro-democracy sponsors. And here they are. Look, the magnesium, it's something most of us lack. And if you're taking that drugstore variant, you're still not getting the full picture. Industrial farming, chronic stress, and everyday aging all make it worse.

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41:14Popok:Look for Magic Spoon on Amazon or at your nearest grocery store. And if you want to try something new, check out Magic Spoon's protein pastries. They're packed with protein and taste like the nostalgic toaster pastries you grew up with, but without all the sugar. You can get$5 off your next order, including the protein pastries at magicspoon.com slash legal AF. That's magicspoon.com slash legal AF for$5 off. Welcome back to Legal AF, the podcast at the midweek. Well, you know, you can't fault them for trying. Chief Judge Jeb Boesberg, who Donald Trump's had it in for because he was one of the two judges who presided over the grand jury proceedings over Donald Trump's criminal case when the grand juries in D.C.

42:08Popok:indicted him for election interference. That was a combination of Beryl Howell and then Jeb Boesberg. You know, Trump was on the receiving end of a number of Jeb Boesberg rulings about attorney-client privilege and communications and who would testify against them, Mike Pence going into the grand jury. So there's been no love loss. And then one of the very first cases of Donald Trump's attempts to use the Alien Enemies Act to deport human beings without due process in the middle of the night to El Salvador ended up landed on Jeb Bosberg's desk. Now he's had other cases as well. He's currently the judge, he's the judge that just threw out, for instance, the grand jury subpoenas because he's still as the chief judge.

42:56Popok:He's responsible for grand jury subpoenas related to the Federal Reserve and the Jay Powell, who we talked about earlier. Same guy, same judge. You know, that got Trump all hot and bothered, you know, about it. Like you said earlier, Karen, and sent a couple of lawyer types down to the construction site today over it. Same judge, well-respected, middle of the road, more Republican than Democrat, friends with John Roberts, the chief justice, roommates with Kavanaugh in law school, of all things, appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents alike, not a radical activist Marxist leftist judge, which is what he always gets labeled.

43:42Popok:And he tried to hold the Trump administration, its Department of Homeland Security, and ultimately at the time, Kristi Noem, accountable twice. One, he started, he found probable cause to believe there was criminal contempt by the Trump administration because they violated his orders to ground the planes and not send El Salvador away from federal jurisdiction. That got blocked by a federal panel, including Judge Rayo, and I think Judge Walker, could have been Katz's, I think it's Walker. Two Trumpers, two to one. But then it went off into this world of en banc hearings, the entirety of the D.C.

44:30Popok:court, and they sent it back to Jeb Bozberg to start again, if he wanted to, contempt proceedings. And he did. And he started them up again because they violated his order. Knowing that he had ordered the planes grounded, they intentionally continued to fly people to El Salvador to the torture prison called Seacott. And what's a federal judge to do? Ignore it? I've never known a federal judge to ignore a violation. Show me that federal judge because I've 35 years. I've never seen one. A federal judge ignoring a contumacious, blatant violation of his order. Like today we came on the air. Some judge penalized the Department of Justice attorney$250.

45:17Popok:Don't let it happen again. Oh, a whole$250. OK, so judges have inherent authority. And now we got a new ruling, right, Karen? Two to one, Judge Rayo, who I said earlier tonight, is trying out for the Supreme Court. Naomi Rayo, Judge Walker, two to one, said that Boesburg, oh, abused his discretion. But there was an 88-0 page dissent by Judge Michelle Childs. Side note, Michelle Childs from South Carolina originally. that's who that's who uh lindsey graham wanted to be on the supreme court instead of katanji brown jackson she's a democrat or biden appointed her but she's she's bright she's great i love michelle childs and she took on the trumpers with a scathing dissent of you write an 80 page dissent yeah it's amazing that's saying something why don't you pick up the pieces there about about it and and what what to make of that dissent yeah look this was this was a It's hard to read it because it was very dense, this decision.

46:30And the appellate court really tried to twist things to bend it to the result that they wanted. Because otherwise it makes no sense. And essentially it boils down to one thing. It boils down to, or really two things. It boils down to the fact that that Bozberg said at five o 'clock on a Saturday night or Friday night or whatever it was, you know, don't transfer anyone and assure me that they're going to not going to be transferred over the weekend. And he asks Drew Ensign of the DOJ, can you make that assurance? And he didn't know. So he said, I'm going to go have a short adjournment for a few hours while you go find out.

47:15And during that time is when the planes left. And when they came back, they said, oh, sorry, these planes have already left, and they had these Venezuelans, and they're going to go to the Sicot prison. And when the planes came back, sorry, when the parties came back, when the lawyers came back, that's when everything started, right? And the fighting started. And Judge Boesberg issued an oral order, right, where he basically directed the Department of Justice to not transfer anyone, to not remove anyone. And he said, don't worry, it's late, it's a weekend, it's Friday night, it's late, you don't have to write anything down.

48:00I'm going to follow it up with a written order shortly. And so he writes out this order and puts it on the docket. And this whole thing boils down to the fact that it does say in the written order that you are not to remove anyone, but it doesn't say anything about transfer custody. What? I mean, it's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. And so therefore, because it didn't say transfer custody, although we did talk about that in the oral part that preceded the written order, the RAO basically said, oh, you know, but that doesn't matter because the written one was submitted after the oral one and you told them not to write anything down.

48:44So it's clear that the written one is the only one that controls and it's silent as to transfer of custody. And as a result, it's too vague and you can't possibly hold someone in contempt of something that's too vague and not specific like that. And that's essentially what this boils down to, which is absurd for many reasons. And largely what Judge Michelle Child said was essentially, basically, first of all, the beginning of this written order actually says, as discussed in today's hearing, the court orders that. So the written order actually encompasses the minutes of today's hearing. And the majority leaves that out.

49:34But also basically said, we haven't had the contempt proceeding yet to develop the record, to know what was in their heads. What did they understand the orders to mean, et cetera, and what did you do? it's only after you develop the record and you hold these these hearings these contempt hearings that then we can review it and and she literally said it would be like it would be like this it's like dismissing a criminal case before it's even brought which they can't do because only a lower court has the ability to bring a criminal case and so it's just sort of unprecedented what that Rao and Walker did to bend over backwards to essentially give Donald Trump what he wanted here and is not letting him do it.

50:26And then the question is whether it's going to go en banc. And I've spoken to, which means get it away from these three judges and have the whole 11 or 12 judge panel vote on it. And the reason, I've spoken to a few people about it and asked them, And I said, well, why wouldn't they go on bonk? Of course they will, because, I mean, this is A, the law is wrong, and B, it can't get any worse for them. And the answer, I was told, was because if, regardless of what happens at the D.C. Circuit, it then will tee it up to go to the Supreme Court. And I think what they're worried of, what people are worried about is the Supreme Court ruling similarly and essentially taking away this ability of district judges across the country in their ability to use their contempt powers.

51:17And so I think that's what the conversation is happening about whether or not to go on bonk or whether to just leave this alone. Where it will end up, I don't know. But that's sort of what the discussion is happening at this point.

51:33Popok:Yeah, I mean, it's another sort of a blow. It's what happens when you get two Trumpers on a three-judge panel. it's a relatively moderate to liberal panel, court generally. It's also considered the feeder court to the United States Supreme Court. Many judges, justices come off of that court. John Roberts did. Others have. Merrick Garland was on that court. And Naomi Rao, Walker, Katsis are all three Trumpers who are trying out for the United States Supreme Court position, a Supreme Court position that Donald Trump is trying to make happen at opening. You know, he's got like his bony little fingers, like the Grim Reaper on the back of Thomas and Alito.

52:22Popok:He just said it in the same interview where he went after the Federal Reserve chair. He took time to say, well, I'm ready to appoint a new Supreme Court justice. We don't want to have another Ruth Bader Ginsburg moment now, do we? And then he proceeded to completely fumble the timeline related to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was just trying to get to a democratically, a Democratic president, which almost happened. She died in September 2020. You know, November 2020, Biden beats Trump. I know some people think that didn't happen, but it did. And then in January 2021, there would have been the start of a process to replace her if she had made it that far.

53:06Popok:Unfortunately, she died in September. Battles of, you know, she succumbed to a number of battles with cancer. And his argument was she should have resigned 10 years earlier with Obama. Like, are you kidding me? It's because you violated the historical protocol, having lost the election and there being an opening in the waning hours of your administration. You were not supposed to fill that role, fill that vacancy. You and Mitch McConnell got it in your minds that with 36 days left to go, you were going to shove Amy Coney Barrett down our throat. And now, ironically, it's effectively the Amy Coney Barrett court, as she is, I guess, center or right, right, or right, right, center on the court.

53:52But this whole, these courts are important.

53:57Popok:And as Donald Trump seeded these courts with his minions, you know, the tryouts include, you know, James Ho on the Fifth Circuit, um andrew oldham on the fifth circuit amil bovie donald trump's former criminal defense lawyer who's plying his trade on the third circuit court of appeals aileen cannon right aileen cannon of uh the southern district of florida and neomi rao um i mean look there could be a wild card um you know he could kick todd blanch over there opening it up for somebody else but he needs an opening. We don't need the opening. I mean, look, you and I. This is why it's so important that the Democrats take the Senate in the midterms.

54:43Popok:Oh, I mean, it's beyond important. I mean, you and I, and we were kibitzing at a break here about, you know, I'm going to my 35th law school reunion this weekend with my family at Duke, and you and I are about peers. And you and I have never known in our lifetime a moderate or liberal Supreme Court. It has always been Republican dominated for 50 plus years. It's never been this bad though. I mean, this is, to me at least, you know, I think they've lost a lot of credibility in the last several years. Yeah, my point is not that bad or not bad. I'm just saying I've never had the luxury of having a Democratic-appointed majority, 5-4, 6-3.

55:31Popok:We've had to live under this variations on a theme. Sure, I liked aspects of prior Sandra Day O 'Connor or others that were more moderate, that were more Reagan Republicans. But it's not fair that the third branch of government has been dominated by one party. So was Roe versus Wade a conservative court that created that decision? Well, you had flips on there, right? You had black men and others who flipped. But the chief justice at the time, Warren Burger. I would say that was a Republican dominated panel. Interesting. that was moderate in their expression when it came to women's rights at the time.

56:30Popok:At the time. But the trouble with everything you and I are talking about now is that, you know, this court that just struck down Boesburg again, you want justices like Boesburg to be elevated to the United States Supreme Court or Michelle Childs or Judge Millett or I could, You know, the list goes on here. Amy Berman Jackson. I mean, there's, you know, just dozens, Beryl Howell that you'd want there. And if we don't get control back to the political side at the midterms and control the Senate, he'll permanently reshape the Supreme Court for 20 or 30 more years. because he's going to put 40-year-olds and early 50-year-olds into those positions.

57:22Popok:And it'll be a 6-3, 5-4 majority right wing, right right wing for 30 years, another 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. So Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and their seditious conspiracy claims. And I want to talk about Swalwell. Why don't we talk about Swalwell now before the break? So the top line, everybody understands it. The news went from bad to worse in a short amount of time. You know, a month ago, we were talking about, oh, who is Fang Fang that worked in his office? And was she a Chinese communist operative? And did he have an affair with her? Maybe kind of, sort of. And why was Kash Patel going to be releasing files about a 10-year-old investigation that went nowhere?

58:11Popok:And that was quaint. That was going to be the end of the story about, at the time, the leading Democrat to win the primary for the governorship of California. And then it went from that to, it was like a Tiger Woods moment. Every person who was a female that worked for him, it seemed at least, came out and said terrible, terrible, horrific things about him linking him to sex abuse and sex assault. One after another. And there seemed to be a pattern in some of the allegations, consistencies. And quickly, the Democrats who had supported him peeled away and staffers started to quit. I mean, this happened like overnight.

59:02Popok:But each one of these women that had an authentic story to tell as a survivor of that abuse, there's a case there that needs to be investigated. Now, whether it's a federal case, that's up to the Department of Justice. Lord knows they haven't been able to find a federal case for sex abuse in 1 ,200 victims related to Jeffrey Epstein. But these are state crimes generally. I don't know where they occurred, but there has been reporting that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office is opening up an investigation. And I know you've got a background in that office in sex abuse cases. So I thought it would be good for people to at least have some knowledge in which to analyze these new charges.

59:54Yeah. So, look, there's a couple of things. First of all, there is no such thing as a federal rape charge. What they have federally is sex trafficking. And that's why the Jeffrey Epstein case is federal, because the allegations are that there was minors who are being trafficked for sex, which is different than rape. Right. And rape is a state crime. And that means it has to occur, the actual sexual assault has to occur in the jurisdiction that the prosecuting office is sitting in. And so what it tells me that the Manhattan DA's office has opened an investigation is that at least one of these allegations of sexual assault occurred here in Manhattan.

1:00:43and Manhattan DA's office has one of the premier best sex crimes units in the country. They're excellent and not just because I used to be a supervisor in that unit many years ago, but they know what they're doing and they investigate things. And so what will happen is they will conduct an investigation and what they'll do is they'll open up a grand jury investigation, which allows them to issue grand jury subpoenas. They will attempt to gather records. They'll attempt to gather documents, phone records, video. Let's say, for example, hypothetically it occurred in a hotel room. They'll go to the hotel and serve them with subpoenas to get video from the hallways, get them coming in and out of rooms or hallways or coming in and out of the lobby.

1:01:34If it's in a hotel room, they'll ask for the card swipes, you know, how you swipe into your room and, you know, the key cards. That leaves an electronic footprint. They will get the records, how was it paid for, under whose name, et cetera, et cetera. You know, is any porn ordered on the television? You know, whatever it is. There's so many things you can order from a hotel. And they'll gather those records to corroborate. They're going to try to corroborate every single detail that the women or woman says happened. because the more you can corroborate, which means back up with evidence what she's saying, the more you can then say to a jury, therefore, you know she's telling the truth about everything because so far everything she said we can justify and back up with evidence.

1:02:21And, you know, they'll also look at any evidence that any victim has. Does she have any text messages, emails, photos, etc.? And the fact that they, and the Manhattan DA's office always investigates high profile cases. And some of them you never learn about because nobody, there's no, there's no case. They investigate it and they decide there's no case and it goes away. And they usually keep those quiet because the stain of an investigation, that enough, just even saying that there's an allegation of sexual assault or a sexual assault allegation can be enough to ruin a career or ruin someone's life.

1:03:00And so prosecutors at the DA's office are kind of trained to be very careful about that and to not necessarily release it until you are about to bring a case or have brought a case. There are some exceptions. And one of them is, A, you believe the victim. You think it probably happened. You have enough corroboration. And you believe there might be other victims out there. And so you want to get the word out there that if there are other victims, we have an investigation, come forward. And that's exactly what they did. And that is done in cases where they believe, for some reason, and now we're seeing why because of other allegations, they have reasons to believe that there might be others and that's why they're doing it.

1:03:48So they're just, they're doing their investigation and, and they'll, they'll, you know, the other thing too, you know, I talk a lot about corroboration and sex crimes, but there is no requirement under the law that there be corroboration. The word of one individual is enough if, if the prosecutors find them credible to bring a case and even to convict a person beyond a reasonable doubt, because after all, sexual assaults don't happen in public, right? by their very nature, they typically happen when two people are alone behind closed doors, and there's not always any evidence to corroborate it.

1:04:23So they don't need corroboration, but they look for it because that's what you give to the jury to show, look, she's telling the truth because we can verify every single thing she's saying. She hasn't lied about any of it or whatever it is, and therefore you should believe her. So that's what they'll be doing in this particular case. So I have no idea how strong or weak the case is. I haven't even dug that much into the allegations, although they do seem serious. But I would just say stay tuned to see what happens. But that's what they'd be doing right now. Great.

1:05:01Popok:I think that's a great prism that our audience should use to evaluate this case as it moves forward, and I appreciate that. And I appreciate our audience. and last chance, everybody. Webby Awards, vote for the intersection, vote for Legal AF. If you do it and we turn out our audience, they will both win the Webby Awards for the best podcast. It's like the Oscars for podcasts and nerds. And it just gives, the reason is to answer a question. It's not ego. I, Karen and I have won more awards in our field than I can shake a stick at. It's street credibility. It gives Legal AF and the intersection the ability to continue to bring on newsmakers and top interviewees and people that are in the trenches to address our audience.

1:05:59Popok:It's so much easier for me to get a guest to join when they know Legal AF. They know the size of our audience, the fervent support of our audience. And yeah, we throw, you know, my booker will throw in there, you know, they just won the Webby Award. It helps. Every little bit helps. We're up against billionaires and trillionaires. And, you know, we're doing it on a shoestring. I don't know, Popak, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind getting a Webby for, you know, it's just cool. It's like getting an Oscar, right? It's not just street cred. I think it would be cool. Well, do you know that I once was nominated for an Emmy?

1:06:37I did not win. Is this for Law & Order? No, this was for many years ago, like 100 years ago, when I worked for Mayor Mike Bloomberg. I worked with a group to create internet safety videos for kids, and we put them in every single backpack for every single middle school student in New York City. I mean, you know, this is back in the day where you had to have like CDs, right? And, or DVDs, I guess they would have been DVDs. And we put them in every backpack and we partnered with this amazing organization called Real Works. And it was student, it was student led and they created it and we did it together.

1:07:19And we were nominated for, for an Emmy, which was actually quite cool. And I got to go to the regional Emmys, not the main Emmys, but it was very cool.

1:07:27Popok:And what I've said is that accepted on our audience's behalf, it doesn't change the needle in my personal life if I win the Webby, but I do do it. I do do it. I mean, I love the part I like about it. It's the people's voice award, meaning the committee can also pick us. But the award that I really want to win is the one where our audience has a say. That would mean a lot. It would be more meaningful to me. Totally meaningful. I agree. Yeah, we'll turn down the other one, but it'd be completely meaningful. And if we win, well, there'll be a thing in May and Karen and I'll see each other. We'll make one of the brothers come out.

1:08:01Popok:Maybe Salty will come out. We'll have a grand old time and report back on it here on Legal AF and Midas Touch. And so that's one way. Become a member, a subscriber to the Legal AF YouTube channel, 12 videos a day. We're going to connect, I think, Substack Better to YouTube so that you have one-stop shopping. If you're a Substack member of Legal AF, I've just decided today, having seen what Midas did, we're going to be doing a nightly email listing our top five. We have a lot of great videos, top five videos on our channel that people should be knowing about. Because if you live in the Substack world and you don't see our YouTube videos and vice versa, you're missing out because they live together.

1:08:51Popok:It's holistic. It's synergistic. So if you're on Substack, you are a member, you'll get the emails and you'll see the videos for that day, like a lineup from that particular day. And then of course, we've got our pro-democracy sponsors been with us. Some of them been with us from the very beginning. Some are new, maybe even new tonight. And here they are. Can we talk about the most underrated organ in your body? Your liver. It's doing more than 500 functions every day, filtering unwanted elements, supporting digestion and helping with energy. So giving it daily support, it just makes sense. Dose for your liver is a clinically backed liver health supplement.

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1:11:43Popok:And now for a limited time, get up to 20 % off BullShot and free shipping when you text LEGAL20 to 64000. That's legal 20 to 64 ,000 for up to 20 % off and free shipping. Text legal 20 to 64 ,000. Message and data rates may apply. Welcome back to Legal AF. A couple of things that have developed as we have been on the air right before we went on the air. John Eastman, one of the architects of the election interference conduct of Donald Trump to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He was the halfwit constitutional law professor that, according to one judge, Judge Carter in the Central District of California, helped Donald Trump commit a crime.

1:12:34Popok:He has been permanently disbarred, actually disbarred by the California bar. Yes. Yes. See, that's a warning to all of the lawyers that are enabling Donald Trump. I'm looking at you, Pam Bondi, Lindsay Halligan, Todd Blanche, formerly Emil Bovee, Stan Woodward, and others. You put your law licenses at risk when you follow Donald Trump's lead into the heart of darkness. and bar associations are watching. You know, channels like ours are watching too, but we are, and we support it. But Eastman just lost his bar license. He's not the only one. Ken Chesborough lost his bar license. Rudy Giuliani lost his bar license.

1:13:26Popok:I haven't heard about Jeffrey Clark's bar license yet. Others got sanctioned. Jenna Ellis got her sanctioned. You know, Sidney Powell would have lost her bar license, But Texas, the Texas bar rallied the troops around her and she kept her bar license. It's a warning. You know, being a lawyer is a privilege. Karen and I and everybody else that's on Legal AF that's a lawyer took an oath, renew that oath to support and defend the Constitution and that of the state in which we practice and to abide by the rules of professional responsibility, including Trandor, candor to the tribunal, not lying to courts, not lying to your opponent, not arguing in bad Don't file cases of bad faith and don't make bad faith arguments.

1:14:18Popok:This is the heart of our profession, and it is a profession. And I've been a proud member of it for over 35 years. So good on the California bar for getting around five years later to just barring John Eastman so he can't hurt anybody else anymore. He could be a consultant, but he can't practice law, that's for sure. Kara, what did you make of, you know, Donald Trump pardoned on the day of his arrival, you know, by the first night of his administration, the jails were opened. It was like Arkham Prison for Batman. And out came 1600 plus insurrectionists. Some had their, some were given pardons, some had their sentences commuted, some were given clemency.

1:15:06Popok:Then you had the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, who were convicted in court of the highest level of crime that was charged, seditious conspiracy, 20 years. Many of them got eight years, nine years, 10 years, 12 years for their role in trying to burn down the Capitol and kill elected officials and their staff to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Now you have Janine Pirro running into court, kind of fresh off of what happened with Steve Baden with the United States Supreme Court, which is slightly different, to try to get these people out from under their convictions. Tell our audience what happened and what you as a former prosecutor, what do we make about this?

1:15:48Popok:What does this reflect in the values or lack thereof of the Trump administration? So, yeah, so there's about 14 people who had their sentences commuted. I think two, one was pardoned, one was dismissed. So I think there's 12 remaining, eight Oath Keepers and four Proud Boys, including names that we've talked about many, many times on the show, right? Stuart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, and some of the other, really the worst of the worst that from January 6th. And because of that, their sentences reflected that. And at the time when Trump pardoned over 1 ,000 people, 1 ,500, 1 ,600 people, it appeared that he only commuted the sentences of these most serious ones as opposed to pardoning them.

1:16:37Because commuting the sentence just means, the conviction stands, but I'm reducing your sentence. Still pretty bad, right, that they're not going to serve their time, especially for the conduct that they did. However, excuse me, however, it's, they didn't have a pardon. They still had felony convictions on the record. And what the Department of Justice has done, which is really astounding here, because the president could pardon them, but instead the DOJ is moving to dismiss the seditious conspiracy convictions against them. And if the judge approves the dismissal, which I I believe the judge has to approve.

1:17:19It would completely erase off the books and off the record the most serious convictions from this entire sprawling January 6 investigation. It would complete the whole everybody's pardoned. And you know, you have to wonder why now, right? Why is Trump doing this now? and it's unclear. I wonder whether it's, you know, and this is just something I've been thinking about, it's to clear the way so that they can sue the Department of Justice civilly and take more money, taxpayer dollars, and, you know, put it in the line, the pockets of, you know, because obviously if they sue the DOJ for, you know, wrongful prosecution or whatever, It's up to Trump and his DOJ to settle the cases and pay them out.

1:18:13And I don't know if this is just another way to pay his supporters and to keep them his supporters or what. But otherwise, why else would they be doing this? Because, like I said, he could pardon them and that would make it harder to sue because it's just a pardon. It's not moving to dismiss a conviction. Why else would they be doing this this way? And that's the only thing that I could come up with as a reason.

1:18:40Popok:Not a bad theory. You know, I think they're doing cleanup now. You know, they did their pardons. I'm not sure he wants to do another round of pardons of these people. And they found another way to do it efficiently through Janine Pirro, who's another person trying out for attorney general, at least, using this sort of Bannon methodology of going back to the courts and then dismissing the indictments and reversing the conviction. You know, it's just another, if it walks like a duck, it's just another pardon effort. Maybe it does open the door, as you said, to these other ramifications or benefits that aren't present with the pardon.

1:19:25Popok:But that's all we're watching. We're watching Donald Trump enter into agreements and deals and consent decrees to bind the hands of the future Department of Justice, to pay money to people who were convicted or died because they were attacking the Capitol. You know, millions of dollars to Ashley Babbitt's family and Michael Flynn. And everybody's lighting up because, you know, the word is out that taxpayer dollars are being handed out by Donald Trump being fired out of a fire hose to pay back these people's attorney's fees. Donald Trump's got his own couple hundred million dollar lawsuit against the Department of Justice that hasn't been resolved or has it?

1:20:12Popok:There's speculation that maybe it's been resolved. There's a Freedom of Information Act request out about it to see if he's been paid off already. If not, why not? And what's happening with that Federal Tort Claim Act, a federal tort claim act claim that he made against the government. He's seeking reimbursement from Fulton County, Georgia as well. It's just Donald Trump's efforts to try to scrub out the indelible stain of his being an insurrectionist and a criminal from the history books by pointing to all. I got my money back. I settled in my own Department of Justice and got my 250 million.

1:20:53It's like, you know, look, the eyes of history and the voters are watching.

1:20:58Popok:And Trump can do all sorts of things to try to rub out that spot. But it's never going to come out. The American voter is wise to him. And as you said, I would be, this I would be shocked. You know, we have six, seven months left. But if he pulls out any kind of less than a shellacking on midterm election day, I would be, I'd be shocked. And I'm not easily shocked at all. I mean, if this isn't a 250 seat majority for the House, and not only regaining the Senate, but I don't think they get 60 for the Democrats. But there's a lot of pissed off people in America, hundreds of millions of them that are ready to vote.

1:21:48Popok:And the more you try to take away their right to vote and their ability to vote and the ease at which they can vote, the more annoyed and pissed off they are and want to take it out on the tormentor. In this case, Donald Trump is Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the rest. And all these people that are trying to write their tickets while Donald Trump is still in office because he's promised them a pardon. Doesn't mean your bar license isn't at risk. Doesn't mean your obituary won't be written a certain way. But everybody's trying to graft and grift off of Donald Trump right now while he still has the juice.

1:22:23Popok:Get that pardon in their back pocket. Get that attorney general position. Get that Supreme Court position. You know, if you're in his family, go get that money from the Arab world while you're supposed to be the special envoy for Iran like Jared Kushner, the son-in-law. Line your pockets with billions and billions and billions of dollars while you can, folks. It's almost like a going out of business sale. Trump knows he's a short timer. He's a short-termer. He's got a short horizon. And so he's trying to do maximum damage, you know, and benefit as many people that support him as possible with pardons and money and contracts and grift as possible.

1:23:05Popok:You wrote me a note a week or so ago about, I don't know if it was$30 million an hour, the cost of running the Iranian war. There's a new one out today that it's$30 million an hour into the pockets of the oil industry. Every day the Iranian war continues because of the rise in oil prices. An hour to the oil company that has Donald Trump in their back pocket. and this is what the American people who have a pent-up demand to vote are just waiting to get in. Polling is great. Nasty letters are amazing. I love videos, but nothing replaces voting and the results of voting, and now's the time. So if we don't like what just happened with the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, then burn that indelibly into the front lobe of your brain, and these are the reasons when you're polled next time and you're polled like what do you think about the democrats and 65 percent people said uh not our audience but 65 percent of the audience of the people polled said i don't like them either if you want to know what the difference is going to be when the democrats take over think about what just happened or what's about to happen with the oath keepers and the proud boys are you okay with that does that sit right with you then vote for the democrats if you don't like what's happening with the economy if you don't like like what's happening with the conduct of the Iran war or Venezuela or the grift or the billions of dollars that Donald Trump and his family have made or the destruction of our economy or the social safety net or of healthcare,

1:24:45then it's binary. You vote for the other party up and down from the top to the bottom. You know, someone said once, and I thought this was a great way to look at it is when you're picking a president or a senator or you're voting, don't look at it like a marriage. Don't look at it. You don't have to love the person. You don't really even have to like them that much. Look at it more like public transportation. Okay. You're looking for the train that gets you closest to your destination, closest to the time that you want to get there. Right. Right. And it's so you're it's you're just trying to kind of get close and that's what you want to do.

1:25:29And so that's what I think how you look at it. And I think when you look at Donald Trump and his administration and all of the things that he does, some of them are crazy. Some of them are dangerous. Some of them are vile and some of them are just incompetent. I can't imagine anyone who could say that's this is the world that I want to be closest. This is this is the stop I want to be closest to. And, and look, there's a lot of politicians, you know, there's a lot of people who say, well, I don't like this person. They're political, they're a politician, you know, whatever. And I understand that.

1:26:06I think it takes it takes a lot to run for office. You know, I actually thought about it once and decided not to because I don't think it would be right for me. And part of it is because of what you go through and what it's like. And so I think it takes a certain kind of person to withstand the running for office thing. And again, look at their moral character, I think, number one, and their integrity and their honesty, and then look for the train that gets you closest to your station at the closest time that you can find. And that's who you vote for.

1:26:41Popok:Perfectly put. Great way to end another edition of Legal AF, the podcast, Karen Friedman, Ignifolo, and Michael Popok. Thank you for all of your fervent support building this great community, this fellowship where we vibrate on the same frequency. We give you the information that you need to protect your First Amendment rights while we're expressing ours and we do it together on the greatest independent media platform on planet earth Midas touch and of course the legal AF YouTube channel so until our next report I'll be on with saturday I'll be on saturday with ben come over to legal AF YouTube channel legal AF sub stack and vote for the webby awards in the links below until my next report with karen and And me, Michael Popok, you're on Legal AF.

1:27:31Popok:Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.

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