Legal AF 9/27/2026

27:12And that thing is called an answer. And the reason you want and you need an answer to be filed ultimately in a case is that we call that issue is now joined when a complaint and an answer are filed, allowing the plaintiff to call for a trial setting. Time Time to go to trial. Time to set the trial. Time to move towards summary judgment in lieu of trial to get to the merits and final determination by the trier of fact and whoever's going to be doing that case, bench, judge, or jury. And there was no answer. I mean, she filed her suit in April, like April. There should have been an answer in May.

27:48We are now in October. And so they missed a series of deadlines. And I've told this to Katie Fang's lawyer. They're much nicer than I I would have been. I would have moved for a default early on because they did not have any excuse or good faith reason why they didn't answer the suit. But they didn't. They were nicer than I am. And they asked pretty pleased a couple of more times. And finally, the judge said, all right, you're going to file the answer by the 24th of September. And you're not going to be able to file a motion to dismiss because you waived that. Another screw up by the Department of Justice.

28:18They answered, and then it went off, as we've seen when Donald Trump files complaints, really political screeds and attacks, either narcissistically stroking his own ego or attacking the adversary, masquerading as a proper lawsuit or pleading. He does the same thing in the answer. So think about the depravity and the immorality of this. You've got a case about a child sex trafficking ring and a sex trafficking ring that preyed on thousands and thousands of women and girls. And all Donald Trump can think to say is that he's his is the greatest administration in the history of all administrations.

28:54He's been the most and the this and the greatest rather than just answering your questions. And he even denies because you have to admit or deny or admit as much or deny as much as you can to be a proper answer. You know, if somebody writes it in a way that's very, you know, political or argumentative, you can maybe get away with a different type of response. or if it's really what we call a conclusion of law, maybe you don't need to respond to it at all. But that's not what they did. Even just in the section dealing with the handwritten FBI notes and the documents that were produced and given to Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal defense team in her prosecution that were not produced pursuant to the Epstein File Transparency Act, where are they?

29:37They denied reality. We don't know what you're talking about, vague and ambiguous. We don't know what documents, what log, what production. You can't figure it out. Really? I don't think that's how Judge Sullivan is going to see that answer. So here's what I think is going to happen with the answer. I think there may be a motion to strike parts of that answer, both being scandalous and impertinent, has no role in an answer under the federal rules, but also to get a proper answer. You know, a number of them are like, well, it's ambiguous. I don't know what you mean by Ghislaine Maxwell. Well, I don't know what you mean by handwritten FBI notes.

30:12How about the ones that are with the federal judge right now that you just turned in? So the gamesmanship that they're playing, again, I don't know, like you said earlier, I don't think it's going to play well with Judge Solomon, especially given the context here. And I think there may be a motion by Katie. I don't have insider knowledge, but there may be a motion by Katie Fang's side to strike aspects of the answer to get a proper answer. But now that the answer is in or a version of it, she'll be able to move forward with summary judgment and or trial. So the answer coming in is a bigger deal than I think has been reported.

30:44Then the last loose end is these untranslated millions potential pages of foreign language documents. Think about it. Their excuse for not, if they were, if this was a criminal case, like Ghislaine Maxwell and the late Jeffrey Epstein, They had an obligation to turn over all documents related to their prosecution that were helpful to the defense or to the prosecution. You can't under, you cannot under the law withhold documents, fail to produce them under the, what we call Brady material or other things, because you don't know what they say. You must know what they say. You must translate them.

31:25And you must produce them to the other side. You can't put them into a separate drop box and say, can't figure it out. So the same principles there. Now, Donald Trump's continuing is, you know, because he doesn't know what they say, because I'm not sure they translated them. What's in the box? They don't know the answer to that. So they've run off to federal court, appellate court, and they've gotten for now, as of this tonight's live, they've gotten a temporary administrative stay by the court to give them time to get full briefing. It's not on the merits. We're not freaking out about it. But it'll be, once I see the panel, maybe we'll freak out.

32:02I'll tell you who the three judges are. And if it's, there's three Trump judges on that panel, just to give you a viewer guide. Katzis, Walker, and Rayo. Rayo, at least, is trying out for the United States Supreme Court. If there's two out of three Trumpers on there, it's going to be bad for Katie in terms of that particular issue. If it's only one or less, it'll probably not be stayed and Judge Sullivan will be able to go forward on the foreign language document section. But just I'll end it this way, Ben. I don't want people to lose sight of what is at the bottom and is the majority of what Katie is seeking.

32:38The tip of the iceberg is what we've been talking about. She's seeking a special master to be appointed by the federal judge to both look back at what's been produced already and to look at documents that were left on the cutting room floor and didn't make the production to see if they should have been produced and report back as an honest broker, as a officer of the court directly to the judge. That's what we always wanted because we've seen the Department of Justice disqualify themselves as a reliable entity to handle this process. That's what Katie's been seeking. And ultimately, through that person appointed, the production of millions of more pages in order to bring justice to the survivors and to allow for fair commentary and report, which is, of course, what we're known for here on the Vitus Touch Network.

33:24Look, if you're looking at the biggest flaw in our legal system, and I know I'm speaking very broadly here, but I think as people hear this, they're like, what the hell? What's going on with your legal system? So much of our system was based upon good faith and fair dealing. So much of our system was based on the take care clause of the Constitution that the executive branch would take care that laws were faithfully executed. When you have an Epstein Transparency Act and it requires certain things to be done, the fight would take place before the law is done. But then once the law is passed, the executive would take care that the laws are faithfully executed and you would follow the law.

34:05But Donald Trump is a criminal. He's a felon. He's an awful human. Separately, he was found civilly liable for sexual assault. He's a bankruptor. Like he's been a scumbag piece of trash his whole life. So what happens when a system based on good faith, faithfully executing laws is turned on its head by a literal criminal, by an extortionist, by a horrible human being. When the world looked at the United States, when people would use these terms sometimes, oh, it's the envy of the world, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And many times people would still say that's a bit hyperbolic. There are other legal systems in different countries that still function pretty good.

34:41And you could have those types of debates. But what people, I think, admired and were surprised about were things like peaceful transitions of power and how you can have good faith and it actually work. And that it's like, well, why? That's not how it happens in other countries. It's not like good faith. It's like brute force. It's law of the jungle. So you've created a system on good faith and that there's other countries that you are encouraging to follow that system. But that's gone. I mean, that's what you're seeing play out here. So when you're thinking about all these machinations, It's like, well, produce the freaking records.

35:16Well, that's what the law says. So you're like, well, why don't they follow the law? Why don't the courts enforce it? Well, then you have all these other, you know, concepts in the law that can be abused by abusers. And it's like, well, is there technically jurisdiction? Well, the law didn't specifically say that a reporter has standing to sue, and it doesn't say that there's an implied cause of action. And so therefore, could there be an argument that there's no standing in that? So then what's the injury to the reporter who wants the files? And is the reporter technically injured? And then you get down these rabbit holes where it's like Talmudic, if you will.

35:58You know, it's like a Supreme Court judge looks at it as they were interpreting, you know, a Bible or the Old Testament, New Testament. And the way these MAGA Republicans totally pervert the meaning of like religious text. Right. Well, that means that God hated gay people or that means that, right. You know, that type of stuff. You have MAGA judges who look at the Constitution or look at this and go, actually, that actually meant by the founders that this is going to happen or that's going. I decree it. And so I want to address that because to me, that's a broader issue that we have to come to grips with as a nation.

36:34And we have to talk about why is all of this happening? Because when you think about the depths of depravity, when your government is covering up child sex trafficking and is covering up the name of the freaking president who in the files themselves, right, and is covering up all of this stuff, there's no depths to the depravity. It's one of those things like if you do that, then what else are you going to do? Oh, we know now. We know. Slaughter little girls in Manab. Slaughter little children in Manair. Send ICE in Border Patrol to invade your states. I can go on and on. You get the point there.

37:08Popak, let's talk about, though, when there was a law and order. I mean, Special Counsel Jack Smith, nobody knew this guy's politics. I know MAGA wants to cast him as, oh, this anti-Trump liberal guy. Jack Smith was somebody who was part of these international criminal court tribunals, which, by the way, the Trump regime has sanctioned and treats the ICC and all of these international tribunals, the Hague, et cetera, like they're terrorists. Quite literally, Trump and Rubio have imposed the harshest sanctions on international criminal tribunals. But special counsel Jack Smith, career prosecutor, you know, he was he worked with Karen Freedom Magnifico from the Midas Touch Network, then top federal prosecutor, public integrity division.

37:52And then he was a international prosecutor of dictators. He was brought in way too late by Merrick Garland. We know the story there. But talk to us, Popak, about what he's being called to testify to this week and why that's a big deal. Yeah, thanks, Ben. And I'll tie that also to Judge Cannon back in the news because she presides over the grand conspiracy investigation still going on, apparently, in her one judge town of Fort Pierce, Florida, because former FBI agents who worked for Jack Smith on the Mar-a-Lago case are champing at the bit to testify without having a gag order against them because they've been called to testify before a grand jury about Mar-a-Lago.

38:33And boy, these former FBI agents, boy, are they willing to testify. Well, I'll tie both those things together. So the Senate Judiciary Committee, fresh off of its Kash Patel interviews and Oversight Committee hearing and the one with Todd Blanch for confirmation, Chuck Grassley and the Republicans, obviously being puppeteered by Donald Trump, decide, you know, it's a great idea right before the midterms. What? We'll bring in Jack Smith. Jack Smith has been dying and begging to get on television and give testimony to the people under the bright lights of the House or the Senate. So you're not walking.

39:13Jack Smith's not walking into their trap. They're walking into his. What's the line from the Watchmen? I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me. And so you can put as many argumentative titles on top of your hearing. the oversight hearing over Jack Smith's political attacks on Republicans, like, as you want. But none of it is going, it's all going to fall flat with the American people because Jack Smith is going to suck the oxygen out of that room. And he is, people after his initial, you know, you get the speech from Durbin and you get the speech from Grassley to open up the hearing at 9 a.m.

39:53And then you get Jack Smith's going to give a 20, 30 minute opening uninterrupted. And then here come the questions. And this will now be, here's a programming guide. We'll have it up on Legal AF YouTube channel. I'll do a pregame show before it. This is going to be a role reversal. Now you're going to watch the Democratic senators like White House and Klobuchar and Cory Booker and Blumenthal, not throwing softballs to Jack Smith, but certainly allowing him wide birth and latitude to tell his side of the story about him being an apolitical agnostic prosecutor who, as you mentioned, was plucked from a job at The Hague.

40:32He wasn't even in, this is why they went for Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, if we can remember when we had a Merrick Garland as attorney general, because he wasn't in the political mix. He had left that public integrity section of the Department of Justice years before. He had spent almost a decade in The Hague, so he wasn't directly tied back to the American sort of hammer and tong fighting of the politics. And so Merrick Garland, in his infinite wisdom, thought, well, this guy's unassailable, right? Except everybody's assailable under the Trump administration, especially if he's investigating the lack of a peaceful transfer of power.

41:10Now, the Republicans constantly say that this was a political witch hunt and that the Republicans were targeted by Jack Smith. It is not our fault that the conspiracy as indicted involved the leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and his party leaders in a conspiracy to overthrow the will of the people. If the Democrats had joined the conspiracy, I'm sure they would have been investigated and maybe indicted too. But you can't say because this had a political aspect. The object of the conspiracy was political in nature. That's the transfer of power and the interference of it.

41:54So for them to say, you only came after us because we're Republicans. It was only Republicans that were involved in the conspiracy. And Jack Smith's going to say what he has said over and over again every time he's publicly testified, either to the House where we finally get the videotape later or in a speech overseas or wherever he – or he's interviewed on television on 60 Minutes or whatever. He says the same thing, and it's all because it's true. I was agnostic and apolitical about the who were the targets and who were the objects of my investigation. If Democrats were involved or a Democratic president had led a similar attempted coup, I would have done the exact same thing.

42:34That's the test. I would have done the exact same thing regardless. So it's not it's not I'm not going after you for your viewpoint. I'm going after you because you're involved in a criminal conspiracy and you happen to also have an R, you know, stitched onto your lapel. That is going to come out loud and clear in response to questions, both the harder ones from the ones that are geeked up to go after him on the Senate Judiciary Committee or Republican, but really with the questioning by the Democrats. So Jack Smith is going to, I believe, win that scrum that has been set up. And I want people to understand this was not an accident.

43:13This was done on purpose by Donald Trump and his Republican lackeys in the Senate to try to help Donald Trump and his party before the midterms. And we'll all be able to report throughout the week, because it happens on Tuesday, about how that went. And I don't think in retrospect, another boomerang for Donald Trump, I don't think in retrospect, him having Jack Smith make a public appearance at his own command is a good thing with 38 or 39 days to go to the midterm. One other thing about that, then I'll turn to the FBI, which is related. The things that Donald Trump is not doing indicate to me that he knows he's out of gas and out of time for the midterms.

43:58This is not that, as we all have covered, this is not the Donald Trump of eight years ago. This is not a more vibrant, more, you know, somebody had a little bit of gas in the tank at 72 trying to hold on for a second term or whatever. This is a guy who's lame as the lame ducks, who knows his career is over and his power is over midterm and beyond. He's got$150 million in the bank, but he hasn't spent it or much of it. The ad buys that would help him and help his party, there's no more ads to buy. All the television time has been bought. He's not going and campaigning in these places. You know, he does one or two here or there.

44:37Instead, they roll out Grandpa and bring him to the Tennessee-Texas game. to do a flyover and get some cheers and I'm sure some booze mixed in. That is not going to help his party at the midterm. And he has this murder suicide pact that he's that he that he is making. And he's forcing the other elected officials to make with him. It's like, you've got to you've got to stay with me. I'm going to hold on to you. And they're like, no, we want to break out and break free and try to separate ourselves from you and scrub our websites of your reference. And hopefully maybe we could beat the tide. And he's not letting them.

45:10He's got them and he's choking out his own party because of his own narcissism and his fecklessness. And so that is a story. I mean, I just interviewed, I just had Scott McFarland, Midas' Washington Bureau Chief and White House correspondent, with me and with Legal AF. And he made a very good point, which is there are going to be, we're focused on the 30 toss-up races, right? Out of 435 races in the Congress, in the House, there's like 30 that are not decided yet. And mainly right now they're polling well in favor of the Democrats in terms of flipping those seats. But I think he's right. There are people in the Senate and the House, especially in leadership and the Republican side, that are going to get swept away in the tide of this sea change election that even we're not thinking about.

45:58Like, holy shit, that guy lost or that woman, that person lost because of the public ire and the and this growing cauldron of of hatred for Donald Trump and everything he stands for and his party stands for, I think, just spills over. And I think he's right. I think it wipes out people that we were, you know. And the other thing is this over this this remapping strategy that Donald Trump came up with with a couple of people in the White House to like, we'll just remap everything and get rid of the Democrats. Not so fast because they've spread that Republican concentration so thin in order to create these eight to one districts for the Republicans that now they've endangered certain Republicans because they've taken away their voters to put them into other districts.

46:43And so when you spread that icing so thin, don't be surprised when it's not a seven to one Republican advantage in a state. It ends up being four to four. It also highlights, of course, everything that you're trying to cover up when you make it about, hey, we need to rig the elections because we're so unpopular. People start to say, wait a minute, are you trying to play me right now? and people start to think about it seems that you're not running on issues like affordability and you say that's a new word and you're not running on gas prices or anything other than you want to stop my vote. It seems that the main thing you're trying to do, and we'll talk about this in the next segment also, is stopping me from voting.

47:30That's suspicious. And you start to say, And I think the totality of all of this leads certain independent voters who I think have been felt very frustrated and angry and betrayed throughout this process. But now as we start to hit that home stretch heading to the election, I think you see their fury start to rise. I think you see a lot of these MAGA people or people who consider themselves so-called American first. And they're saying, you know who's a lot more America first? People like Mamdani and people like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and people like James Tallarico. They're talking about American issues while you're out there talking about, oh, I'm never going to do a deal with Iran on the Strait of Hormuz.

48:18I control the Hormuz Strait. It's the Trump Strait. after the midterms, we're going to escalate the war. And it's like, what in the world are you talking about? And then, I mean, you see Mike Huckabee, I saw this interview of him the other day, and he said that he had this Isaiah moment where he was given the role of the ambassador to Israel because God wanted him to do it. While you have Pete Hegseth talking about how, speaking about Isaiah moments that the book of Isaiah talks about how the United States should send me, send our children into catastrophic wars in the Middle East that Isaiah says, send people to war.

49:01People are like a bunch of religious, fanatic, lunatic, extremist, crazy people who are all about catastrophic wars abroad and screwing people over here in America. Let's take our last quick break of the show. Reminder, if you or somebody who's been injured in a car accident, an auto accident, if you've been injured in a trucking accident, if you've experienced catastrophic injury tragically, or if you know someone who has reached out to the Popak Firm, the consultation is free with Michael Popak. The Popak Firm represents a lot of Legal AF viewers and listeners in really big cases across the country.

49:34Don't be shy. Call Popak 877-POPAKAF or visit thepopakfirm.com. Also, make sure you subscribe to that Legal AF YouTube channel and the Legal AF Substack. Let's keep those channels growing. It's going to be very important, especially as legal developments, legal accountabilities, I think is going to be the theme for the next many, many years. The Legal AF channel will be there on the front lines with all the groups that are going to be leading the charge and who are leading the charge. Last break of the show. We'll be right back. Life insurance. We all know we need it, but it's easy to put off because it seems complicated or expensive.

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52:59You know, one of them seemingly a good decision, although I think even the Supreme Court was perplexed why for the third time it had to overturn what the Missouri MAGA leaders were doing after the Missouri Supreme Court made a ruling. And I think the Supreme Court said as much in its ruling. And then a very concerning and alarming ruling about this federal database, the SAVE database, and what that means 90 days in that 90 day window. I mean, we're much less right now. But what that can mean long term in terms of voter purges. I've heard different people. I've heard Mark Elias being very nervous and concerned about it.

53:35I've heard Norm Eisen saying, OK, it's not as big of a deal as you think it is. And so when Elias and Eisen are kind of, I want to hear the Popak. I need the Popak to come in for me. But talk about FBI, then we'll go pivot to Supreme. Yeah, the FBI dovetails to what we ended our last segment with, which is Jack Smith appearing on Tuesday. It's no, it should come as no shock to anybody that there are former FBI agents who did not want to work for this administration, did not want to work under Kash Patel, and were reassigned if they worked on Jan 6th cases, worked for Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, were reassigned to Oblivion, and then chose to resign.

54:185 ,000 FBI agents have resigned in the last two years of this administration, 1 ,200 with more than 22 years of experience in the last year alone. And so what do you think those people, many of which are suing to get their jobs back and be protected. But many of them are just waiting on the sidelines for opportunities to tell their side of the story. And boy, do they have it. Here's another boomerang category. Donald Trump has been using this grand conspiracy investigation once headed by Joe DeGenova, who was an 82-year-old guy who resigned noisily about two weeks ago, continuing to be headed by Jason Redding Quinones, handpicked U.S.

54:58attorney in Miami, sits in Miami for the Southern District to lead a conspiracy investigation out of the Fort Pierce one judge courthouse, meaning Judge Cannon presiding over the grand jury, in which the grand jury has been reviewing apparently dozens of testimonials, hundreds of people have been subpoenaed about whether the Obama administration tried to undermine Donald Trump illegally somehow through the Russia investigation. But we know another huge component of it is Jack Smith and the Mar-a-Lago investigation, which was led by the FBI on the investigative side. Well, former FBI agents have been subpoenaed to testify to the grand jury.

55:46And boy, do they want to do that. That's not going to helped Donald Trump, which to testify to the grand jury about why the FBI had a legitimate investigation into Donald Trump's espionage and obstruction of justice, why they executed on a search warrant, what was the facts that they had to indicate that Donald Trump was continuing to cover up and hide documents from his own lawyer, from the National Archive, from the Department of Justice and the FBI using the two co-defendants and trying to erase video tape, video surveillance tape when they figured out that all of that furtive moving of boxes in and around Mar-a-Lago to hide the documents like an elaborate shell game was caught on camera.

56:34And Donald Trump's conversations, according to the indictment with Carlos de Olviera, the IT guy, how do we get, how do we erase those tapes or, you know, proxies of Donald Trump? And so that's the story that the FBI wants to tell. The problem is Judge Cannon, same judge, issued an order, effectively a gag order, at least on Jack Smith, about making public statements about Mar-a-Lago. You know, she killed the indictment. She killed Jack Smith and reprimanded him in her order, found he didn't have authority to even be a special prosecutor, special counsel, and certainly not to reveal, you know, for an unindicted person, volume two.

57:13Volume one about Jan's 6th interference is already out in the public, released by Merrick Garland while he was still in office. Volume two was left on the desk of Pam Bondi, and of course she buried it. And now the judge is buried. The question is for the FBI agents, are we bound by that gag order? Because if we're bound by that gag order, then I got to take the Fifth Amendment when I testify. And or I got to worry about that you're going to find me in contempt for not being able to testify freely. We want to testify freely. That's a bad sign for Donald Trump. Not that things will leak out of the secret grand jury, but they've been known to.

57:50And it's just the FBI wanting an opportunity, much like Jack Smith, to clear their name and to demonstrate to independent people in the grand jury that they had legitimate good faith basis to investigate Donald Trump. And here's all the evidence that we had. It's now sitting before Judge Cannon. The question is, is Judge Cannon going to interfere with the grand jury process and tell witnesses they can't testify about things to the grand jury because she doesn't want them to? And how quickly is the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for the third time going to say that Judge Cannon has improperly interfered with a prosecution?

58:28So those are the two things we're watching really in the same week. What's Cannon going to do and what's the 11th Circuit going to do while Jack Smith does testify about these things? Remember, Jack Smith cannot testify about Mar-a-Lago despite his willingness to do it because of that same Judge Cannon order. So with that, you want to comment? By the way, doesn't that tell you absolutely everything that the Trump MAGA, they love to go on state regime media, rail about communism, rail about Beijing, Joe Biden or whatever it is. But when push comes to shove, they party with Xi and the CCP and roll out the red carpet.

59:11And then they'll say all these things, Jack Smith, this, Jack Smith, that. Jack Smith's like, okay, put me under oath. Put me in a stadium. Let me talk about it. And then Trump and MAGA, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Gag order. You can't talk about it. Absolutely not. You know, that ties into we're the most transparent regime imaginable and free speech, free speech. And then Donald Trump whining like a baby. Oh, I don't like the coverage of MS now and Politico and CNN. By the way, it turns out that the Politico source, according to many people, has been J.D. Vance on a lot of the things regarding the catastrophic war in Iran.

59:49So think about this scene as well. You have Xi Jinping shows up, CCP party leader there and there. You have all the Chinese media there, while America's media companies are banned. China's media, good, perfect, not enemy of the people, amazing. She, according to Trump, great, amazing, A plus, well-respected. Then Donald Trump trashes former president and bans our media. And she just talked about, I brought two pandas to Atlanta. I'm going to give you two pandas. Thucydides trapped, China rises, US falls. And then Donald Trump just showing it in real time. It was for she a real coup, the perfect visit over there.

1:00:32You know, and then you take a look at like our court system and everything that's going on. I mean, what's gone on in Missouri, I think, is a perfect WTF moment where people are like, wait, I don't even understand. This is confusing. What's going on with your court system? Didn't the Supreme Court already say that the MAGA Republican leadership in Missouri can't put forward their new 7-to-1 unlawful gerrymandered map? Let me just try to break down this one real super easy for you. The Constitution of Missouri makes it clear. You want to change the map. You want to gerrymander. You can do it. But here's the thing.

1:01:07You got to do it in a referendum. You got to put it to the people for a vote. The MAGA leadership thought, well, if we do it to a vote for the public, then we're going to lose. So let's just do it unlawfully. Let's just pass it through the legislature. We'll call it, you know, this House Bill 1. We'll push it through and then we'll get our 7 to 1 map. We'll change the 6 to 1 map. Damn the Constitution. Last like earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Missouri, because remember, states have their own state system. Federal has its courts, but the state Supreme Court of Missouri, the top state court said, if you do that, you're doing it at your own peril.

1:01:44You're violating the law. Do a referendum and then you can change the map if that's what the people vote for. But we're going to rule against you in the future if you try to change the map and don't do a referendum. So don't be whining when we rule against you in the future, even if you go through with the primary. Don't do the primary. If you do it, we're likely going to rule against you. And then you're going to go back to the old maps, then you're going to whine. So what does the sociopathic MAGA leadership in Missouri do? We're going to do our own maps. We're going to ignore the constitution of the state.

1:02:18States' rights, right? So they go through with their primary based upon the seven to one map without doing a referendum. The lawsuit trying to block that from happening still is going through and lawsuits take time to rise to the highest court of the state. And then the Supreme Court said, um, set unanimous decision. I think it was five right-wing justices in Missouri Supreme Court, two liberal justices in the Missouri Supreme Court. It was four to two. Anyway, it was unanimous. There's more right-wing justices on Missouri Supreme Court than liberal justices by far, but unanimously they said, our constitution clearly says it's got to be a referendum.

1:02:56him. We warned you about this. Stop whining about it. So what do these Missouri MAGA leaders do? Well, they file, first they seek an emergency appeal, hoping the Supreme Court will overturn what the state Supreme Court does. Justice Kavanaugh initially says, no, no, we're not, we're going to side with what the state Supreme Court said. So I'm rejecting this emergency petition that was filed by the Missouri MAGA leaders. Then you keep on going and then you have the MAGA leaders file a lawsuit in a federal district court to block what the Missouri State Supreme Court basically did and to issue an injunction to block the Missouri State Supreme Court, you know, state's rights, right?

1:03:45Going to the federal judge to block what the State Supreme Court says, the state constitution says. And then they draw, they get a Trump-appointed federal judge in Missouri who grants the MAGA leadership in Missouri's request to block what the state Supreme Court said. So then temporarily what happens is the unlawful seven-to-one map is the map that's supposed to be in place. There's an emergency appeal on that ruling to the Supreme Court. Then there was a seven to two decision by the Supreme Court that basically said, we kind of ruled on this already, that the Missouri State Supreme Court ruled on this.

1:04:27And so you can't just go to a federal district court judge now and try to overturn basically what the state Supreme Court did and come up with some, I mean, argument that the Constitution of the United States and the Supremacy Clause supersedes the state Supreme Court ruling and the argument that the sociopathic MAGA leaders are saying it's a constitutional violation of the people's rights because they've already voted in a primary and thus you basically be taking their rights as citizens to vote by saying that they voted based on an unlawful map. And the Supreme Court is basically saying, just because you give people an unlawful map, you can't then say that they're being deprived of their constitutional rights by restoring the constitutional map.

1:05:20Like, you created the problem, and now you're saying that because you gave them an unlawful map, an unlawful gerrymander to vote for, that now you're going to, that their constitutional rights are going to be violated. So the Supreme Court ruled for a second time, no, the district court is wrong. The state Supreme Court of Missouri is right. You can change the map, but you have to do a referendum, and that's what's going to happen. And so, no, it's we're going back to the 2022 map, which was six Republicans, two Democrats in Missouri. And then out of nowhere this past week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeal, which is the court that's one level above the district court.

1:06:02They're like, you know, before we kind of passed on the issue and we said we didn't have jurisdiction and that's why it went directly up to the Supreme Court. But we have jurisdiction now and we are going to be overturning what the Missouri State Supreme Court did. Our logic is going to be similar to the district court. So we are finding that the new unlawful gerrymandered map is lawful because there was a primary and people voted on it. And if you change the map back to the old map, you're depriving people of their primary vote. So we're saying that that's what the United States Constitution says, despite the fact that the Constitution really says time, manner and place of voting is a state's rights issue.

1:06:43It's not a federal issue. It's a state's rights issue. And the state Supreme Court has spoken. So then there was another appeal to the Supreme Court and then the Supreme Court. And this one this time it was a unanimous decision. They were like, OK, this is the third freaking time we've ruled on this. This is time three. We've ruled on this. And so just like we said the first time, just like we said the second time, now for the third time, we're saying the Missouri State Supreme Court has made a ruling. If you want to change the map, you do a referendum, okay? Without that, we're going to the old map.

1:07:17It's not an excuse that you use the unlawful map in your primaries, that you don't get to claim because you broke the law that now you have constitutional protections. We're going with what the Missouri State Supreme Court says. So the end conclusion is it goes back to the 2022 map. That's a six to two map. Missouri can hold a referendum. If it wants to change the maps, people can vote. I don't think after seeing all of this, that people are actually going to vote for the seven to one map either. But this map is a six to two map. And I just think, Popak, when I describe that, people look at our system and go, what the hell kind of system is that.

1:07:56I want you to talk about the saved database part of it. But with what I just described there, it's what I emphasized at the outset. Do you see how in that convoluted process, it is fraught with the ability to manipulate it and to make all these arguments and how well resourced groups can advance these arguments and try to screw over people who don't have, I mean, the way I described that, it's a crazy description, but that's what happened. And a couple of factoids that drive your analysis. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, there's 11 members on it. 10 are Republican. 10 were picked by the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo.

1:08:40So there's no shock that three of them, including an election denier, really an election denier who refused to admit that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, was one of the three judges on the Eighth Circuit that said, yeah, I mean, we saw the Supreme Court through Kavanaugh on the full panel said the 2022 map, but we're going to go with the 2025 map all over again. And we were reasonably confident in the analytic world that the Supreme Court this time would be definitive. The second thing, and they were, the second thing that was interesting is they did not rebuke and chastise the Eighth Circuit the way I've seen them do it when it's a Democratic appointed judge.

1:09:21When Judge Young up in Boston couldn't figure out what a one-paragraph shadow docket order meant and if it applied really to his case and he didn't follow it because it was a shadow docket ruling, he got ripped a new one by Kavanaugh and by Gorsuch. How dare you not follow the precedent established in our most recent order? This one was like it was an error. You made an error, Eighth Circuit. You didn't follow our prior two rulings, but you really should have. So this is the definitive answer. We thought they would bring up the Purcell doctrine, Purcell principle, meaning the closer you get to an election, the less a federal court should interfere with the rules of the game, especially if state election officials.

1:10:10In this case, the state's highest court has made a ruling like stay away. And then I also thought it was interesting in the ruling, which is unanimous, there was no dissent, that they credited an amicus brief. You and I cover a lot, friends of the court briefs. And some people question, well, what's the purpose? It's a non-party, it's their opinion. But no, a lot of times arguments and analysis and case law or maybe legislative history or historical references that are made in a brief resonate with somebody who's writing the opinion or a dissent, and it ends up in there. It's like it gets into that water supply.

1:10:48And here they say on page three over to four of the per curiam decision, according to local election officials in Missouri, quote, At this point, it is practically impossible to revert to the 2025 map. Brief for Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities as amicus curi. Similar thing happened about mail-in ballots when the postal workers got together and said, we can't use a new citizenship portal. It's not even done yet, and we haven't been trained on it. So a lot of times people that are in the trenches who file amicus briefs, it ends up actually swaying the court's opinion and they cite to it.

1:11:31And I'm not, you know, we said, and this is back to our earlier part of the podcast discussion, we said it goes from seven to one to six to two. So a couple of observations about that. One, even though every statistical analysis of what could happen at the midterms has the Democrats winning the 218 seats they need plus to lead the House. They need 218. I've seen statistical modeling that shows they're going to get 10 more than that, 15 more than that, 20 more than that, or 30 more than that. I've also seen modeling that says they're going to get one more than they need or two more than they need.

1:12:11And that's why making it eight to one instead of seven to one, making it six to two could come down to control of the House. And I'm not so sure it's six to two. Because the 2022 map in one other district, there's a 40 percent chance of a Democrat winning. And I think, again, with the public ire and them triggering the Missouri voters who have taken to the streets in public displays against their secretary of state and against their legislature, if that is the motivating factor alone for Missouri to go to the polls, we could see a we could see a five to three, which is two more votes for the Democrats in addition.

1:12:51And don't be shocked by that, because we've seen that, like, we don't think this is a one-issue election. But for many people, it is. Just as when, one last example, when Elon Musk tried to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court, people didn't like that in Wisconsin. And they came out in droves, not just in the streets, but at the polls. and they made sure that the Wisconsin Supreme Court for many years now will be firmly in the hands of the liberals and the Democrats as a payback to Elon Musk. I think the same thing could happen here. You and I should not be shocked if we report that the delegation coming out of Missouri is going to be five to three, not six to two.

1:13:35Let's talk about this last Supreme Court ruling for this week, an alarming one. As I noted, you had on the one hand, Norm Eisen saying certain things. On the other hand, you had Mark Elias saying certain things, and it's not necessarily in conflict. But what's the deal with this, Popak? There's this saved database, and it could be used to purge state voter rolls. And the Trump regime is trying to argue, well, it's all about trying to find people who aren't citizens who are voting on these voter rolls, but everybody believes that it actually has this significant privacy intrusion into state voter rolls.

1:14:17And obviously, Donald Trump is not trying to be a good faith arbiter of this issue. And that could this be used to do mass voter purges of citizens, people who are able to vote before elections, then there's the deal with that this system, the SAVE system, as it's being called, is not to be implemented before the election because we're in this 90-day window in its kind of ability to do these mass voter purges. But it doesn't mean, as Mark Elias warns, that it could still be used by bad faith states to try to purge actual voters on one-off bases before. And then what's the broader implication, Popak, heading into 2028.

1:15:04And, you know, there's a lot out there about this. What's up with that? Yeah. So this came out the same day. And I think it's ironic. We'll throw up a picture that Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were dining at the state dinner. Talk about crossing over into politics. There he is dining at the state dinner. And then the next morning, they issued that order that was not good for Donald Trump on Missouri. But they did, the earlier part of the day, did issue another order about databases. We've done a lot of coverage about the rise of the surveillance state under Donald Trump. And it wasn't just Elon Musk, although it was his fevered dream, his wet dream to combine into one giant big data database all the data that's deposited within the federal government that has, for good reason, always been siloed off and partitioned off to protect privacy and to make sure we don't have a surveillance state.

1:15:58On that note, programming note, tomorrow morning on Legal AF YouTube channel, I've got an interview with David Green, who's senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who is protecting in the digital world everybody's privacy and First Amendment rights, that group. They're about the rise of the surveillance state under Donald Trump. There had always been two databases. one that was maintained by the Social Security Administration, and one that had been maintained, which had all your data and my data, you know, birth, date, address, medical, you know, personal identifying information galore in your, think about what's in your Social Security file, separate and apart, run by, under privacy law, run by the Social Security Administration under the Treasury Department, And then you had this thing run by what is now the Department of Homeland Security, which is a database to check about people's immigration status and their entitlement to entitlements, their entitlement to social service programs and payments.

1:17:06Okay. They were always separate for good reason. Donald Trump decided we're going to bring them together. We're going to dump all the Social Security information into what you refer to as the SAVE database. It's a little confusing because they use that same acronym for other things. But this is a database that had always existed just as the Social Security one had always existed, but they were never conjoined. They were never added together. What could go wrong? And what's gone wrong is the states and other public interest groups argued this violates privacy law. It's not requiring the states to use a database to double-check citizenship before people can vote.

1:17:47but it's obviously going to be used, especially by red states to do exactly that. And we've already seen problems. Nevada has already reported, or there's already been attempts to get people off the rolls in states like Nevada, who are registered, natural-born citizens who have the right to vote, but they were purged. And now we're going to have to be, like, restored. And mass purging, which is what keeps Mark Elias and you and I up at night, is a real concern, that they just hit delete and you go to vote or use a mail-in ballot. They go, oh, you're not registered. You don't have time to go to a court or go to election offices or other things to fix it.

1:18:26And it's done en masse to try to skew and tilt the playing field in favor of Donald Trump. They wouldn't dare try this in, you know, they want to secure it in red states and they want to try to suppress the vote in blue states. So the decision that came out with three dissenters, Ketanji Brown-Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor, but the procurium decision, the majority decision, so six to three, is that the database doesn't pose any harm. Let it be combined. Doesn't violate federal law. Doesn't violate privacy law. And there's a comment in there about we don't expect it to be used for mass purges, but on an individualized basis.

1:19:11So even Ketanji Brown Jackson said, well, at least it could have been worse. And she gave her comment in the dissent about this is wrong. This stay should never have been granted. They have a ridiculous merits-based argument that makes no sense. They're never going to win on the merits. And so we shouldn't stay it now, especially to force it down people's throats for this election. But it's going to be forced down people's threats for this election. And I so I sort of agree with both Mark and with Norm. Norm is like, I don't think in general this is going to lead to mass purging, and he may be right.

1:19:49But it is going to give yet another tool to the crazies that sit in these Secretary of State offices like Danny Haskins in Missouri and these other MAGA Secretary of States that run elections to try to dump people to stop the blue tidal wave that you and I are predicting. But we're back to your original point, which is look what this other party has to do in order to try to steal a victory. I don't think they're going to be able to overcome the tidal wave, but look what they're doing. Suppressing enthusiasm for the vote, making people feel insecure about their ability to vote or the technique that they're using to vote, like mail-in balloting or absentee balloting, making people wait in long lines without food or water, hoping that they'll be dissuaded and turned back.

1:20:36shortening election early voting days from two weeks to three days getting rid of drop boxes around around states so the people it makes it hard and creating barriers to entry to voting taking people off the vote with an oops off the rolls oops we made a mistake and they can't fix it in time for the midterms and this is you know remapping states in order to try to gain those advantages because they can't win fair and square. I don't think they're going to be able to win anyway, because I think they're underestimating the groundswell of opposition to their party, their principles, for lack of a better term, their assault on American patriotism and values are completely out of lockstep with where America is.

1:21:25You know, an America that is suffering under, go to a gas station and try to come up with$100 to fill up your gas tank. Good luck. Go to the supermarket with the same amount of money that you had last year, and you find out you're$30 or$40 short. So things got to go back, and you got to break the heart of your family or their nutritional needs. Try to go see a doctor or get a doctor when you don't have insurance any longer because you were thrown off the insurance rolls. All of these things, the treatment of immigrants and migrants in this country, the treatment of women in this country, the treatment of the transgender and the gay community in this country.

1:22:04This is the one time that America has the ability to vote and vote because they've been sitting here biting their tongues for the last two years. Now they get to tell with the power, almighty power of the vote, they get to tell their elected officials, no, that's not who we are as America. That's not who we are as Americans. You don't Don't represent us in this representative government. And you need to go. And we want to restore the balance of power. And we want to restore checks and balance. And we want the Democrats to hold the gavel and to bring back accountability and to rein in the last final two years of this presidency.

1:22:43That's what's at stake. I mean, you and I don't trade in hyperbole, okay? This is just our honest commentary. But I've been voting for 42 years. And this is the most important consequential election of my lifetime and of everybody's lifetime. And it has to be treated as such. And it's a springboard to 2028 and completely flushing the toilet of the Trump administration and bringing in new leadership that we can trust, not only trust in their decision making and trust in the president, in the restoration that will be necessary of confidence and credibility of our of our executive branch. but trust that they will represent the values that we hold dear in what it means to be an American.

1:23:32One of those values is the First Amendment, the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech. And I would be remiss if I didn't just put this at the end of this episode. We talked about it before when I was saying how the Chinese press were invited into the White House And they were covering Xi Jinping, talking about the Thucydides trap, China's ascendancy, America's decline. While some of our own press in the United States was banned, Donald Trump's been ranting and raving like a lunatic, attacking members of the press who he says write fake news and mean stories about him. I mean, again, just utterly pathetic behavior.

1:24:07Here, Judge Tim Kelly, a Trump-appointed judge during Trump's first term, as I'm sure you know by now, ruled against Donald Trump and ordered that the hard passes be returned to Politico, CNN, and MSNOW. And specifically, Judge Kelly rejected Donald Trump's claim of national security as the reason why he had to kick out these members of the press. And it's a big deal because there's a lot of deference that was often given under our system to presidents about national security because it was in the past not something that was conceived of that national security would be used as pretext to violate the law and engage in massive criminal acts.

1:24:51But where you have a Trump appointed judge say, I don't believe your national security pretext. And also we have something called freedom of speech, freedom of the press. And so I'm restoring their hard passes. I think it's a big deal and an important ruling to note. Donald Trump still, though, tries to ban CNN from reporting on his trip to Tennessee. He tries to ban, you know, he still banned them during the evening events of the state dinner, despite the court order. And so I think we're going to continue to see this. But it also highlights weakness. It highlights how pathetic he is. And I think it's actually a sign of where we are as a country right now.

1:25:37I mean, reflecting on it, this will be our last episode in September, and our next episode together will be October 3rd when we record next Saturday. And, you know, here we are, right, basically a month away from the midterms. We've made it two years. The people have stood together. We've been shoulder to shoulder. We've expanded the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. we've brought all of these legal groups that are leading the charge to protect democracy and fight against the Trump regime under the legal AF banner where they get out their news directly to you along with Popox videos and you all have done your part every step of the way and this is the home stretch this is where Trump gets more desperate and desperate people do very dangerous things trapped rats attack sometimes and we need to be aware of all of this we need to not get arrogant.

1:26:36We need to maintain our humbleness. We need to maintain our strength and resilience, and we need to continue to press forward every damn day, getting out the truth, building bridges, organizing, getting out information. That's what we're going to do every day here on the Midas Touch Network, and that's what they're doing every day on Legal AF. Make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel, the Legal AF Substack. After this ends, go search Legal AF on Substack and search it on YouTube, and make sure you subscribe. Also, if you or somebody you know has been injured in a car accident, trucking accident, auto accident, if you've been catastrophically injured tragically or know somebody who has, reach out to the Popak Firm.

1:27:16Free consultation. See if you have a case and Michael Popak could be your lawyer. 877-POPAK-AF or visit thepopakfirm.com. Thanks everybody for watching this episode of Legal AF. We appreciate you. We're grateful for you. Shout out Legal AFers and shout out Midas Mike.

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