Legal AF Full Episode - 1/10/2026

27:59And he uses them like a paramilitary force. to basically retaliate against states that he doesn't like, that didn't vote for him. So he's primarily targeting blue states. And, you know, I guess Donald Trump says, well, you know what? The Supreme Court said we can't have the National Guard, but why do I even need the National Guard in these states when I have a paramilitary force? So Trump sends 2 ,000 ICE Gestapo into Minnesota, and then he's now surged an additional 1 ,000 with the goal being to terrorize and provoke the community into protest and then to surge more forces there to show power and to inflict pain and to make blue states suffer you know as donald trump is basically declaring war within the united states i mean that's what we're seeing take place so when we come back i want to talk about that i want to talk about when trump and jd vance say that jonathan ross the shooter the killer of Renee Nicole Good has absolute immunity.

28:58And when they say ICE has absolute immunity, what does that mean? We'll talk about that. We'll talk about what we foresee happening in terms of criminal consequences, civil consequences, and more when we come back for our first break. Just a reminder, subscribe to Michael Popak's Substack. The Substack is absolutely crushing it. One of the top Substacks now in the country. So search Legal AF on Substack. Subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Search on YouTube Legal AF. Hit subscribe there. And also, if you or somebody you know have been injured in a car accident, trucking accident, if you're the victim of the negligence of somebody else, if you know somebody who was killed by other people's negligence, that's called a wrongful death case, call the Popak Law Firm, 877-POPAK -AF, or visit thepopakfirm.com.

29:50call 877-POPOC-AF or go to thepopocfirm.com. Popoc has lawyers across this country. The consultation is free. So wherever you're living in the United States, give a call, see if you've got a case and the Popoc Firm will get back to you and we'll pick up your call. And they're representing a lot of people who watch and listen to the show. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We will be right back.

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31:39Michael Popok:That's right, up to 43 % off at mudwater, M-U-D-W-T-R. After you purchase, they'll ask you how you found them. Please show your support and let them know we sent you. Welcome back to Legal AF. I want to discuss the tragic, cold-blooded murder of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother who recently had moved to Minneapolis as a city of love and inclusiveness. She was there observing ICE, and she was peaceful. We've seen the video that Jonathan Ross, the killer, the ICE Gestapo released to an outlet that usually is very supportive of whatever police do and whatever the police misconduct is. And I guess he and the DOJ and Department of Homeland Security thought this was a helpful video for them where Renee Nicole Good says, I'm not even mad at you, bro.

32:42I'm not even mad at you, bro. And then there's two officers. There's Jonathan Ross and another masked officer. And they're kind of also giving like conflicting instructions for her to like drive away. And you see her very slowly turning her wheel slowly to get out of the way. And then this Jonathan Ross, you know, killer, this Gestapo goes and he shoots through the windshield and shoots twice in the window and shoots her in her face three times. And we can see what happened. There was a violation of all police protocols just from where they were positioned, but they're not police. This is like an unaccountable force that dresses up in military gear and has weapons.

33:25And also that footage that we got at this point was taken from Jonathan Ross's cell phone. And so he was holding up a cell phone, taping it, and then also had a gun at the same time while standing in front of the vehicle. Then he moved over to the side. But in any police practices manual, you don't approach the vehicle from the front like that. You don't even engage in the situation like that to begin with. And I handled these cases as a civil rights litigator who represented the families in wrongful death cases of people who lost their lives due to excessive force. And I've deposed hundreds and hundreds of officers.

34:07And, you know, what I saw here is one of the most obvious examples of an excessive force of an unlawful shooting that clearly falls out any outside any any protocol at all. It was it was a murder and it's not subject on a criminal side of any form of absolute immunity. the officer can be charged with crimes, with state and federal crimes. Now, clearly at the federal level, this DOJ will never prosecute this officer. They will promote and applaud. And that's what we've seen the Trump regime do. In terms of state prosecution against Jonathan within Ross. The problem right now is that the FBI and the DOJ has refused to allow Minnesota authorities to be involved in the investigation.

35:06They've cut them out entirely, and they've said it's just the DOJ who's looking at it, and if you can't get your hands on any of the evidence, and or it's being tampered with by the DOJ and the FBI, it becomes difficult to bring criminal charges. Now, there's a statute of limitations, which would continue past Donald Trump's term for a state charge of murder, homicide against this Jonathan Good, against this ICE Gestapo. So if anything, you'd probably have to wait until Trump is gone because Trump's DOJ will do everything it can to undermine any type of criminal prosecution, including not allowing the Minnesota authorities, the Minneapolis police to get involved.

35:53But you already have it. I mean, J.D. Vance went to Yale Law School. He knows what he's saying is a lie, but he held a press conference where he says the officer is protected by absolute immunity, which is false. And I'll explain to you why it's false. I mean, it's just patently, obviously false, but listen to what he says here playing this clip.

36:14Michael Popok:Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. So the head of Minnesota's investigations agency says that the U.S. attorney's office has essentially cut off the state investigations agency's access to the investigation. What is the precedent for that? And why shouldn't the Minnesota officials on the ground have access and evidence to work on this investigation? First of all, I wish the state officials in Minnesota would investigate why you have so many people who are using their vehicles and other means to actually interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation. The precedent here is very simple.

36:47You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That's a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job. The idea that Tim Walz and a bunch of radicals in Minneapolis are going to go after and make this guy's life miserable because he was doing the job that he was asked to do is preposterous. make this guy's life miserable? What about Renee Nicole Good, whose life is over, was killed, who was shot in the face? This guy's a murderer, and you're worried about making the murderer's life miserable? Are you out of your freaking mind?

37:24Here is what Kristi Noem said when she was asked, how do you respond to people who say what you're doing and what you're saying is in direct contradiction to the video that everybody's seen. Here, play this clip. What I would... This vehicle was used to hit this officer. It was used as a weapon, and the officer feels as though his life was in jeopardy. It was used to perpetuate a violent act that this officer took action to protect himself and to protect his fellow law enforcement officers. So we'll let this continue to go forward and follow the same policies and procedures that every use of force situation does.

38:04But we've had almost over 100 times that these vehicles have been used to ram law enforcement officers and to do damage and to harm them. When you take an action and use a weapon to harm someone and to incite violence against them and try to cause them injury or death, then it needs to be labeled exactly what it was. Well, you've already violated every use of force protocol by labeling the victim a domestic terrorist before an investigation and cutting out the local authorities from the investigation. We have a photo right here of Jonathan Ross. You see where he was positioned when he shot. You'll see there's an arrow going down.

38:42That's Jonathan Ross pointing the gun into Renee Nicole Good's car right there. And you see him right there. He was not run over by the vehicle. he was not injured at all. And Donald Trump claims that he viewed the clip of the event, which just took place. And he said the woman driving the car was disorderly, obstructing, and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the officer and said that that officer, who you see in that photo, went to the hospital for the injuries because he was run over. That's him after. That's Jonathan Ross after he shot and killed Renee Nicole Good.

39:19And we have a video that I'm going to toss it over to you, Popak. Here's the video right here of the cell phone footage. This video was taken by Jonathan Ross. Here, play this clip.

39:35Michael Popok:That's fine, dude. I'm not metaphoric. Show your face. I'm not metaphoric. That's okay. We don't change our plates every morning, just so you know. It'll be the same plate when you come talk to us later. That's fine. U.S. citizen, former fucking guy. You want to come at us? You want to come at us? I said go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Out of the car. Get out of the fucking car. Get out of the car. All right, baby, go. Oh!

40:03Michael Popok:Fucking bitch. And he said fucking bitch after he shot and killed her. And then even before that, Popak, he was saying, get out of the fucking car. Like, she's driving in an area where she lives. Get the fuck out of the car. These masked agents. Yeah. Well, those are two different people. Get the F out of the car was his colleague who went to the door handle. The entire episode, now caught in a 360 degree array, helped by the release, this spoon-feeding release by the ICE and the Department of Justice to reach a conclusion to protect ICE agent Ross before all the facts were fully investigated have left a tremendous stain on the Trump administration, a stain so bad that there's already a leak from an administration official that's been reported in which they said, I don't know how we recover from this.

41:06Michael Popok:Meaning Kristi Noem's rushed to judgment to protect ICE, to comment about a video clip that clearly, even the clip she was commenting on, was a distorted narrative of what had happened to try to grab the narrative. We saw, what we saw in the Ross video is a peaceful First Amendment protester partially blocking a road, an icy side street in Minnesota, to protest the arrival in Minneapolis of 2 ,000 ICE agents. She had just dropped off her six-year-old at school. She had her aging dog in the back seat. Becca Good, her wife, is the one that's interacting at the back end of the vehicle. She engages with law enforcement.

42:03Michael Popok:When law enforcement, not Mr., not Agent Ross, comes around to the front of the car, you can see in a very peaceful, even Christian way, if you will, her engaging with law enforcement and saying, I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at you. In other words, why are you so angry with me? Why are you masked with such an angry face? Now, they were annoyed because she was blocking partially their departure. So they couldn't take it anymore. You can hear the anger building. The officer, the agent has not been identified yet, goes and says, get the F out of the car. So already, adrenaline is amped. You and I have handled plenty of police cases, right?

42:49Michael Popok:Already blood is rushing in ears. Already bad judgment is about to be made when you don't follow standard operating procedures and protocol. He goes to the door handle. Ross, who we now know from reporting from MS Now, was involved weeks earlier with an actual case where the car was weaponized against him during an attempted arrest. that he was dragged 100 feet while he was hitting the person in the face with a stun gun. So a little post-traumatic stress disorder, anybody? A little trigger-happy, anybody? Where was the psychological evaluation to let him back on the street to begin with? Now, with that ringing in his ears, he's filming around the other side of the vehicle with his cell phone.

43:35Michael Popok:Gun is holstered. Colleague, who I don't know if he's worked with him before or not, goes and tries to unlock the door. The wife, Becca, is trying to get back into the car after her engagement, First Amendment speech with the officer. Her hand is on the handle of the passenger side. Ross is in the wrong spot, by the way, as you properly commented, for law enforcement purposes. He should have been closer to where his partner was, but he was too busy trying to film, probably for posterity or posting on his social media or who knows what. None of them are wearing body cam. Now he's got the phone instead of doing proper law enforcement.

44:17Michael Popok:So he's distracted. He's standing in the wrong spot, but not in front of the car, as we now know from the videos that have been obtained by New York Times and other places. So she did not turn into his way. She did not try to ram her car into him. She wanted to try at a mile, an hour or less to get away off an icy road. There's many ways you deal with that if you're properly trained. You take down the license plate and you send for backup and you capture alive down the street. Maybe, and I think this would be extreme, maybe you shoot out the tires. But what you don't do is you don't drop your cell phone, pull out your service revolver, and fire three times as the windshield is moving past you to get away.

45:04Michael Popok:That you don't do. And then as the person dying and the car is moving away, you don't say under your breath, fucking bitch. Okay? That's why we call it qualified immunity, not absolute. Nobody has absolute immunity. J.D. Vance's mind is obviously mushed because his boss has absolute immunity for certain things that are criminal. Okay? In the White House. But not law enforcement. And the signal that they've sent out is that this administration thinks that law enforcement on the streets, right, can do anything and get away with it and will be absolutely immune. That's not the law, whether it's 1983 actions or it's civil rights actions or it's deadly use of force actions, unreasonable use of force actions and prosecutions as a result.

45:57Michael Popok:It is qualified. You have to first show you were doing your job and the color of your job. Maybe he passes that test. Maybe he doesn't. The second is that your actions were reasonable. And that's where the evidence to be considered by a fact finder and a jury, civil and criminal, will come into play. The problem is Trump administration has blocked state officials from doing their job. And I just had Keith Ellison on with an interview, a special briefing for Legal AF audience on Legal AF YouTube earlier today. And what he had to tell us was his investigation has started. They're going to gather as much evidence as they can, but the FBI is not sharing with them on purpose to penalize the fact that Minnesota is a democratic state.

46:49Michael Popok:So people are dying now because of politics. And even more so, and I'll give you a clip from Keith Ellison, very poignant message. Even more, the outgoing governor, Tim Walz, declared that he's mobilizing the National Guard, think of this, Ben, to protect Minnesotans from their own federal government. I mean, the fact that I even have to form that sentence is just eye-watering to me. Now, Keith Ellison, let it be known, that he is a prosecutor. He prosecuted Derek Chauvin, who killed, murdered George Floyd. And he is ready and prepared, if the facts present themselves, to prosecute a federal officer.

47:38Michael Popok:He's done it before. He will do it again. And we will let a jury and a judge decide what immunity is appropriate here. But leave it to the Trump administration to both make law enforcement and ICE unsafe and make the American people fear for them, literally fear for their lives. And the other issue here that you and I have talked about ad nauseum, but we will continue, is that Donald Trump, by flooding the streets with unqualified, ill-trained ICE officers, Border Patrol, National Guard, he's effectively put Americans in harm's way. They are not trained for de-escalation. They are not trained for First Amendment protests.

48:22Michael Popok:They are a hammer in search of a nail. And everybody is a nail to ICE and Border Patrol. They come in amped up. Many of them are not trained. They did recruiting recently, not that Ross fits the bill, because he was in Border Patrol. He was an Army veteran. But they're giving guns and badges to 18-year-old ICE officers. Bad things will happen. And it's not helping that within 24 hours, another shooting, just to show and prove the point that he's under, he's actually undermining law enforcement, legitimate law enforcement, Trump and the administration. 24 hours later, allegedly two Trenda Aragua are pulled over in a traffic stop or an arrest attempt in Portland, Oregon.

49:11Michael Popok:And they, according to reports, they allegedly try to run over Border Patrol, who fires on them. Now, if that story stood alone, we would be like, well, let's get to the bottom of that. Was that Trenderagua? But the instant politicization by the Trump administration, these two Trenderagua released on the streets by the Biden administration, they weaponized their car. The problem is we keep hearing about shoot first and defend and lie and lie and lie later. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's false. All you and I demand on this show and our audience demands is transparency and accountability, not a rush to judgment, not a rush to protect the federal officer over the fallen, over the U.S.

49:55Michael Popok:citizens who are dying. And this is the fifth time that it's happened. You and I covered in September when a resident of Chicago who also dropped his kid off at school was shot during another traffic stop by ICE. Okay, we should not, it should not be a death sentence to oppose and resist the Trump administration, but it is. So she didn't want to be a martyr when she woke up that morning, when she kissed and dropped off her six-year-old, but Renee Good is now a martyr for a cause, and people are taking to the streets this weekend with organized protests, and the only thing that I recommend is something that, and I'm going to to play the clip from Keith in a moment, is what Keith Ellison told me, is that he fears that people will take matters into their own hands, start battling it out violently with ICE, giving Donald Trump an excuse for crackdown and suppression, which we don't want.

50:47Michael Popok:Let me play a clip with Keith Ellison, who briefed our audience about what's going on in Minnesota. Where is the transparency and the accountability? That's what people are marching on the streets now for. Let me tell you, Mike. So there's about two or three seconds which were determinative of why this officer discharged his deadly force and why Renee Good lost her life. There's a very tight window. I think you're accurately pointing out that law enforcement policy is don't be parading in front of the car like that. That's bad. That's bad policing. But that aside, the real bad act that which I am perfectly comfortable offering judgment about is the surge.

51:38Michael Popok:the lack of cooperation with law and local law enforcement, the lack of engagement with community, the lack of and then the escalating the raw number of ICE agents who've all been told, by the way, that the Somali community is garbage, that the Mexican-American community are all rapists and drug dealers that and gang members. the bottom line is they've not only that not only has this been a rush and recruitment and a rush in training and a rush in evaluating the psychological fitness of somebody before returning them to duty it is a blame and I mean a fault and a blame that must be lied at the feet of Donald Trump because it is his policy that led to this.

52:33Michael Popok:This was foreseeable. Yeah. So look, we are demanding justice in the name here on Legal AF, in the name of Renee Good and for her daughter and for her wife. And I want the impeachment and I won't rest. And I know you won't either, Ben, until we get the impeachment of Kristi Noem, period. And now I think we can do Look, the Epstein files and the crossover there of getting the Republicans to join the Democrats with the death of that recent congressperson, it's a very slim margin, if any, for MAGA in the House. House, if Hakeem Jeffries can force the issue, we'll get oversight hearings up immediately, get Christie into the hot seat, get the funding cut or limited until there is a complete overhaul of investigation of Homeland Security under her control and start those impeachment proceedings now.

53:31And if by God, that doesn't happen now, I assure the American people in our audience that if you give us proper results at the midterm,

53:39Michael Popok:despite what Donald Trump's trying to do to suppress the vote and steal the Democratic vote, okay, then the Democrats will do the job of getting rid of people like Stephen Miller and I don't know about J.D. Vance, but we'll work on that later. And Donald Trump and certainly Christy Nob. She has to go. And just as a signal to Christy, she better watch her back. Because Tom Homan, yeah, the bribery-taking guy who's the borders are. He went on the new CBS propaganda network and gave an interview in which they asked him, what do you think about Kristi Noem's comment about looking at the video and already saying that the investigation is effectively concluded and she's siding with the ICE agent?

54:23Michael Popok:He said, well, you're going to have to ask her about that. All the evidence is not in. I have not looked at all the video. There's no rush to judgment and a full investigation hasn't even the gun yet. All right. That is another major leader in the Trump administration, throwing Kristi Noem under the bus. So just one other point, and I know people come to Legal AF sometimes, so we get hyper-technical. And as someone who previously litigated Section 1983 cases, I want to at least provide you all with the argument that I think J.D. Vance is alluding to as it relates to a civil section 1983 case, a civil rights case for wrongful death, and what they intend to argue there in a civil case.

55:14Let me be clear. In a criminal case, there is no absolute immunity for this or any ICE officer. It doesn't exist. It's not a doctrine. And they They can be criminally prosecuted by the feds or by the state or both. We've explained to you the hurdles already of both the feds under Trump aren't prosecuting this guy and they are preventing the state from doing a criminal investigation. On the civil side, there is a case called Bivens versus six unknown named agents from 1971. And it says essentially that unless there is kind of a clearly established right to bring a Section 1983 claim against a certain type of entity, unless Congress speaks and says that this is an entity that can be sued, unless they describe that the entity is subject to civil lawsuits, what this Bivens doctrine has basically held is that there could be immunity.

56:20What I think J.D. Vance is getting at and what I think the arguments we're going to see be made. You're like, well, Ben, you're giving them the arguments to make. No, I'm not giving them the arguments to make. If anything, I'm giving the civil litigators the opportunity to think through the arguments that the DOJ already knows because J.D. Vance went to Yale Law School. And this is what I'm letting you know what he's implying. It's not a doctrine called absolute immunity. But because ICE and Border Patrol have been constructed by Trump and MAGA as this unaccountable entity, and they're doing things that actually they weren't designed to do.

57:01Border Patrol is supposed to be at a border, right? Not going through as a paramilitary force. And ICE is not supposed to be going through towns as a militarized force the way they are and assuming the functions of an occupying military. What they'll argue is because Congress has not addressed via any law a private cause of action to sue civilly against ICE agents for murder, for death, until Congress says that there's a cause of action, the Bivens Doctrine says, well, you know what, unless it exists, the case has to be dismissed and there's immunity for it. So I think what he's alluding to is the Bivens Doctrine.

57:53And if that sounds familiar, do you remember the case where Michael Cohen sued the Department of Justice and Bill Barr for throwing him into solitary confinement because he refused to sign a document that said he wouldn't publish his book during the first Trump term. And he was there for like more than 50 days. He sued for a civil rights violation and the government said, Bivens, this is not something that Congress has authorized you to file a lawsuit in this case. And you may be saying, well, Ben, how come there are lawsuits against police officers? Or how come there are lawsuits against highway patrol or others?

58:33It's because in the case of the state or in the case of other entities who are sued at a federal level, they waive in law something called they waive sovereign immunity. They specifically allow civil lawsuits for violations of civil rights. And so, Popak, I know that's getting very hyper-technical, but I think that they're going to make a Bivens-based immunity argument for ICE officers and basically say they are the Gestapo. They are an unaccountable force for which Congress never made a law to which the civil litigators have to say, well, this falls into that unusual circumstance in Bivens that there's an exception to it where you've now used these officers for where you've now used these unaccountable militarized paramilitary.

59:26It's more analogous to the types of cases where lawsuits have been brought before. But that's a case that will go to the Supreme Court.

59:35Michael Popok:Yeah, I agree with you. I think, as I've said, I think that there's two ways we never bring back, we never have a motherless child and a wifeless marriage with the death of Renee Good. So when we talk about these things, we talk about justice in the aftermath. And when it comes to civil, I said that there's a number of different investigatory bodies or entities that will take over here to do what the Trump administration is obviously too corrupted to do. One would be a congressional investigation, which I think the Democrats are going to hope to open, about, as part of the broader conversation about Homeland Security and ICE, under the leadership of Kristi Noem, they're going to have to also do the investigation, if you will, about Renee Good.

1:00:35Michael Popok:and we're going to see the testimony of people that were on the street that watched it, of Becca Good, her wife, and others. So there's an investigatory component there. We're going to see Minnesota, the prosecutors there led by Keith Ellison and others, do their investigation as best they can. They're actually actually, it's almost like they're crowdsourcing, crowdfunding it. They need evidence. They're not getting access to the forensics. They're not getting access to the bullet casings. They're not getting access to the first round of witness statements. They're going to have to go reconstruct everything.

1:01:09Michael Popok:Now, fortunately, there's a lot of video on the street. We've seen it. The New York Times did a very good video array. CNN has like a 3D reproduction, forensic reproduction of what happened. So they'll get enough for them to make the prosecutorial decision whether to go against the federal officer here in the ICE agent. And then we're going to have this battle of Minnesota versus federal officer versus the federal government. Then you've got this next layer, which, as you said, is the plaintiff's lawyers, the plaintiff's bar, which I'm a part of, which goes after to get justice the federal government.

1:01:49Michael Popok:You know, I'm representing a flight attendant on the American Airlines flight that, you know, the Army helicopter, Black Hawk helicopter collided with, you know, 10 days into this administration. I mean, if anything was a sign from above, that was it, man. And so her family needs representation against the federal government to take responsibility for her death, both at the flight at the air traffic controller level and at the Army helicopter level. And so whether it's that or brutality by a federal officer, and boy, are we seeing that lately, right? Are we seeing ICE and other federal security officers and National Guard's people who are not trained getting into altercations with the public and sometimes leading to their death?

1:02:40Michael Popok:That's where the plaintiff's bar comes in. And you walked through already the different causes of action and doctrines and immunities and defenses. They're going to have to pick through. But very good plaintiff's lawyers are skilled at doing this. And yes, it's going to end up, I assure you, among all the other Trump precedent, you could fill a casebook from just this term, this year of Trump cases that are reshaping the face, good, bad, and ugly, of our criminal justice system, constitutional law, and the separation, the relationship between the states and the federal government and the people and their federal government.

1:03:23And this

1:03:24Michael Popok:is going to be another one of those cases where we're going to have to get to the bottom of what is, you know, can a person innocently protesting, can she lose her life because of a pissed off, ill-trained officer who decides that he's going to stop her departure the only way he could think of at the moment, which was shooting her in the face. So plaintiff's bar plays a major role here. And, you know, they have their own investigative entities. They use detectives and PIs and all sorts of things on the ground. But you're right, this is going to come, once again, it's going to be laid at the feet of the United States Supreme Court, which of course you and I will talk about what the Supreme Court's doing in the current term later in the show.

1:04:14Everybody, make sure you subscribe to Michael Popok's Substack. It's the Legal AF Substack. Subscribe to Legal AF on YouTube. And also make sure you, if you or somebody you know, have been injured in an accident, whether it's a car accident, a trucking accident, sexual harassment or assault, wrongful death cases. You may know someone who was involved in a wrongful death. Call or text 877-POPOC-AF or visit thepopocfirm.com. That's 877-POPOC-AF or visit thepopocfirm.com. Popoc's got lawyers all across the country for you to consult with. The consultation is free. So give a call, see if you have a case or you can let other people, you know who may have a case to reach out to Michael Popak's firm.

1:05:00We'll be right back when we come back. We've got a lot more to discuss our last quick break of the show.

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1:07:19Michael Popok:Even if you don't have a dog of your own, you know one who deserves more health, more energy, a softer coat, fewer allergens, and more happy years. Make the switch to Sundays. Go right now to sundaysfordogs.com slash Legal AF30 and get 30 % off your first three orders. Or you can use code Legal AF30 at checkout. That's 30 % off your first three orders at sundaysfordogs.com slash Legal AF30, Sundays for dogs dot com slash Legal AF30 or use code Legal AF30 at checkout. Welcome back to Legal AF. I'm Ben Micellis, joined by Michael Popak. All right, let's get into a Popak. There were two federal judges, an Obama appointed judge in Southern District of New York, a Trump appointed judge in the Eastern District of Virginia.

1:08:09They both issued separate rulings against Donald Trump's unlawfully appointed, so not appointed at all, United States attorneys, the U.S. attorneys, the top federal prosecutor of a district. So for example, in New York, there's a United States attorney for the Southern District, the Eastern District, the Northern District. In California, for example, there's Central District, Eastern District, Northern District, Southern District. Some states like New Jersey only have one district. And so like Alina Habba, you all will recall, was unlawfully appointed by Donald Trump. And when we say unlawfully appointed, there's a statute which says you can be an interim United States attorney for, I think it's 120 days.

1:08:54After 120 days, if you're not confirmed by the Senate, right, you're appointed by the president, you have to be confirmed by the Senate. And if you're not confirmed by the Senate, the federal judges can extend your term. So you petition the judges to extend your term. And if they don't extend your term, then you're out. You're fired. You no longer have the job. And then the president can't appoint another interim. You have to then go through the proper process of just doing an appointment and getting a confirmation in the Senate. You get one interim for 120 days, which can be extended. That's what the statute allows.

1:09:34So Alina Hoppe's 120 days expired. She stayed on unlawfully. And then finally, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals there said, you're out. You're a squatter. Get the hell out of here. And then she kind of refused to leave at first. And then she finally left because she realized that it could have major implications on her legal license and broader implications to all of the cases that she's affiliated with could be tainted as a result of her being an unlawful prosecutor. Now, Lindsay Halligan was moved into that position by Donald Trump after the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was kind of forced out or fired because he wouldn't agree to prosecute Comey and Letitia James because there wasn't evidence to support the prosecution.

1:10:19And because he was going by the law, even though he's a Republican guy, he was appointed by Trump. He's just like, there's no evidence to prosecute these people. I'm not going to lose my bar license or my credibility in doing a case like this. There's no evidence to support it. So then Lindsay Halligan was moved to that position. But as I said, you only get one interim, one, and the one interim was the other guy. Halligan, you can't get the second interim. So she was unlawfully appointed. She was disqualified by Judge Curry, who was assigned both the Comey matter and the Letitia James matter for purposes of dealing with disqualification.

1:10:54You had Halligan was ruled to be disqualified. But as we've been reporting on Legal AF, she's continued to claim that she's the top prosecutor. She keeps referring to herself as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in press releases, on documents, on pleadings. She doesn't even say interim. She promoted herself. She was disqualified, then she promotes herself to the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. By the way, separately, she's been now, the DOJ submitted her name to be confirmed by the United States Senate. And Pope, I'll pass it over to you, but I wanted to give this one thing.

1:11:33She uses as the cases, she's like, there's a section that says, what are like the key cases you've worked on in your career that exemplify the work you do. She lists the Comey case and the Letitia James case that she was disqualified as like her big cases to the Senate to be confirmed. But what else would she do? She hasn't worked on it. She can't list anything else. She can't list anything. So that's Halligan. And then there is the guy from the Northern District of New York, the top federal prosecutor who was also unlawfully appointed. So we have all these unlawfully appointed people, and the judges now on a bipartisan basis are saying no.

1:12:14So talk to us about what happened with Halligan and Judge Novak and what Judge Schofield do with the Northern District of New York Act.

1:12:21Michael Popok:Yeah. So in the Eastern District of Virginia, there's now five separate judges, including Chief Judge Brinkema, now Judge Novak, originally Judge Curry, this will be sixth, who disqualified and fired Lindsay Halligan, and then three separate magistrate judges who have all said aloud in courtroom or in written orders, why is Lindsay Halligan still holding herself out as the U.S. attorney after Judge Curry on November the 24th fired her? Now, Curry's order couldn't be more clear. She said it was an illegal appointment. It violates a certain statute that deals with this, violates the Constitution, doesn't end run around the appointment clause, and she is invalid.

1:13:12Michael Popok:and her indictments, Comey, Letitia James, are invalid because she is illegal. Nothing that comes from her can be legal. And the position is vacated and vacant and to be filled by the district judges. All right, that seems simple. Then weeks went by and the district judges didn't meet to fill the spot and Trump filed an appeal but didn't get a stay of the order. So the order is still binding. And Lindsey Halligan just, it was like office space. She just showed up for work every day, like with her badge, you know, U.S. attorney, hi, kept signing. It was like trolling America and trolling the judges.

1:13:53Michael Popok:Signed Lindsey Halligan on indictments, on filings. U.S. attorney, Eastern District of Virginia. Judges started to get effing pissed off. So many of the judges would question other assistant U.S. attorneys there on other matters and say, hey, Wawa, I got you here. Judge Nachmanoff did it. Judge Brinkama did it. Why is Lindsey Halligan's name here on this pleading? And they all gave the same stupid answer. They're looking down at their shoes. Washington told us to do it. Maine Justice told us in an email to put her name on everything. Brinkham has said, why doesn't she resign the way Alina Hobbit did?

1:14:37Michael Popok:Other judges said, you need to drop a footnote in all of your pleadings, like one of the judges will come to me in a minute, magistrate judge. He's a Judge Turner. He said, you need to drop a footnote and say that she has been vacated and that position has been vacated and disqualified by Judge Curry's actions. Um, others like judge Nakbanoff, who's the Comey judge said it is an abuse. It is, um, it is a, it is a inconsistent position to be taking and I don't want it to happen anymore in my courtroom. And then it came to judge Novak, a Trump appointee who on his own, nobody asked him to on his own initiative.

1:15:21In another case, off of an indictment from December, he issued his own order, basically

1:15:28Michael Popok:in order to show cause, which says to Lindsey Halligan, Lindsey Halligan, you are to inform the court in two weeks, now about a week, why your actions in continuing to hold yourself out, effectively impersonate a U.S. attorney doesn't violate these five or six different rules of professional responsibility, which govern all lawyer conduct. I'm a member of a number of bars. I'm subject to it, as is she. Why you haven't violated misrepresentation and fraud on the court, failure to follow orders of the court, all sorts of things related to fraud and misrepresentation and dishonesty. That's your first thing.

1:16:11Michael Popok:And why I shouldn't strip your name from everything. But he went further. He said, I want you to explain why, and then reminded everybody the power of a federal judge and the inherent authority of a federal judge to regulate what happens in their own courtroom, why she shouldn't be banned and barred from continuing to practice in his courtroom, at least. Maybe not for the entirety of the Eastern District, but in his courtroom on all cases, explain herself. And he wants it signed by Lindsay Halligan. Here we go. Now, I think that's a invitation for her to resign, a la Habba, because if she signs that thing, Ben, as Lindsay Halligan, U.S.

1:16:56Michael Popok:attorney, he's going to freak out. And when you get a federal judge to freak out, that means sanctions. That means she's basically going to invite him, which she doesn't need right now while she's in the nomination process, a federal judge barring her from his courtroom or worse. Now you got that going on. And I don't think she gets confirmed, by the way. I just don't. Maybe. I mean, we'll have to see what Thune can do. Same time you got Judge Schofield in New York in the Southern District. And as you laid out, there's 93 districts. There's several in New York. And Donald Trump put in places to go after his political rivals or critics,

1:17:52Michael Popok:unqualified people who never have been prosecutors before, to temporarily fill positions in order during their tenure to go after his rivals. Lindsay Halligan, he has no real hope of getting her confirmed. She doesn't really want this job. She shouldn't want this job. But he wanted her to indict Comey and Letitia James. John Sarkone up in the Northern District of New York near Albany, that's who Ed Martin and Pam Bondi and Donald Trump, that's who he sicked on Letitia James's office in the New York Attorney General to investigate whether she violated civil rights. Now we got the Civil Rights Division back open at the U.S.

1:18:32Michael Popok:Department of Justice. Whether her office violated civil rights by going after Donald Trump for fraud, may I remind everybody that the entire family, Trump, got a judge to be fraudsters and are still under a monitor for their independent monitor over their business practices in a case involving Judge Angoran after a several week trial. be that as it may, that and whether the National Rifle Association, the NRA, was improperly investigated by the Attorney General's office. This all came out of subpoenas that John Sarkone issued. Now, if he's invalid the way that Lindsey Halligan is, that invalidly appointed and staying in that position and impersonating a U.S.

1:19:21Michael Popok:attorney, then anything that comes out of him, any fruit of that poisonous tree, any subpoena or indictment is invalid. So smartly, after seeing what happened to Lindsay Halligan, the lawyers for Letitia James's office filed their motion to quash the subpoenas, arguing a number of things, including John Sarkone is a phony US attorney. Now, John Sarkone's a weirdo anyway. His 120 days, which is the most that a president or attorney General can stick somebody in the seat while working through a confirmation process, expired. After it expired, the only way it can get extended is not through the executive branch, but through the district judges of that district.

1:20:08Michael Popok:That's what happened in the Southern District with Jay Clayton. But in the Northern District, they were like, no. So they did not extend his time. But he told the world that they did. So he lied to everybody and said, oh, thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, judges. I'm now going to stay longer. And they were like, we did not extend your time. So then he came back and published a letter that said, hey, great news. I'm a special attorney. I get to be the U.S. attorney as special attorney. You're like, no, you don't get to do that. You don't get to do that either. So it gets sent downstream, downriver to the Southern District of New York in Manhattan because of the conflict with the judges if they have to pick the successor.

1:20:47Michael Popok:and it lands before the chief judge, Schofield. And she says, I'm just going to handle one item. I'm just going to handle whether he's illegally appointed or not. She held a hearing on it and she issued her order. It came out about a day or two around the time that Judge Novak took on Lindsay Halligan. And her order, she said, it's very simple. There's only four ways that you can fill a vacancy. Three of them have to do with the presidency and the Department of Justice. and one has to do with federal judges in that district. And the rule that they were using at the very end as a last gasp effort, or as the judge referred to it, in this kind of shifting titles thing to kind of evade the statute and the Constitution, which doesn't work, one of them was referring to a statute that says you can extend the time for an additional 210 days under certain limited circumstances.

1:21:45The only way you can get the 210-day seat is if you were previously in the office for 90 days or more, which John Sarkone was not, right?

1:21:56Michael Popok:Or you were Senate confirmed for another position, doesn't matter what. You could be the Secretary of Agriculture. As long as you were Senate confirmed, you can go sit for 210 days and be the acting or interim U.S. attorney. John Sarko doesn't fit that bill either. He can't be his own deputy. They fired the deputy. They gave him another job. So she ruled, you're illicit, you're illegal. Your subpoenas are quashed because they're illegal. And then she went further. Now, she didn't go as far as Judge Curry in the Halligan case because every judge shapes his own remedies. And with the benefit of all these other decisions, she came up with what I thought was a good way to thread the needle for somebody that doesn't really want to be involved in the case much longer.

1:22:46Michael Popok:She said, here's what I'm going to do. You, Mr. Sarkone, are barred from being involved anymore with the prosecution or investigation of the National Rifle Association case against the New York Attorney General's office, Letitia James, or her office's investigation and ultimate going after Donald Trump for fraud. You are out. You're not to be involved any longer. And somebody else in your office that is qualified, they need to issue new subpoenas. And if they get issued, then the other side, of course, gets the right to quash. But you're out. But she didn't declare that he's out as the Northern District of New York U.S.

1:23:29Michael Popok:attorney and create a vacancy. She didn't go that far, although I'm sure there'll be new filings that are going to be made to have that accomplished. But that's not as far as she went in her remedy. But again, what we're watching is this is now the sixth time that judges Central District of California, Nevada, New Jersey, two courts in New Jersey, including the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Eastern District of Virginia, And now in New York, where Donald Trump's handpicked unqualified MAGA prosecutor gets bounced. Ultimately, this is going to come, but not probably this term, to the United States Supreme Court, although it could be this term, to the United States Supreme Court.

1:24:13Michael Popok:But again, this is district court judges and appellate judges upholding the rule of law and not giving in to Donald Trump's worst excesses, which is to have anything he wants, anytime he wants, without regard to the Constitution or statutes. You mentioned the Supreme Court there, Popak. Before we go, I want to give our viewers and listeners an update on what the Supreme Court did, or I should say did not do. There were some expectations that on voting rights, they would issue a ruling. And on Trump's tariffs against the world, there would be a ruling. At least people expected the tariff ruling to be handed down on Friday.

1:24:54That didn't take place. And it just goes to show you, right, because that federal trade court, what was it already now, seven months ago? You know, it was fairly soon after liquidation day or whatever the hell Trump called the liberation day. Fairly soon thereafter, the district court made the right decision, which is the federal trade court. And then it was eventually affirmed by the intermediary court. But throughout this entire process, it was the rulings were stayed to allow Donald Trump's unlawful status quo to remain the status quo. And the Supreme Court's just been, you know, taking its time.

1:25:35And, you know, it was a pretty big area. And it just it just is interesting, right, because the Supreme Court sure was quick to give Donald Trump absolute immunity several years ago. But when it comes to these issues of potentially overturning his unlawful actions, it's like the level to which it just it takes the amount of time is ridiculous. And justice delayed is justice denied. And it's at this point, all the ramifications and harm have essentially have essentially been felt. And it's like, I just think there are so many observers here in the United States and abroad who look at our system and say, it's so fundamentally broken.

1:26:16Like, what is your what is what are your courts even doing? Like, what the hell is going on? So before we go, Popak, talk about that. And I think you can also put in there also very briefly the war powers resolution. We've covered it on a lot of hot takes because I'm sure that's an issue that winds its way to the Supreme Court if it ever gets passed by both houses. And I know Trump will veto the War Powers resolution, but in any event, talk to us about it all.

1:26:42Michael Popok:Sure, sure. And we're going to be doing full coverage as we always have on the Supreme Court over on the Legal AF YouTube channel. For 2026, Legal AF just launched a new podcast on audio. You can pick it up for your listening pleasure, wherever you pick up your audio podcast from called Unprecedented, a show I do with Dean Adal. Our recent episode, we just had Lisa Graves, who's one of the preeminent Supreme Court commentators out there talking about what we're watching in this particular term. And we do the live oral argument live streaming we'll be doing next week. Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve, trying to keep her job, more importantly, trying to keep Donald Trump's mitts off of the independence of the Federal Reserve.

1:27:25Michael Popok:Huge oral argument next week, which will be up on Legal AF YouTube channel live. I usually do a pregame show right before that. And then there's another case that's up next week about transgender Americans in sport. And we're going to hear how the federal United States Supreme Court feels about that issue, which divides America. So that's all for next week. Look, there is a certain stodginess about the United States Supreme Court that underlies a lot of what we've been watching with their complicity in using the shadow docket, the emergency docket, to give Donald Trump the upper hand throughout this first year with his executive orders.

1:28:11Michael Popok:But there's a calendar and there's a process when you're talking about the normal appellate writ of certiorari route. We're talking about the 70 cases a year that come up that way with the hundreds of pages of decision related to each case with the three different briefs and then friends of the court brief and the one or two hour oral argument and then the deliberation and the circulation of opinions and the writing of concurrences. and the majority opinion, the concurrence, which is, I agree with the outcome, but I don't agree with some of the jurisprudence and analysis, and then the dissent, which is what it sounds like, and multiple dissents.

1:28:53Michael Popok:And all these things have to be done and have to be finished before there's publication of the opinion or the opinion drops. And then it only drops on certain dates. Now, historically, because the calendar on the Supreme Court runs as follows, First Monday in October, term opens. And it runs until the last opinion drops, usually in late June, mid to late June, right before they go away on summer holiday. Now, historically, the most controversial of their decisions, like ripping away a woman's right to choose, like that, or immunity for the president. They'll drop in June so that they're off to Italy and away from America's press and the voters at that moment.

1:29:37Michael Popok:If they start the term in October, then they have a couple of oral arguments in October, some in November, a couple of more in December. They take a break. They pick back up in the middle of January, February, March, and they usually stop taking oral argument around April or May. And then the opinions start coming out. But there's that process that they stick to. And they will not release an opinion, the majority opinion, unless all the other little sidecars are ready to go along at the same time. So if Sotomayor is taking a few extra days or weeks or months to write her dissent, that majority opinion is not going out until that dissent is ready.

1:30:20Michael Popok:Do I think sometimes that gets gamed a bit? Yes. By both Republicans who aren't happy with the result, like Alito sometimes, and certainly with the liberals who only have that as a weapon, especially when they're in the minority so much. So we're not in the world where like John Roberts or Gorsuch or Alito can go, well, we've waited long enough. Let's drop the majority opinion and the dissent will follow later. No, that's not how it works. Because not in this court, but in history, sometimes what starts out as a dissent ends up being the majority opinion because of the weight of its persuasiveness as it's being circulated among the jurists.

1:31:00Michael Popok:Now, this court is so ideologically divided and so politically divided that I doubt that will happen in this next generation, but it has happened in the past. In any event, there's a call and response that goes on between the opinions. The majority opinion will criticize one of the dissents. The dissents will criticize the majority opinion. The concurrence will criticize whomever. And they cite to each other, and that's because they're reading each other's. So all have to be done before it goes out the door. That is a long-winded way of saying that normally, when the first opinions get dropped in January, as just happened on Friday, they're very rarely major decisions because they just had oral argument in October.

1:31:44Michael Popok:These are not from last year. These are from this year. So October to January in the life cycle of a case is very, very short to do all the things I just described. So was I shocked that the tariff decision or the Voting Rights Act decision that would destroy Voting Rights Act and allow redistricting all over again in many red former Confederate states didn't happen? No. I'd be shocked if it did happen. That means if it happened, what I told people was if the Voting Rights Act decision comes out, destroying the Voting Rights Act and allowing all white districts in states as a result, that means MAGA MAGA has found a way to bend over backwards to help Donald Trump and the dissenters couldn't stop it.

1:32:34Michael Popok:But all you got to do is have Ketanji Brown Jackson say, yeah, I'm not done. Like, I'm sorry, you're done. I'm not done. And just to show you the gap, I'll use an example that people will remember. The Dobbs decision three years ago, which ripped away a woman's right to choose, was leaked. It was an Alito leak or it was a leak of an Alito opinion. I'll leave it at that. In March, March. The actual opinion, although it was pretty close, did not get dropped until June, along with the dissents and the concurrences and the rest. So you see how long these things take and when they time it. But because the Voting Rights Act did not come out now, I don't think it comes out next week on the 14th when they drop the next batch.

1:33:26Michael Popok:Now we're moving into when major decisions do get dropped, March, April, May, June. Now we're too close to the election cycle, the primary and the ballot process, the general and the ballot process. And as you get in about another month, we're going to be probably out of the clear, in the clear from this decision on Voting Rights Act affecting the midterms, which Donald Trump is hoping for. States like Louisiana have already thrown in the towel. They're like, oh, it's coming out too late. We're just going to have to go back to the old map. Good. The old map wasn't great, but it's better than the map that they would draw eliminating another black district if left to their own devices.

1:34:06Michael Popok:So what I'm hoping is that by process, Trump's desire to grab another 10 or 12 seats before the election even begins will be thwarted. So that looks like it's going to happen, and we'll continue to monitor that here. On the tariffs, listen, one thing you can say about, one thing you can say universally about the Supreme Court is none of them are business people, And they don't give a shit about how big a refund is going to be if they rule against the Trump administration. So they weren't going to, I never thought they were going to rush to make their decision in January because there was$140 billion in tariffs and it was running at$140 billion a month or whatever it was.

1:34:49Michael Popok:They don't care if they decide, and I think they will, five to four or six to three, that Trump does not have that tariff power over 200 countries. They're going to tell Trump to start refunding. And if you figure out a way, I don't care if it's 300 million, 300 billion, 100 billion, whatever it is, you go. They don't care about numbers. You go figure it out. And there's a little reported thing that I did on a hot take recently. The Customs and Bureau, the Customs and Border Patrol, CBP, we talked about them a lot tonight as officers, but they're also in charge of tariff and exports. And they have changed on their website and they have added a new feature to allow for electronic refunds, which they never did before.

1:35:35Michael Popok:It's not the automated thing that the hundreds of billions of dollars of importers and U.S. manufacturers want to see. But it is at least an acknowledgement that they might have to start making refunds. But I want everybody to tune in next week because we're going to have it up on Legal AF. That Lisa Cook, I'm going to get your impression on it, that Lisa Cook oral argument is not just about whether the Supreme Court is going to make good on its promise that it was going to protect the Federal Reserve from presidential overreach and violation of its independence, which had said in another decision earlier in the summer when they allowed him to lop off the head of the National Labor Relations Board, Gwen Wilcox, they put a ring fence around the Federal Reserve.

1:36:24Michael Popok:I want to see if they make good on that, because if they don't and they allow him based on social media posts and selective leaks about her mortgages to fire the Federal Reserve, they are going to hand over that Federal Reserve and its interest rate setting capacity to Donald Trump. Now, one little manage of expectations. In May, Jay Powell is off as the chairperson and his seat will be replaced. So Trump is likely to get a majority, whether he gets Lisa Cook or not, and grab hold of interest rates and then heaven help us. Michael Popak all well said we'll be following that here on Legal AF just a reminder make sure you subscribe to Legal AF on all platforms specifically the Legal AF YouTube channel on YouTube right now you're watching this there just search Legal AF make sure you're subscribed there Legal AF YouTube is on its way to 2 million subscribers if you have Substack go check out Legal AF on Substack.

1:37:33If you don't have Substack, download Substack and search Legal AF. Michael Popak gives daily updates. He goes live there throughout the day. It's one of the most read and viewed Substacks in the country. Go check out Legal AF on Substack. Also, if you or anyone you know has been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident, a victim of sexual harassment or assault, if you know someone who was killed in an accident, that's called a wrongful death case or any other negligence type of case or medical malpractice, call 877-POPOC-AF or visit thepopocfirm.com, 877-POPOC-AF or visit thepopocfirm.com.

1:38:12That's Michael Popoc's law firm. He has lawyers across the country who will give you a free consultation, let you know if you have a case. Don't be shy. Michael Popoc is representing a lot of listeners and viewers of Legal AF. So So give them a call if you think you've got a case or if you know somebody, tell them to call Popak's law firm. Thank you, everybody, so much for watching this episode of Legal AF. We're grateful for you. Hang in there. I know things are crazy. I know things are caused by Donald Trump can be depressing, distressing, demoralizing at times. But remember, there's more of us than there are of them.

1:38:50Remember that we're in this together. Remember that people power prevails when we don't give up. And the Trump regime is hoping that we give up, that we allow the fascist march to continue. We need to stand up for each other, to stand up for our rights, to stand up for democracy, for this country, for a better, more empathetic, more loving world and country. That's what we're going to do every day here on Legal AF. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate you. Have a great rest of the weekend and week, depending on when you're watching or listening to this. Now, shout out to the Might is Mighty and shout out Legal AFers.

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