Legal AF Full Episode - 1/17/2026

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28:02Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. A lot to discuss. We'll touch upon it when I throw it back to you, Popak, if there's anything else you wanted to round out that segment on regarding the Epstein files. But it's just obvious they're going to continue covering this up. That's been their plan. They viewed the Epstein Transparency Act as having this massive loophole. It doesn't have a private cause of action, so we don't have to follow it. And there's a broader point here. The Constitution has gigantic loopholes. I was talking about this at breakfast earlier with my wife and our niece. And I was just saying, you know, a lot of people credit the founders for being brilliant and, you know, and, you know, oh, my God, you know, maybe during that time period.

28:47Ben Meiselas:But in terms of 2026, you know, there are major problems. When I teach law, as I do this semester over at USC, you know, it's just I always find it interesting when I teach a class like sports law, when we talk about collective bargaining agreements that govern how a league manages itself, you know, basketball, NFL, whatever. They are thousands of pages and meticulous and anticipate every scenario. And then when I go and show the class, well, this is the Constitution, it's not all that long. The key amendments are a few sentences. And I think the extraordinary part that a lot of countries were unclear how we could accomplish this as a nation is that the Constitution was built on good faith and norms and traditions and courses of dealing, not just the words themselves, because the words often are broad pronouncements and they often don't specify specifically what the drafters of the specific amendment truly wanted.

29:47Ben Meiselas:And yet it held together for so long. Then you have someone like Trump, who's ripped apart and shredded contracts his whole life, even when they're crystal clear what the obligations are, he looks at the Constitution as weak. And you see here a law like the Epstein Transparency Act. Okay, it doesn't have a private cause of action, but who would interpret that law as saying, gotcha, we don't have to actually produce anything because you, Congress, mandated we do something, we signed it into law, but no private cause of action. Gotcha. And the question, whether you're Democrat, Republican, independent, is seriously, what society do you want to live in?

30:33Ben Meiselas:Are we a gotcha on everything like that? And is that the way we handle things? By the way, I think they're wrong. There are some things called implied private causes of action. And when you go before a federal judge and you put out fact sheets about the Epstein transparency law, here's what we're going to do. And then you don't do it. There are other equitable and other principles that come into play, but it's just, that's their position is so, is so low. It's so, it's so gutter. It's such, it's such trash human behavior. And again, I don't care whether you're Democrat or Republican, you should not want to teach people in your life to behave in that way.

31:13Ben Meiselas:It's just not what we expect of leaders, that their position is, gotcha. Let's talk about that, but let me just tie it all together. Ken Vogel from the New York Times did this great piece where they talked about all of these people who were quietly pardoned. You know, this week, you know, with someone named Adriana Combrero, she did like fake five hour energy drinks back in like 2021, you know, and she was pardoned back in 2021. Then she was then she committed fraud again. She did it again. It's another pardon. Then you go to Puerto Rico, Wanda Vasquez, who was the former Republican governor of Puerto Rico, Mark Rossini.

31:59Ben Meiselas:and then there was another, this was all about bribes. There was a guy, Julio Herrera, and Herrera's daughter gave Trump's PAC 2.5 million and then another million, so three and a half million dollars to Trump. And then Herrera got hit with a misdemeanor for engaging in a massive bribery scheme with the Republican governor, a former Republican governor of Puerto Rico, and then got a misdemeanor for it, which is total BS, and then got pardoned. A guy who dumped sludge into cities in Southern California, got five months only and then got pardoned as well. You go through this list of other people, Taryn Peiser, ex-CEO, convicted of insider trading.

32:38Ben Meiselas:And we've been covering this, the through line throughout here of all these other fraudsters, sex trafficking networks, Juan Orlando Hernandez, the biggest drug trafficker. Popak, what do you make of all of this? You can start with the gotcha, you know, just start with the MWFC and then tie it into the party.

32:57Michael Popok:Yeah, and on the gotcha part, and you're so right, I mean, the Constitution was not built as a statute, which, you know, the Code of Federal Regulation or the United States Code Annotated, which is our code book, which is supposed to be consistent with the aspirations of the Constitution or the teachings of the Constitution as interpreted by human beings. I mean, it was, you know, since 1807 with the Marbury versus Madison case, Chief Justice John Marshall, who when you go to the United States Supreme Court, you will know who is the greatest Supreme Court justice of all time. It's not John Roberts.

33:33Michael Popok:Giant statues, two of them, and busts of John Marshall, because he's the one that gave us our checks and balance system through a Supreme Court that has not always been nine over time. It's been different numbers of justices and hopefully will be a different number in the future. But their interpretation of it and and and frankly, the the founders and the framers never thought that we would not have amended the Constitution to fit morals and values over time. It is a it is a little bit of a misnomer. I mean, I've always seen it as a living, breathing document, but it is not to MAGA and to the right wing, or as Antonin Scalia famously put it, the Constitution is not a living, breathing document.

34:23Michael Popok:It is dead, dead, dead. And they interpret it that way through the prism of their own ideology. But whereas state constitutions, every state has its own constitution, which is why you and I certainly sometimes talk about, You know, abortion was upheld today in Wyoming under the state constitution. Those constitutions have been amended thousands of times over the last 50 years, thousands in every state. But the constitution never gets amended. And the last time we tried, you know, the Equal Rights Amendment, you know, it either did or didn't pass, depending on how you interpret how long it took for the states to ratify it.

35:07Michael Popok:But I think the thing if you ask me what would be the most surprising and I think there's a couple of things the framers and founders would be shocked by. One is this kind of originalism and textualism commitment that the right wing uses to try to block out civil rights. I think that would be surprising to them about the well we have to it's whatever you know on gun rights it's whatever in the old tiny times whatever was on the books for gun regulation in the 1780s or 1820s that's what's going to govern today. I think they'd be shocked by that. I also think they'd be shocked by how few times we've actually amended the Constitution to fit and update it for the times.

35:47Michael Popok:So so with that let me let me switch gears to the pardons. The pardons are not surprising to anybody. And the part that gets missed, although Vogel did a good job there, is how much money is getting wiped out, going to the taxpayers for restitution that go along with these things. You know, like the Chrisley family, like a hundred million dollar bank fraud. And they were obligated to pay back tens of millions of dollars based on it. Every one of these people that had a conviction also had a restitution amount because they were all major league fraudsters or what you called earlier today fraud stars.

36:22Michael Popok:These fraud stars owed so much money to the American people for restitution purposes. And that gets wiped out along with when the pardon happens. They haven't paid it back. They've been in jail. And what is the message that Donald Trump is sending to the American people, to the recidivists, the ones that committed fraud? How about the one that got first time in history got a pardon twice? Like, I mean, how many times does Donald Trump have to say, I don't really know you that well, but you were weaponized Department of Justice. Have a good life. This is how he writes his social media tweets around these pardons.

36:56Michael Popok:How many times do you have to pardon the same person twice? What is the messaging that it's sending to the rest of America to your daughter and my daughter and other people and around the world about? Values like you said about about Morals about what it means to be an American and what it means to have a criminal justice system to be respected the rule of law to be respected Now every potential fraudster says fuck it I'll make as much money as I possibly can because hopefully a MAGA will get back into office and I'll get a free pass, especially if I donate to the cause. You know, this is we said originally at the top of the at the top of the pardon list.

37:37Michael Popok:This was a presidency for sale to the highest bidder, whether it's big oil who bought our Venezuelan policy for us. Right. This wasn't a war. This isn't a freedom on the march. This isn't installing democracy. This is how do we capture the Venezuelan oil for now and into the future. We'll get around to democracy and elections maybe one day. Look at me smiling with my Nobel Prize, this terrible, terrible scene. I felt bad for Machado, too, you know, switching gears to Venezuela for a minute. You know, the leader of the party in exile, who's probably going to be the president of that country and most people want her to be.

38:20Michael Popok:She had to go in there and like kiss his ring, give him her Nobel Prize in order to try to get back into power and all with no cameras present. I mean, this is a guy that doesn't wipe his ass without a press photographer next to him or a social media poster to no pictures of her, no official statements, no social media. It was as if it didn't happen, except for the Nobel Prize being given to him, which led the Nobel Prize committee to say that's not how Nobel Prizes work. You can't just hand it to somebody. And if you want to go back in history, you know, Hitler's communications director, Goebbels, he was given a Nobel Prize by somebody, too, who also wanted something from the Hitler regime.

39:07Michael Popok:So, you know, this whole bullshit there. But this is the immorality and the illegality of the Trump administration and Donald Trump. And this is why, you know, we haven't talked about it lately. The poll numbers are so terrible for Donald Trump, almost in an ability to recover from them. He's maybe going past the 30 % approval mark, which means a fair amount of MAGA have written him off for the midterms and beyond, for his party and beyond. But what we're worried about over here on the Midas side, the Legal AF side, is we know what happens when a desperate Donald Trump tries to cling to power.

39:48Michael Popok:Jan 6th, you know, Insurrection Act gets invoked now and all that. We saw what happened on Jan 6th and Donald Trump's conspiracy there, even though, you know, he got an immunity passed from the Supreme Court. But wait till midterms in 2028 when he's got nothing to lose. And his flirtation with the Insurrection Act becomes let's seize voting machines. Let's postpone voting day. let's continue our assault on voting rights because he can't possibly win any other way that's something long that's the long view you and i are going to have to keep a very very very close on but this pardon thing is just symptomatic of a diseased corrupt trump administration and

40:33Ben Meiselas:department of justice two points one on the textualist interpretation aspect of things but the other on the oil. And this goes into criminality, what a rogue regime this is. The oil money from Venezuela right now is going to a bank account in Qatar. It's not going to the Treasury Department. It's not going to American taxpayers. It's being held in a Qatari bank account without checks and balances or controls. And I say this again, Democrat, Republican, independent, you're okay with the money going? First off, you're okay with the authoritarian regime of Maduro still being in power while they brutally repress the opposition in Venezuela right now.

41:23Ben Meiselas:That's what America represents, that we just steal oil if we can just have our authoritarian and say that. By the way, I don't know if you've seen this, but Senator Rick Scott of Florida, he's even been posting without any shred of irony based on his cult-like admiration for Donald Trump. He's like, Diodados Cabello is still holding hostage Edmundo Gonzalez's, the other opposition leaders, children. And he's brutally, yeah, because they're a brutal regime. And the CIA was there in Venezuela with Delcy, with Diodados, with the whole authoritarian crew. You had, you want to talk about CIA, covert, covert intelligence agency.

42:14Ben Meiselas:You know, it's supposed to be confidential classified. We've got our CIA director chilling with Delce Rodriguez, Maduro's VP turned the head of the country. And so people know that would be like Trump leaving office and getting Stephen Miller. Like, you know, that's pretty much what it's like. She was the worst than Maduro and Diodados Cabello is like bringing in Hegseth. That's who's running it. Miller and Hegseth are now running it versus Maduro. That's basically the equivalent. Next point, the issues of textualist, originalist, all this stuff. It's all bullshit. And it's sometimes tough for me as a law professor to have to explain that to the class because when I was in law - Is that how you start your con law class?

43:02Ben Meiselas:I just want to let you know that basically everything here is ultimately BS. And it's really just going to be who's appointed to the Supreme Court is going to rule or not rule in your favor. Because here's the thing. When we went to law school, you learn about these frameworks for analysis. Are you a textualist? Like every word matters. Are you an originalist? You go back to the origin and the meaning. Are you a state's rights person and make sure that state's rights are always protected. If you read the First Amendment, where do you stand on the free speech versus free exercise balance? Because the First Amendment, read it, it's pretty short.

43:43Ben Meiselas:So there are all of these frameworks of analysis, but ultimately they're the frameworks of sociopaths. Because at the end of the day, the answer is determined by the framework from the outset. You want a certain outcome? You say you're an originalist. You want an outcome here? Say you're a textualist. I'm a textualist until the Second Amendment starts to talk about regulation, well-regulated militia. And you're like, well, how does the words well-regulated militia deal with the right to bear arms? You see, that's where we're an originalist, okay? They the founders never made any comments about semi-automatic weapons and these machine guns.

44:29Ben Meiselas:And so they like guns. Yeah, but they had different types of weapons back. Well, they never said it. Well, but what about the language that says well-regulated militia? Wouldn't the word regulation and amendment imply regulation? No, no, no, no, no. Why? There's a comma. What do you mean there's a comma? Yeah, you don't read before the comma. Everything after the comma is right. Right. But before the comma, we don't care about those words. Why? Because we're originalists. Oh, we're states' rights. Okay, well, you're states' rights. But now we've got the federal government invading the states. Well, you've got a unitary executive.

45:05Ben Meiselas:What does that mean? He can do whatever he wants. Anything? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're originalists. OK, but is it originally the Constitution intended to stop the monarchy? Isn't the whole originalist of our existence against absolute immunity? No, no, no. See, you're wrong there. We've created a new theory called unitary executive. Who created it? The founders? No, no, no, no. Who? The Federalist and Heritage Foundation. You mean in the 80s? They came up with it in the 80s? Yeah, they came up with it. So you're not an original. So my whole point here, what I just did, that exercise that I just did is the problem, frankly, with the law.

45:44Ben Meiselas:And when you go back to the loopholes, and maybe it's empowering to know the things that I'm saying, but it is a – imagine playing soccer with people. And one team, good soccer player is not great, but they have machine guns. okay and then the other team you're playing against great soccer players the best you know pick your favorite football club from you know the premier league don't have machine guns okay you start to play and then decide with the machine guns and this reminds me of the movie the uh the dictator with sasha barrett cohen when he's running the race and then he he has the gun and he starts shooting people on the track the team with the machine gun starts shooting everybody and you're but we were better soccer players.

46:29Ben Meiselas:Our answers made more sense and we were more talented. But yeah, but they're using machine guns. And so at some point, I don't mean to make it a violent reference, but the point is there's been one side that hasn't been going with norms, traditions, rules, but they've been pretending to, as Mamdani said during his inauguration speech, kind of using the facade of decency and intellectual language to actually do the repression, while other people have been playing by norms and standards and rules and have been screwed. Popak, hold the thought because I want to talk about that and much more because this to me is addressed in the Reagan-appointed judge, Judge Young, who's saying what I'm pretty much saying in his own way.

47:16Ben Meiselas:And it's interesting when it comes from a Reagan-appointed judge. So let's take Our last quick break of the show, a reminder, if you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, auto accident caused by the negligence of others, any type of negligence of others, sexual assault, sexual harassment cases, medical malpractice cases. If you know someone who's died in an accident and you know their family, reach out to Popox Firm. Popox Firm is there to help. He's got lawyers across the country that give a free consultation. So give a phone call to 888-POPOC-AF or go to thepopocfirm.com. That's 877-POPOC-AF or go to thepopocfirm.com, 877-POPOC-AF or go to thepopocfirm.com, not 888-877.

48:05Ben Meiselas:Also, check out the Legal AF Substack and check out the Legal AF YouTube channel. I know there's going to be a big sub stack sale on the Legal AF. So make sure you all check that out. Let's take our last quick break of the show.

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51:06Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. We've got a lot to discuss. You know, it's a serious legal AF when I'm doing it in the courtroom, Legal AF in the courthouse, Michael Popak. Let's talk about a few things. I'm sure you could weave it and tie it all together. We learned earlier today, which we knew before, this is why the prosecutors in Minneapolis, who are actually also the prosecutors doing the fraud cases and investigations and successfully under the Biden administration into Trump, prosecuting the fraud that was identified in 2024, which Trump was using as the pretext for this invasion and tried to attack the entire Somali community to go after Minneapolis.

51:43Ben Meiselas:We also know that the lawyers quit out of main justice in the civil rights division. But we know now that federal officials are officially investigating Renee Nicole Good's widow regarding the killing of Renee Nicole Good by the officer or not the officer, the ICE Gestapo guy, Jonathan Ross. Ross is not under any investigation at all. The feds are going after the widow. They're also going after Mayor Fry. They're also going after Governor Walz. criminal investigations into everybody other than the shooter and everybody other than ICE by this DOJ. And that was one of the reasons for mass resignations.

52:19Ben Meiselas:You have that, one. Two, that same DOJ that's now going after the widow. Imagine criminally investigating a widow, a widow right now, and not the shooter. A grieving widow. Just lost her wife like a week ago. That same DOJ through the FBI, executes a search warrant on a Washington Post reporter, Hannah Naitanson. She was the main reporter doing all those really good scoops on the federal workers who had been fired and all of their, and the whistleblowers, federal workers who observed the crimes taking place. I think she developed 1 ,169 sources. The Washington Post wrote back in December of 2025.

53:00Ben Meiselas:and she recounted in that article right before the new year all of these sources that she had developed and she was raided by the FBI. Her personal laptop, personal phones were all taken and confiscated where she was communicating with those whistleblowers and then you have tying it all together, Popak, and I always love to throw three things out, have you weave it together. Judge William Glover Young, Judge Bill Young as he's known in Massachusetts, appointed by Reagan, issues a scathing order against the Trump regime. So, Popak, the floor is yours.

53:37Michael Popok:Weaving as we speak. Okay. So, again, the thematic here is an easy one. We're watching the most corrupt Department of Justice run by the most corrupt Attorney General in our history. I named Donald Trump, who runs his own Department of Justice, and when he doesn't like what they're doing with all of their wickedness and corruptness, like Pam Bondi, he finds ways to get rid of her and find somebody that will do his bidding. And so we're watching the total immolation of the Department of Justice. It was already stripped of its credibility and stripped of its proud history in the first six months, if not before, by Pam Bondi willingly.

54:19Michael Popok:I mean, that was One of her jobs was to chloroform the Department of Justice and joined. And she was joined, though, with complicit sycophants and bootlickers like Harmeet Dillon to put out of its misery, the Civil Rights Division, while continuing to fly the flag of being. If you go on the Civil Rights Division's website, it still talks about where the division that investigated the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers. I'm like, are you effing kidding me? You're still wrapping yourselves in the Constitution and the civil rights movement while being led by the most corrupt, racist, anti-civil rights presidency in history?

55:01Michael Popok:I mean, come on. So you got that as the backdrop. In Minneapolis, what are we watching? We're watching federal judges like Judge Menendez issue a decision just yesterday. It was a little bit confusing because she's handling two cases. And one day people were like, oh, she didn't enter the temporary restraining order in favor of the state of Minnesota to stop these abusive ICE tactics on the streets. That's because she was also handling another case and she knew she was about to enter a preliminary injunction in favor of six ICE protesters, peaceful protesters on the streets of Minneapolis representing a class of all protesters.

55:40Michael Popok:So while she didn't grant the temporary restraining order, which is kind of one of the lowest levels of injunctions during the course of a case at its inception for the state at a status conference on Wednesday, she held a final hearing on Tuesday and said, I'm going to be issuing an order in the protester case. She's got the Minneapolis case and the protester case. She's issued her order, a scathing 83-page decision. I have it up on Legal AF Substack for paid subscribers, but I'll boil it down for you very simply. She found that the American Civil Liberties Union representing the protesters had made their case at this juncture, subject to final trial or summary judgment that the Fourth Amendment illegal search and seizure rights under the Constitution of the protesters have been violated by the ICE tactics and by the administration.

56:40Michael Popok:She said, you didn't quite didn't quite get there for me with the record as it is on First Amendment, which means freedom of speech and viewpoint based discrimination. But I'm all with you on the Fourth Amendment. She also excoriated the Trump administration for not bringing evidence to her courtroom. She said, I got the protesters testifying about what happened to them, including a story that like I almost had to stop reading it. That's in the order about a pregnant, pregnant protester who was stun gunned and thrown to the ground by ice. Separate from that, you got two people in Santa Clara, California who were blinded, blinded by ice by shooting non non lethal but deadly force.

57:27Michael Popok:Anything above the neck that you fire at somebody is considered, even under ICE's own manual, deadly force. So they fired projectiles and blew out the eyeball of two people. One of them was a protester. It's a band. Five foot tall and 102 pounds. I can't really see this guy getting in the way of, you know, of obstructing justice, if you will. And certainly he shouldn't have been blinded on the streets as a penalty. So you've got all that going on with Judge Menendez supervising over all of this. The American Civil Liberties Union, who's now with us regularly on Legal AF with the reporting and contributions, they just filed another new civil rights case in Minnesota as the automatic response of this corrupt regime, the Trump administration, is to double down and triple down.

58:17Michael Popok:Now, while Donald Trump may have backed off his threats of using the Insurrection Act for now, because we're drawing attention to it, they are going after the victims. They're victimizing the victims. I mean, Renee Good's body is not even cold in the ground, leaving her six-year-old son a motherless, at least Renee's motherhood. when they're going after Renee Good and Becca Good, her wife, about whether what? To try to prove J.D. Vance's total and complete disinformation campaign that he launched the first day after they learned about what happened on the street, that there's some sort of left-wing activist being funded.

58:57Michael Popok:They were on the board of education of a charter school in the south side of Minneapolis devoted to social justice, who had done training about nonviolent opposition, peaceful opposition. She sat in a car perpendicular but left open her back and her front to allow traffic to go around her. She just wanted to slow down a process. She didn't want to lose her life for peaceful protest. So, I mean, how many, you can put it in comments tonight, How many domestic terrorists drive a late model car with an old dog in the back and dance in their car to try to slow down ice? How many domestic terrorists fit that bill?

59:45Michael Popok:Not many. So instead of investigating whether Jonathan Ross committed civil rights, criminal civil rights deprivation, The way that Derek Chauvin did when he crushed the life out of George Floyd. They've turned the tables in a Kafkaesque Orwellian way and are going after the victims. Sure, let's open an investigation into Becca Good and what she's doing for peaceful protest or Renee Good or the mayor of Minneapolis or the governor of Minnesota. Right. Everybody's being investigated except the shooter and the murderer of a U.S. citizen on the streets of America during peaceful protest. And and right away they circled the wagons around the guy and they said, oh, self-defense, you know, absolute immunity.

1:00:34Michael Popok:Why don't we let the investigation not be tainted by your prejudging? Try that. That would probably give American people more confidence that you're being honest and true with your development of your facts than if you declare up front that, you know, we've seen the video. Yeah, we've all seen the video. But now let's let law enforcement, maybe state law enforcement, since you're so conflicted, take over and tell the American people exactly what happened. And then, you know, I've had Keith Ellison, the attorney general on. He's not afraid to go after federal officers and prosecute them for crimes, you know, that are committed on his streets.

1:01:11Michael Popok:And that, I think, is the next wave, the next turn of affairs that'll come here. If the feds aren't going to do it, then the states and the state attorney generals are going to have to do it. And against that backdrop, you've got two judges, two 80-year-old judges who are doing God's work, staying in their chair and opposing the Trump administration. William Young, Bill Young, okay, he didn't want this. He's a Reagan appointee, 85-year-old. He'd like to be sitting on some golden pond somewhere with his grandchildren, fishing, I'm sure. He can't go anywhere because of this out of control administration.

1:01:50Michael Popok:He just declared, I've never seen this before in my life. I've read thousands of Supreme Court decisions from law school on. So have you. Ben, I have never seen a federal judge say out loud, because it was a hearing, say out in a written order, say out loud what Judge Young just said, which is there is a conspiracy to violate the Constitution at the highest levels of an administration led by its two senior cabinet members, Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem. And then went into the detail, including making reference to that and comparing the tactics of the Trump administration to those who chased after newly freed slaves to return them to their slave owners.

1:02:39Michael Popok:You're like, if he's using this imagery to talk about it. Now, as I've said to people, this was this at the bottom. The facts are about. All right, we can fill in the blank. This one happens to be about pro-Palestinian students and faculty and whether whether they have a First Amendment right on U.S. soil to say things that some of us might find offensive. And I tell people, I'm not saying I agree with everything comes out of a protester's mouth on any side of the aisle or any side of the spectrum. But I will defend with my last dying breath the right for that person to say that out loud as long as it doesn't cross past the protections of the First Amendment into being some sort of hate speech slash a call for violence or fomenting of violence.

1:03:29But short of that, the fact that it makes me uncomfortable is the reason it needs that is the speech that needs to be defended.

1:03:36Michael Popok:And so they were deporting and throwing into ICE without due process all of these students. Right. And getting them off of campus. And then until they had bond hearing months later. And the judge was like, no, this this hearing was about remedy. He'd already found the violation several months ago. And of course, the Department of Justice, corrupt, led by Donald Trump, looked the judge in the eye and said the same thing they've been saying to every judge. You don't have any jurisdiction here. He's like, what are you talking about? No, you can't fashion a remedy because that can only go to immigration court.

1:04:12Michael Popok:He says, we're talking about constitutional violations that are that I've developed the record. And you're telling me I can't do anything about it. Trust me, he's going to be doing something about it. Same day, David O. Carter, in your background, in your backyard, who famously back in off the off the Jan 6th committee subpoenas to John Eastman, Donald Trump's constitutional law halfwit that he relied on for the insurrection. who was trying to protect his emails from his law school server and others from being disclosed to the Jan 6th committee, because a lot of them were about or to Donald Trump, he made that famous ruling that the first one, it was the first, there was others, but he was the first to say that a President Trump had more likely than not committed crimes and stripped the attorney-client privilege away under the crime fraud exception.

1:05:05Michael Popok:So we've been tracking, you knew David Carter from your your days of practicing law in california and i certainly learned a lot about him in that case in the new case he just shot down the civil rights division uh using civil rights law perversely to try to get their grubby greedy little hands on our private voter data where they've gone after 17 states or so so far to try to get our data now there's a reason our founding fathers back to the bullshit of the Constitution. Why are founding fathers separated? And the, you know, the allocation of responsibility for federal elections, they are in the hands of the states, because by and large, we don't trust the federal government running elections.

1:05:53Michael Popok:That's just the truth. They're too far removed from us. We certainly don't want the executive branch and one guy doing it, or one person doing it. So they very smartly, under Article 1, gave that power, the article one to the states uh to run even federal elections time place and manner what not the day but how they're going to be run what's the procedures what's the logistics the counting the method all of that that's all with the states and the executive branch and the presidency has no role in it and so judge carter said this is you know when you start seeing quotes of like Abraham Lincoln.

1:06:30Michael Popok:Abraham Lincoln famously said that the ballot is stronger than the bullet, ironic considering his end, and other statements of founding fathers and framers. And he called out the administration for being unpatriotic, for being illegal and unconstitutional, and just trying to suppress the vote and scare people into not voting under the guise that they have some role in that process. He dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning they're going to have to take an appeal now because that case is now gone in one of two states that have done it. So when you put all of these kind of cases together, you know, from Minneapolis to Boston to, in this case, California, what is the common theme and denominator?

1:07:12Michael Popok:It is a corrupt Department of Justice who's lost its way, if it ever had a way, about ethics and morality, our Constitution, and what its role is supposed to be. Just as an example of, you know, I talk a lot about what should be the independence of the Department of Justice, completely destroyed by Donald Trump, who's captured it completely under this whole unitary executive presidency model. You know, you have J.D. Vance announcing the creation of a Department of Justice office devoted to fraud, which again, you know, here, over here, he's pardoning fraudsters, some of them multiple recidivists.

1:07:56Michael Popok:Over here, he wants the American people to think he's tough on fraud, and he's opening up a new prosecutor's office related to it. Janie Vance announced it from the White House, not Pam Bondi from the Department of Justice. So now they're opening up whole new who knows what's just admissions, confessions, that they are in control of this puppet Department of Justice. Everybody there should resign or be impeached. I'm not sure Pam Bondi, you know, I've done a lot of hot takes on this. I'm not sure Pam Bondi makes it to our February 21st Oversight Committee hearing back in the Senate. I see Todd Blanche taking this whole thing over very, very, very soon.

1:08:35Michael Popok:But in any event, that is the common denominator. And we're watching is judges, Menendez, Young, Carter, and others just trying their hardest with the tools in their tool bag to restrain a lawless presidency.

1:08:49Ben Meiselas:Take a look at what this federal judge ruled in Minnesota, restricting ICE tactics against protesters who aren't suspected of committing crimes. I mean, just think about that a judge has to even say these things in the United States of America. Agents are hereby barred from retaliating against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity, including observing the activities of Operation Metro Surge, arresting or detaining persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity, including observing the activities of Operation Metro Surge, in retaliation for their protected conduct and absent to showing a probable cause or reasonable suspicion that the person has committed a crime or is obstructing or interfering with the activities of a covered federal officer, Using pepper spray or similar non-lethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools against persons who are engaging in peaceful and unobstructed protest activity, including observing the activities, stopping or detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles where there is no reasonable articulable suspicion that they are forcibly obstructing or interfering with covered federal agents.

1:10:00Ben Meiselas:The act of safely following covered federal agents at an appropriate distance does not by itself create reasonable suspicion or justify a vehicle stop. The fact that that has to be put into a court order when that's just a statement of the United States Constitution and a statement of the law. The fact that you have these ICE and Border Patrol Gestapo and military fatigues asking people to see their papers. And if they don't show the papers and if your skin looks a certain way, you get thrown into a detention center and may be never heard from again in the United States of America. The fact that you'll see peaceful protesters on the streets and then you'll see these ICE agents or Border Patrol take these canisters of gas.

1:10:47Ben Meiselas:And sometimes it's unclear. It's not just pepper spray and pepper balls. Some of this noxious gas that's green and makes people choke and really hurts people and causes so much pain. They just throw that they chuck the gas at the peaceful protesters because they want to create the scenes and the imagery of war that they themselves are are creating. and you have Governor Walz and the mayor saying to the people, be peaceful, be peaceful. Don't buy into what they're doing. At the same time, you have the tactics of this invasion inflicting the pain on the people to try to provoke and terrorize and cause these scenes.

1:11:27Ben Meiselas:This is what's happening in the name of the United States of America. So I'll leave you with this, though, with some positive news. I mean, today was the swearing in of Governor Spanberger in Virginia. There's now a trifecta in Virginia of the House of Delegates, the Senate, which comprises the General Assembly there, and the governorship. In a very short period of time, they put forward referendums in April to protect women's reproductive rights, to protect voting rights, to protect access to health care, and all of these things that Governor Youngkin ripped away. So all of these things will be on the ballot, including gerrymandering, mid-district or mid-decade redistricting there in Virginia.

1:12:04Ben Meiselas:And there you have the president pro temp of the United States, of the Virginia Senate, basically saying to like, you know, there are all these like senators in the United States and other people who are like, you know, maybe don't overreach Democrats and, you know, don't do a 10 to 1 map. That's too much. Like maybe try to make the map like 8 to 3 or 7 to 4. Like let's like let's relax a little bit here. And then the president pro temp, she's incredible, Luis Lucas. She goes, I have the utmost respect for Senator Kaine and Senator Warner, but we do not need coaching on redistricting coming from a cut chair in the corner.

1:12:46Ben Meiselas:How about you all stay focused on the fascist in the White House and let us handle redistricting in Virginia? Ten to one. I don't know what are the choice you have right now with everything that we've said. And in what world do we go, you know what, let's be, let's just kind of come up with what, it'll be okay. You have to fight back. Even selfishly, you have to fight back. Even if your pure grounds is selfish. If you do what Machado does and you're, and just thinking about it selfishly, did that benefit Machado? What happens when another administration comes in? Do you think that Machado handing over her Nobel Peace Prize inspires confidence in her leadership?

1:13:30Ben Meiselas:To me, everything that made her get the Nobel Peace Prize is thrown out the window when she hands over her Nobel Peace Prize to the person who invaded her country and propped up the authoritarian. Her whole legacy was destroyed. I mean, do you think Nelson Mandela, when he was in prison for decades, was out there trying to cut deals with authority? Is he trying to cut deals and be like, actually, you want all the oil here? And you'll let me out early? At some point, and I don't mean to end on a bit of a morbid note, you either will stand on principles and be attacked for that, but keep your principles and values, or you'll sacrifice it and you're going to be attacked anyway.

1:14:16Ben Meiselas:It's a simple choice, even if you had the most selfish reasons for it. And you shouldn't have the selfish reasons. You should have reasons that we're here to help people. That's the whole point of this all, to be better people. When we talk about what the government is doing to the people, the pain it's inflicting on people, that's not what government's supposed to be for. Government's supposed to be for helping people, access healthcare, access homes, access opportunities, access a better life, not be the terrorists. There you have it. We'll keep covering this all the time. We've been doing live reporting from inside Minneapolis and St.

1:14:52Ben Meiselas:Paul today. I'm sure you've seen that coverage. We appreciate you all watching. Make sure you subscribe to Michael Popok's Substack, Legal AF. Just search it on Substack. Subscribe to Michael Popok's YouTube channel, the Legal AF YouTube channel, and subscribe to all of the Legal AF channels, including our YouTube channel here and Legal AF on audio. Finally, if you or somebody you know has been injured in an auto accident, a trucking accident, if you've been injured by the negligence of someone else, if you know someone who's the victim of wrongful death or someone else's negligence, give a call to 877-POPOC-AF or visit thepopocfirm.com.

1:15:29Ben Meiselas:That's 877-POPOC-AF or go to thepopocfirm.com. They have people, lawyers, administrators, 24-7 getting back to you. The consultation is free and there have been so many Legal AF listeners and viewers who have called who are actually being represented by the Popak firm. So make sure you give a call 877 Popak AF or go to the Popak firm.com available 24 seven. Don't be shy. Thanks everybody for watching. We appreciate it. We're grateful for you. Stay safe. Keep fighting for democracy. We're in this together. Shout out to the Midas mighty and shout out legal.

1:16:14Ben Meiselas:We'll be right back.

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