Legal AF Full Episode - 10/18/2025

25:47That wasn't the crimes that he committed. Arguably, some of them may have been, but that wasn't what he was charged with. What he was charged with was part of his serial lying and theft and stealing was he would take his donor's credit cards and he would swipe them for his own personal well-being. He would literally do credit card theft and identity theft. And he would take the person, let's say they were a donor, and he would steal their money. And then he would buy himself outfits and pay his rent. And he made a living off of literally robbing people. That's what he was criminally charged with.

26:22So I don't want people to get confused about why is lying. Lying is bad, but that's not what he was actually charged and pled guilty to. And there was so much evidence there against him. He was charged in the federal courthouse in Long Island, Central Iceland. them. These are real serious crimes. But, you know, he's this ultra MAGA guy and he's saying, Donald, I love you. I'm going to do all of your bidding. And part of, I think, commuting the sentence of George Santos is also Donald Trump just saying laws don't matter. It sends a broader message outside of Santos. It's Trump saying, I'm the law.

26:59I'll do whatever the hell I want. Look, I'll do George Santos. I'll do Ghislaine Maxwell. Look, Kristi Noem can have$172 million private jet. It doesn't matter. You, the American people, I don't work for you, okay? You are basically, you know, not even a second. Y 'all are the pawns in all of this. I'm going to focus on my triumphal arch and golden ballrooms and UFC fights in front of the White House. And I don't care about you. I don't care about the legal system. I'm going to do things that show So I my level of disdain for the DOJ will be shown as look what I just did for George Santos. Look what I did for the January 6th insurrectionist.

27:42Michael Popak, I'll bring you in right there with that intro right there. I don't think there's much more that needs to be covered on Santos because I don't want to give him that much attention.

27:52Michael Popok:You know, there's broader principles. Yeah, I'm into the broader principles. This is a crucible of the depravity of the Trump administration. And you're so right. He lets it slip out all the time. And he was talking about his get ready, folks, while he was pitching his. And if you listen closely, you're going to hear Ben's head explode when he was talking about his ballroom that he's building off the White House and had all the donors there for it. And he talked about the triumphal arch like the arch in Washington Square Park or the Arc de Triomphe that he's going to build near the Lincoln Memorial with I don't know whose money.

28:28Michael Popok:I'm sure in violation of some law. He he said when they said at the end, because the architect for the triumphal arch said this is a testament to all people and to and to unity and to justice, you know, because he understands as an architect, its placement would be so close to the Lincoln Memorial. And they said, the reporter asked the question about that, about what the designer of the arch and what his comments were. And he said, no, it's Trump said, no, it's for me. I mean, he just says out loud every and we can't we can't fault him for saying out loud, as you said in the past, exactly what he's going to do at any given moment.

29:12Michael Popok:And then does it. We've said he's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. well. Is this the starter kit for it? Probably, because he sees that there's no political fallout. He thinks there's no political fallout for what he does. Of course, the polls say something quite differently. And I think we're able to take the George Santos commutation of a sentence, which is another Ed Martin special. Ed Martin, the director of weaponization for the Department of Justice, who's leading the charge against Letitia James, who we'll update later, who's really the shadow attorney general. He's the henchman in the trench coat who's doing all of Donald Trump's bidding.

29:49Michael Popok:You want a political enemy going after boss? I'm on it. You want to pardon or commute the sentences for people like the Jan Six insurrectionists or George Santos or Ghislaine Maxwell? I'm on it. Keep an eye, as we will, on Ed Martin, Eagle Ed Martin. He's going to be the one, the conduit through which Ghislaine Maxwell is ultimately pardoned. And he just wiped out and then bragged about it on a social media post, Ed Martin, almost$350 ,000 or more of restitution to victims of Santos. And how did Santos get out? Because he's been writing these sobbing reports from prison for some Long Island newspaper.

30:30Michael Popok:You're from Long Island. You ever hear of this South Shore press? Some South Shore press decided to let him spill ink and spilled tea about his time in solitary confinement. Lord knows how they get those articles out. And Donald Trump and Ed Martin read them, and he wrote a letter and said, human dignity, you know, the human dignity that's being deprived of people who are protesting on the streets, the human dignity that's being deprived of people who are migrants, who are entitled to process rights. Human dignity demands that any human being that's in prison be given a certain amount. And Donald Trump goes, you're right, and I have a way to get back to the Democrats.

31:03Michael Popok:I'll tie it to Richard Blumenthal, a senator in Connecticut about his puffed up Vietnam service or not. Oh, you know, he's a rogue. And I love this. You hear it in Don Jr. You hear it in J.D. Vance. You hear it with with Donald Trump. You talk about grabbing a woman by her genitalia. It's it's harmless locker room talk. Young Republicans, which is a misnomer. It's people up to 40 years old who use racist misogynist use the N word. You use and talk about exterminating Jews, celebrating Hitler, raping women all show up in text messages. And J.D. Vance says boys will be boys. Boys. Well, first of all, they're 40 year old men and women up to including lawyers.

31:55Michael Popok:And everything is just written off as. And Donald Trump calls George Santos in a social media posting. He's a rogue. Well, there's been a lot of rogues like Donald Trump. When you have a criminal, felon, fraudster, sexual abuser in chief, that's the output. You get the George Santos and the Glenn Maxwell's commuted. And this is what the messaging needs to be for the Democrats. Whenever they stand before cameras, whenever they get interviewed here on Legal AF, this is the messaging. This is the party that people will be voting for with R next to their name from now until the midterms and special elections along the way.

32:37Michael Popok:And it's time for the silent majority that makes up the 61 % that don't like and hate Donald Trump that are with us here on Legal AF and Midas Touch. It is time for the silent majority to be silent no longer and to be heard. Michael Popak, I'm going to ask you to do a weave right now. Do you think you can handle a good old fashioned Virginia weave? I can. Let's do a good old fashioned. A lot going on in Virginia and then we'll take it in Maryland afterwards. But let's start with the good old fashioned Virginia weave. The firings in Virginia relating to these indictments, particularly New York Attorney General Letitia James.

33:14but also tangentially related to the Comey case. You have the Comey case moving along on that rocket docket in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia. The prosecutors, I guess, who picked the short straw from the North Carolina Federal District who parachuted into Virginia. I'm not sure if they fully knew how bad that Comey case was going to be for them and their careers, but they've been begging the judge, can we have a delay? We don't want to turn over the discovery right now. We need some more time, judge. The judge basically has been rejecting the Trump prosecutors. Now you filed this case.

33:54You get ready. And Comey's won most of those motions. So why don't you start by talking about the Comey motions? Why don't you talk about the firings related to New York Attorney General Letitia James? And then if you want to weave a little bit up north to Maryland, you can do that. You can do that and talk about what's going on with John Bolton there where he was charged in the Maryland federal court. He can handle it.

34:13Michael Popok:Take I-95 right from Virginia to Maryland or back. Let's start with missiles are being shot over it like in the West Coast. Trust me. I mean, I almost thought I was going to have to do this, this podcast tonight from a bomb shelter. You know, you're literally there where the missiles are being shot. I'm in San Diego. Yeah. Right near, near, right near Quantico. All right. I'm weaving. I'm weaving. Eastern District of Virginia, once proud member of the U.S. Attorney's office. It was actually one of the first federal districts created in 1780 and 87 or 1789, and is now and completely has been set aflame by Donald Trump, who is demolishing with a wrecking ball, the Department of Justice, its leadership.

34:56Michael Popok:He's installed sycophants and shadow attorney generals like Ed Martin. Lindsay Halligan has apparently decided that she's going to side with Ed Martin. There's a war that's broken out between Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche on one side and Kash Patel, Ed Martin and Lindsey Halligan on the other. Lindsey Halligan has decided to take a wrecking ball to the Eastern District of Virginia being manipulated, I'm sure, by Ed Martin. And now we've got the sixth or seventh major leader in the Department of Justice's office in the Eastern District of Virginia being fired, including one that I predicted. I thought every time I recorded about Beth, you see the major crimes prosecutor who let it leak that she was not going to recommend a case against Letitia James because there wasn't a case against Letitia James.

35:42Michael Popok:As soon as we saw that and 72 hours later, an indictment that was obtained by Lindsay Halligan, I said, whenever I started recording about Beth, I said, I'm not sure she's still there. We might have to update this on Legal AF Substack Live. And now she and her her number two have been fired from that office. That's a badge of honor, by the way. And I applaud Beth Yusey for taking a stand against the depraved retaliatory conduct of Donald Trump to go after his political enemies and critics. Comey on tomorrow. No, sorry, Monday. You know, when I'm traveling between the time zones and the days, I forget where I'm at.

36:22Michael Popok:On Monday, there will be at least two, if not more motions that are going to be filed by James Comey. How do we know? Because he said it aloud in court and he made a court filing to tell us about one. One is going to be, I am sure, about what we call prosecutorial abuse, which is vindictive prosecution and selective prosecution about this case should never have been brought. Many of the things that have been turned over and have had to be turned over to the Comey side, the former FBI director and U.S. attorney, includes and has to include the interview notes of people like John Durham, the special counsel, for four years investigated everything related to James Comey and said there's no case and told that to the career prosecutors in the Eastern District before Lindsey Halligan arrived.

37:09Michael Popok:All that stuff, all of those interview notes and witness notes and things, all of that goes into the exculpatory pile that Comey uses to prove that he's innocent if he even goes to trial. In the meantime, he'll use it to support his vindictive prosecution motion to the extent I think that's why the judge forced them. They were asking for the Trump administration, like, we need more time. We need another week, another week. He's like, no, motions are due on Monday. Your discovery is due here. You turn over your documents there, and we're going to trial on Jan 5. That's Judge Nakmanoff. That's it.

37:46Michael Popok:We're going to trial, whether you like it or not. And that's certainly what the defense wants to have happen. The first motion, that is the one I just talked about. The second motion is going to be a motion to disqualify or declare illegally appointed Lindsay Halligan as a U.S. attorney who's the only person to sign the indictment. Therefore, the indictment must fail. This is similar to but not exactly like what was used against Alina Habba that's going to be heard this week or I think it's coming up this week before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals about whether she was illegally appointed.

38:22Michael Popok:Slightly different because how they were appointed was slightly different. But under the way that we believe in the argument that I'm sure we're going to see on Monday, the way that we believe Lindsey Halligan was appointed as the interim U.S. attorney for Eastern District of Virginia, it's a single use. You only get one appointment for that, and then it goes to the judges of that particular district to pick the U.S. attorney until there's one that's confirmed through the Senate. They already picked one. His name was Eric Sebert, a conservative Republican. Trump fired him because he wouldn't indict Comey and Letitia James.

39:01Michael Popok:That's it. That was the one pick by Pam Bondi. Second pick goes to the judges. So they've already given notice last week, the Comey side, to the judge, get ready. We're filing this on Monday, and you're likely you're going to have to send this to another judge outside of the Eastern District of Virginia because everybody's effectively disqualified because they're going to pick, if we're right, the new U.S. attorney. So that process has, I assume, has already begun. It means when they get the motion, Judge Nakmanoff is going to have to send it to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge, Judge Diaz, who sits over Virginia.

39:39Michael Popok:He then picks another judge somewhere outside of the Eastern District of Virginia. It could be in Virginia, just not in the Eastern District or in places like North Carolina. And he assigns it to that judge, similar to what happened to Alina Haba when her New Jersey motion got sent to the Middle District of Pennsylvania to be to be ruled by a judge there. So this is all going down. I mean, they're they're going for the knockout punch early, Ben, with with Halligan. And I don't know about any other indictments that have been coming out of there besides Letitia James and Comey, but certainly this would apply to anybody else that gets indicted by her.

40:17Michael Popok:And the reason she's by herself is because no career, first of all, there's no career prosecutor left. They've all been fired or resigned at the top leadership of that office. And so she's left by herself. Even Ed Martin isn't sitting next to her. even we don't see janine piero or anybody from dc flying down driving down to help her she's completely by herself so that's on the comey side and popock i'm going to throw right back to you but what's interesting too is that kind of makes her a witness you know in this so and we see how horrible she is in court i mean people who have described her in court rocking back and forth i I mean, like she doesn't know how to talk in a courtroom.

41:01So she could be put on that witness stand and be grilled about what you do. When did you sign up? Did you know this? Did you read this? Did you were you authorized? She's going to be on the witness. And I just want to make that point. No, that's a very. He's an idiot.

41:14Michael Popok:That's also very good. I call her an instant prosecutor. She spent more time in hair and makeup than she's ever had in a federal court, let alone as a federal prosecutor. So now she's got her hands full with Letitia James, because if you thought the Comey indictment, which nobody can understand or make eyes or tail out of, and was, and then you have the Letitia James one, which had typos over it. And you already have the new reporting coming out where, and I just want to make sure people understand this. Letitia James was indicted because she's a political critic of Donald Trump. That's the reason.

41:49Michael Popok:That's what Rob Bonta said to me today during our live stream as the Attorney General of California working closely with her. This is Donald Trump trying to round up his political enemies and critics. Get ready, Ben. And put them in prison, you know, as any good dictator would do. That's all that we're watching. because when you look at the 30-year prison sentence that she's staring at and you look at the facts, she bought a second home that the bank that gave her$100 ,000 for this very modest second home in Virginia that apparently she bought for family members knew was a second home because she's the New York Attorney General.

42:30Michael Popok:She doesn't live in Virginia. And so there's no, of course, fraud there. And then somebody, not her, likely a niece with power of attorney, checked the box that said she wouldn't be renting it out. Okay. And she's not renting it out. Family members are staying there. And that's it, folks. We got a mortgage fraud of epic proportion over$18 ,000 because Letitia James is big hearted and is letting her family stay in a house she purchased for them in Virginia. Now you wonder why Beth UC quit or effectively got herself fired for not bringing this case. Look, there's a difference between, and we'll get to it, The Bolton indictment brought by career prosecutors in Maryland who checked all the boxes to at least get a legitimate indictment out against against Bolton, a a investigation that started under the Biden administration.

43:25Michael Popok:This is a Biden prosecution, if you will, not a Trump one. That's different. That's completely different than this frame job against Letitia James that nobody would sign on to and still haven't signed on to other than Lindsey Halligan. There's an arraignment coming up this week, middle of the week for for her, for Letitia James. She's going to plead not guilty. Her lawyer is Abby Lowell. You and I are going to be taught we could have a drinking game. How many times we're going to be saying Abby Lowell's name? Because he's like the lawyer of choice for many targets of Donald Trump. He's representing Lisa Cook.

44:03Michael Popok:He's representing Letitia James. And I think he's representing Bolton. Right. So he's he's got them all. You know, he's got a trifecta there. So Letitia James arraignment, she's not going to be perp walked. I just they're not perp walking anymore. I guess that's fallen out of favor. And the East. Then I'm going to take the I'm going to take the car up to the Maryland. And a whole different set of prosecutors, at least this was career prosecutors, who looked at it and made it clear we knew coming in that based on the raid of his house and the pickup of all of his electronic devices, we knew weeks ago what the argument was going to be.

44:43Michael Popok:that he had been keeping diaries, not just in writing, but electronically, that contained top secret and classified information, even after he no longer had that clearance, and shared that information, according to the indictment, with members of his family as a lead up or a ramp up to a book that he was going to write in 2020 called The Room Where It Happens. And they also cut and pasted in some emails that they showed to the grand jury that demonstrated that John Bolton knew and as the people that received it knew that this was confidential information and should have been encrypted and they didn't do it and all of that.

45:20Michael Popok:That is, you know, with 12 or 15 examples of when he, now they didn't list it, but 10, because it's, you know, that wouldn't be appropriate on a public docket for right now, but of times when confidential, you know, classified, even human intelligence information was shared inappropriately. How do we know about all this? Because in paragraph 14 of the indictment, it says that while America was hacking Iran, we saw in their servers AOL emails and diary entries that they had obtained from John Bolton because they hacked John Bolton. John Bolton had confessed that he had been hacked to the government, but didn't say that he had been keeping a diary of top secret information.

46:07Michael Popok:And so because we had that, that was allegedly the delay in the indictment. They had to tell the Iranians that we had been here. So we were willing to compromise of diplomatic relationships and or our surveillance operations in order to indict John Bolton. Now, look, that's the indictment. The guy pled not guilty. He said, you know, his lawyers already on the on the trail talking about, look, he's done what every civil servant who's been at the highest level of national security for 40 years has ever done. He kept diaries. He hasn't done anything different than anybody else. And just as a side note before I shove it back to you, Ben, you know who is a well-known diarist?

46:50Michael Popok:Joe Biden. Joe Biden had volumes throughout his entire career up on his shelf of leather-bound, handwritten diaries, even towards the very end, that he kept about all the rooms that he was in where it happened, whether he was senator or vice president or president. I mean, just copious, copious note taker. And it looks like, and, you know, yes, he got caught up in a couple of boxes that were in his garage or in his center that should have been returned or not returned, and all of that with the special counsel at the time. But this may be different in that Joe Biden didn't digitize these things and like send it to people as he was writing a book.

47:31Michael Popok:So look, as I've said, if John Bolton did something wrong and compromised national security, even though he's also a political enemy and critic of Donald Trump, then we're going to let the chips fall where they are. Although it is suspicious that now they've gotten around to trying to chill his speech. What do you think about it? I just think this John Bolton is George W. Bush's guy. Like, let's not forget who John Bolton, not some liberal hero or like this guy was Trump's national security visor. This guy's a Trump was a Trumper guy who was there. And he's like, man, I could really deal with George W.

48:08Bush. But when it comes to Donald Trump, this guy's like a total fascist. And they had a falling out. Remember how Trump says I pick the best guys? Like, I don't want to conflate like who like who Bolton is. I'm glad that Bolton was outspoken against Donald Trump. And I think that we should always have an open door to people who expose the criminality and the fascism that exists. But like, let's, I don't want to like make Bolton out to be like some, you know, some crusader for my worldview or perspective. So let me just kind of, you know, put that number one. And it seems that lots of Donald Trump's enemies are the people who like work for him, you know, who see his behavior.

48:53So let's just put that out there. But then I just think this is one of those situations where it's not like the Comey case and the Letitia James case. I can say these are the dumbest cases, the most frivolous, the most vexatious, nothing there. And the government's going to get absolutely embarrassed. That's obvious. On the Bolton one, my my view is, you know, Bolton wrote a book on this. Bolton is, you know, relatively, I would be surprised if he truly was kind of that sloppy where he was giving away things that were national security information just because of his history and the national security apparatus.

49:33To me, the fights Popak here will be over. Parsing was this, the Trump regime saying, no, this was classified and confidential while they're out there posting videos of like, you know, Donald Trump's in the Oval Office saying the CIA is in Venezuela right now. OK, we're doing covert operations in Venezuela. He's out there saying that. So to me, what the case ultimately comes down to, and this is going to be a confusing one for the jury, I think, you know, and why, you know, I think Bolton will have good arguments here is I think Bolton is going to say this stuff's not like class. This is not national security information.

50:13This is not highly classified stuff. This is the type of stuff that I put in my book. So if I put it in my book, I could share with my family. This is not to that level. But we'll see. We'll talk about that. We'll follow the case. But I draw a slight distinction between Comey's case and Letitia James' case and this Bolton case. All right. When we come back, though, we pretty much covered a lot of it, Popak. We've got a few more topics that we're going to be discussing the Smartmatic New York Times. Let's take our last quick break. A reminder, thepopakfirm.com, check it out, or call 877-POPAK-AF.

50:51If you or anybody you know has a case, if you've been in a car accident, if you've been in a trucking accident, if you know someone who was killed in an accident, sexual harassment, sexual assault victim, whatever. If you think you have a case, call Popak. He's got a team of people across the country. Consultation's free. When they represent you, it's on a contingency, meaning they only recover if you recover. Check it out. Subscribe to Legal AF YouTube. Subscribe to Legal AF Substack. Both are growing rapidly. Last quick break of the show, homestretch, Popak. Thanks, everybody. We'll be right back.

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53:48Michael Popok:Harry's.com slash legal AF for a$6 trial set. Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of our sponsors. Support our sponsors. They help make this show possible. Discount codes in the description below. Jordy works really hard with them to get you those discount codes. Let's get into it. Michael Popak, Donald Trump refiled that case against the New York Times where the federal judge before sua sponte on his own said this is like the most frivolous case. What was different about that case? Then let's talk about the Smartmatic and then we'll round it up there. But talk about New York Times. What happened?

54:22Michael Popok:Yeah, thank you very much. Yeah, New York Times, we've been waiting because the judge took one look at the 70 pages, which was really just as one judge referred to it, a political screed masquerading as a lawsuit, forcing the judge to wade through all sorts of irrelevant, narcissistic comments about Trump's ego and the size of his landslide victory against Kamala Harris and all the movies he's ever been in. and the fact that he really was a bigger star on Celebrity Apprentice than people give him credit for, and the fact that his carpets and his rugs at Trump Tower really don't stink. I mean, just ridiculous slop.

55:00Michael Popok:And the judge looked at it and said, this violates, and I predicted this one, I said, this violates Rule 8. This is not a short and concise statement of your case about defamation. Let me just put it up on the blackboard here for our TED Talk meets law school class that we do twice a week here on Legal AF on the podcast. Defamation requires that somebody say something about you that is untrue, that a reasonable person would find to ruin your reputation, defame you in the local parlance, and for which you were damaged. And if you're a public figure like Donald Trump, the Trump side, the defamed party side allegedly, has to prove that the party that did it also did it with what's called actual malice.

55:53Michael Popok:That's a defined term, a term of art that the United States Supreme Court has said that the person saying it has to know that what they were saying was not true or recklessly disregarded whether it was true or false. So you have to make that out in your complaint. I mean, I've been litigating and pleading in cases for 35 years. You've got to get the elements of your, the basic elements of your case have to be present in order for you to survive a motion to dismiss. Pardon me. And this is about it. I'm not sure the judge gives him another chance after giving him this chance to file this new 40 pages, which is no better than the original.

56:33Michael Popok:Because it doesn't hit the elements. It doesn't show what's untrue and why it's untrue. It doesn't show. And when it gets to actual malice, I'm like, OK, here's the actual malice part. Where is it? New York Times doesn't like me. New York Times never liked me. New York Times has a policy of not liking me. I mean, I'm barely sarcastically paraphrasing. And I'm like, that is not going to survive a motion to dismiss. So while they got rid of the original introduction, which started with Donald Trump was the greatest president ever. And he got the most electoral vote. It was a landslide. and he beat up Kamala Harris.

57:05Michael Popok:I'm like, what does this have to do? Half the time I go through the complaint, even this new one, and I'm like, what does this have to do with the case? There's actually a section then, maybe we can put it up on the screen, in the complaint, where he not only lists all of his ridiculous guest appearances in Home Alone 2, movies you've never heard of, Sex in the City, and then actually waste the judge's time by giving him the YouTube location so he can hyperlink, he can click it and go watch Home Alone 2 with Donald Trump in it. What's completely missing in the section about Donald Trump's reputation, which is ultimately fatal to his case ultimately, is any reference to the fact that he's been convicted of 34 felony counts of crimes in New York.

57:57Michael Popok:A company of his, two companies of his were convicted of 19 felony counts in New York. The fact that he's gone bankrupt five times. He's been adjudged to be a sexual abuser by not one but two federal juries in New York. All of that, all he's indicted in multiple places, including in Georgia. All of that, which goes into a person's reputation, is completely ignored and substituted for he was at home alone too. Okay. And then when you look at the 13 or so allegedly defamatory statements, he never takes the time to tell the court how they're defamatory. In what way? How are they untrue? So he spends a considerable amount of time because he's upset about it.

58:46Michael Popok:This is what this is all about. Donald Trump's upset. So he's going to file billions of dollars of damages claim against the New York Times to get some political mileage out of it. And he actually has a section where he doesn't like the fact that when the crew of the apprentice went to Trump Tower, they were struck by the stench, this is their words, of the musty carpet and how dilapidated Trump Tower looked when they were thinking this was going to be this opulent, wealthy, you know, trappings of success. Yes. And it was nothing of that. He hated that. The stench, the stench carpet. No, but he didn't even write.

59:27Michael Popok:That's not true. That couldn't happen. He just said, these are the statements I think are not true. They're not true. Here's here's my reputation. I'm leaving out all the parts where I'm a criminal or I'm a sexual predator or I've been or women have accused me of attacking them. But my reputation is pristine and I've been damaged. I look I don't think the judge judge Maraday who's Republican in the middle district of Florida is going to dismiss this one on his own initiative on his own dime. But now the New York Times rubs their hands in glee because this is now what they're shooting at. And they've got amazing First Amendment lawyers.

1:00:04Michael Popok:You and I know them well. They're the go-to law firm out of New York that handles libel and defamation cases, along with local counsel that I know in Florida, Gunster Yokely, very, very good. and they're now going to go in front of Judge Meridae and they're going to move to dismiss this complaint and ask for it to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning we don't ever see it again. And the judge, having already given him one opportunity, he might give him one more opportunity if he thinks certain things can be fixed, or he may not. It's a little bit of a gray area. He certainly doesn't have to give him three opportunities.

1:00:40Michael Popok:There's a little bit of a gray area with courts, like is one enough or does he really have to give him two? I think this is it. I think if he, having given him the opportunity and given him the guidance, the judge, on Trump's lawyers, on how to redo their complaint, and now seeing this as the output, I think he will eventually, over the course of the next 60 days-ish, he will grant a motion to dismiss with prejudice, putting this case and the rest of America out of its misery. One final note. I looked at the lawyers that were involved in the case. He's got Alejandro Brito, some guy in Coral Gables that keeps filing these things for him.

1:01:20Michael Popok:But then he's got a guy who lists as his, this is a federal pleading for the President of the United States against the New York Times for billions of dollars. And the lawyer lists as his address and his signature to the judge, a weird address in Florida that I looked up on Google Maps. It is a postal center mailbox inside of an original Pancake House shopping center on Glades Road in Boca Raton, Florida. That's his office for official business. It's box 3A inside of like Mailbox America. I'm like, what is happening here? Nothing says quality lawyering like a mailbox at the original Pancake House Shopping Center.

1:02:08Popak, here's what I think is going to happen. I think the judge is going to actually allow leave to amend with the warning that they're going to have Rule 11 sanctions. I think that they'll say, I'll give you one, but you didn't cure it the first time. I'm warning you now that there will be serious sanctions if you don't cure this. So either dismiss this case on your own or there will be, you know, Rule 11 sanctions. And I think that New York Times will file a notice putting the Trump regime on notice of rule 11 sanctions. And for those, what that means is under the federal rules, any lawyer who puts their name to a pleading verifies that they're actually asserting legitimate claims.

1:02:49And I think when New York Times is going to see it under Rule 11, there's a safe harbor provision where before you basically seek these massive sanctions, you give the other party an opportunity to dismiss the case. And I think New York Times will, if they haven't already sent a Rule 11 letter, they'll be sending one very soon. And then I think they move for Rule 11 sanctions. Let's not forget that in the Southern District of Florida, Trump previously with Alina Habas, his personal lawyer, who's now the unlawfully, I don't even know what to call her. She's the federal prosecutor in New Jersey who's like basically, what's the word called, Popak, when you live in someone's house and you don't leave and you're not supposed to be?

1:03:38What's it called? Trustpass. It's like a trespasser. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. But she's refusing to leave. She's like refusing to leave the home squatter. Oh, squatter. She's squatting on the squatting. Just think they're squat. Trump has multiple federal prosecutors who are squatting waters and they're not allowed to be there. They're pretending it's like Halloween that they're federal prosecutors. Anyway, Alina Habba and Trump were sanctioned a million dollars for bringing frivolous cases in this federal court. Finally, Popeye, briefly, briefly, briefly, because I know you've got to run in San Diego.

1:04:10So try to do it in three minutes or less. Smartmatic.

1:04:13Michael Popok:I got to dodge missiles in San Diego. It's terrible. The Smartmatic, there's really two pieces to it, but I'll do it in under three minutes. Smartmatic has a very slow moving lawsuit in New York, which is similar to the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit that in which they recovered almost$800 million for defamation against Fox News. There's another one in New York about about Fox that was filed at the same time. It's just how slow New York state court cases work. For those, I practiced in New York for 35 years. To me, it's no shock that they're just getting to summary judgment maybe in the first of the year.

1:04:57Michael Popok:And whereas there's already been a settlement like two years ago in Delaware. Delaware moves at one rate, sort of like the Eastern District of Virginia, New York. State court moves at its own pace, doesn't matter who the parties are. There's been a bunch of much like Virginia, there's been a bunch of documents that have come out in that case that we now have in our hands that show that people employed by Fox believed, as we all did and do, that Fox News run by Rupert Murdoch has been a propaganda machine for the Trump administration. And this is all around the 2020 period as all that was coming out in an obvious attempt to help Rupert Murdoch, even though there's a weird relationship with Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch.

1:05:41Michael Popok:He sues Rupert Murdoch in a case that's like going nowhere in Miami for defamation through the Wall Street Journal because it published the the birthday book containing Donald Trump's obscene birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein before anybody else published it. I don't know. I mean, it's all part of the public record now. Congress published it. But there's that suit that's going nowhere down in Miami. At the same time, there's reporting that Donald Trump allowed Rupert Murdoch and Fox to have an ownership interest in TikTok. At the same time, they sat next to each other at the royal dinner. And here, I think this is a help out by Donald Trump having his Department of Justice in Miami bring a indictment against Smartmatic for bribery back in 2016 in the Philippines.

1:06:29Michael Popok:Smartmatic is an election equipment company and software company. And that has now right exactly the way that the Trump administration wanted to, to curry favor with Fox and Rupert Murdoch, helping them out. In the New York case, the discovery magistrate or referee has said that Smartmatic now has to turn over the documents about the indictment because part of what they're suing for in that case is reputational harm. So back to what we just said about the New York Times, I believe that Donald Trump is somebody who can't be literally legally cannot be defamed. That his reputation is so shitty that there are just some people you can't defame.

1:07:11Michael Popok:Like you can't defame Charlie Manson. Like you can't defame Adolf Hitler. And I don't think you can defame Donald Trump. And that has come up in filings. Similarly, though, reputation matters when it comes to defamation and the measure of damage. So you could just see some hand rubbing glee over helping Rupert Murdoch in the Smartmatic case, which I think he likely loses much the way he lost down in Delaware. And I think this is just a freebie, a helpful hand by Donald Trump's Department of Justice to waste our time to go after Smartmatic. Now, look, the other reason I believe it's BS, just to wrap it up here, is Donald Trump mothballed through his Department of Justice and Pan Bondi the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and anything related to bribery.

1:07:57Michael Popok:He put it on ice. He basically said, we're getting out of the business of litigating and prosecuting over bribes. So now all of a sudden the office is back open and the only target of it is Smartmatic, which is in a fight for money against Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump's buddy and frenemy. Come on. Michael Popak, you covered a lot in a little bit of time. We appreciate everybody who showed up at the No Kings. We're grateful for everybody here. Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. We will be, of course, covering all the No Kings protests, fallout, celebrations, everything that went down will be covered here on the Midas Touch Network, as always.

1:08:43Thanks to all the organizers of that event. Y 'all are the true heroes, the grassroots organizers, everybody from Indivisible, 5051, Move On, all of the unions and all of the other groups, the chapters within the groups. There are so many who are involved that if I name it all, the show will go on forever. So I just want to let and the leaders of these organizations will tell you, too, that they are a leaderless movement, though, and that it's about the people. and so everybody who showed up all the grassroots activists all the people who were there today it's great seeing you and on Legal AF we'll see you next time we appreciate you just get out the facts get out the truth I'm Ben Micellis joined by Michael Popak this is Legal AF hit subscribe let's get to six million subscribers here subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel subscribe to the Legal AF sub stack and if you or anyone you know has been injured in a auto accident or a trucking accident or is a victim of sexual assault or harassment, or you know somebody who is the victim of wrongful death, or you know somebody who is injured and has a case, call the Popak firm, Michael Popak's law firm.

1:09:53Go to thepopakfirm.com or call 877-POPAK-AF. If people across the country willing to help and answer your calls and see if you got a case. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time on Legal AF. Shout out Legal AF for a shout out Midas Mighty.

1:10:11Thank you.