Legal AF Full Episode - 11/12/2025

28:35And just the conspiracy between him and Maxwell, et cetera, there's going to be so much information in there that really tells the story that we only have bits and pieces of and ties it all together, number one. Number two, all these Republicans keep doing is calling these women liars, like Virginia Dufresne, et cetera. Lie, lie, lie, lie. Well, guess what? Guess what's going to be in these files? It's going to be corroboration. It's going to be contemporaneous emails like we saw in 2011, like we showed, of Gillian and Jeffrey talking about a police chief. We don't know what they were talking about, but we know it was a criminal investigation because a police chief was involved.

29:12And it's going to have things that corroborate what people say because a lot of times sex crimes are hard to prove because typically they happen behind closed doors between two people. and it's a quote unquote, he said, she said. Well, you'll have a lot of corroboration in these files in addition to more leads, more individuals and just the full picture of what this was. And if the thing I wanna say the most here is if there was nothing in these files linking Donald Trump to criminal activity and sex with children and women involving Jeffrey Epstein, I think he would be the first to release these files.

29:56So he is desperately trying to prevent these from being released. That to me is the most telling and the biggest thing that is so concerning. And so that to me is why these have to be released. And I'm glad they're standing the ground to answer your question. I do think that they're doing the right thing here. And I I do think in this instance, it's okay to say they're doing the right thing here. Yeah, I agree with you. And we certainly have and will continue to support survivors of sexual abuse. We've had some of them in the Epstein matter on either Midas or Legal AF. And you're right. You don't have to have been a survivor in order to support another human being who has been sex trafficked or violated or raped.

30:49whatever age that may be. You just have to be a human being. And we're watching the immorality of the Republican Party carving out this small group here that has stepped forward for their own reasons. We just have a heartless president, completely heartless. That's one thing we learned during the shutdown, that Donald Trump, forget Grinch, he at least had a little heart. This guy's got no heart. And Americans of every stripe have a problem with heartless presidents And what they usually do is they run them out on a rail. We saw it on the beginning of that with election night and the special elections that preceded it.

31:24And I think we're going to see even more of it come the midterms. He did not cover himself in any glory. He did not show that he is, for me and for many Americans based on the polling, he disqualified himself from being the president of all people. And I think I think of the polls, we're going to see that. So we're going to talk about coming up Donald Trump's attempt to weaponize the Department of Justice. a major hearing. A federal judge, Judge Curry, is going to have the last word and maybe the last laugh about whether Lindsay Halligan gets to be a U.S. attorney for the short time that she's been in the Eastern District of Virginia and to prosecute James Comey and Letitia James.

32:08Thumbs up or thumbs down. There's a huge hearing tomorrow, Karen, at 10 a.m. To the extent that we have an audio of it, we will try to get it up. If not, we'll have reporters like Adam Klassfeld of All Rise News, who will give us an exclusive from there. We're going to talk about that when we come back. We'll talk about the scandal that's now brewing where it looks like the Trump administration is purposely placing criminal investigations and cases down in the Southern District of Florida, my neck of the woods, to a U.S. attorney that's in the palm of their hand with a judge that they think is in the palm of their hand and Judge Aileen Cannon up in Fort Pierce.

32:49And a new sort of scandal that rocked that office. And we're going to talk about that when we come back as well. And then we've got hungry Americans who are, whose financial security has been completely undermined by the Trump administration, who in a depraved way has used them as political hostages. And to this moment, while we're on the air, there are people in America who should not be going hungry, who should have a full allotment on their debit card or their electronic card in order to get what they need from the supermarket, and they cannot. And they're waiting to see when the government opens because the Supreme Court has also abandoned them as well.

33:31And we're going to talk about that upon our return. People ask how to support what we do here on Legal AF. One of the ways is to watch what we do on YouTube, leave comments, be active in the chat, Come over to the audio version, which is over on Apple and Spotify. Leave comments and five-star reviews. That's what keeps us in like the top 50 of news podcasts on audio, keeps us in the top 20 or so, and the number one law and politics podcast on the YouTube weekly rankings. That's a way to support what we do. It doesn't cost a thing. Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. We're about to crash through a one million barrier of subscribers.

34:15That means people like what we do. They like the 10 or 12 videos that we do every day. And I think we're going to get there within a month, maybe even before Thanksgiving. We'll have to see if you've thought, well, maybe I did. I subscribe. We'll come over and find out. Hit the subscribe button on Legal AF YouTube. And then we've got Legal AF Substack as well. Legal AF Substack is a place where you get live reporting like Adam Klassfeld, who's on the road at the Comey and Letitia James hearing tomorrow. the actual filings and orders that we talk about here you'll get to read them for yourself on legal af sub stack and other amazing content you can't find anywhere else and if you can swing swing becoming a paid member i think it's six dollars and 77 cents a month i promise you you'll be overwhelmed with quality information at the intersection of law and politics and then we've got our uh sponsors some of whom have been with us from the beginning of time and others have just joined.

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38:38And we appreciate that, especially in these trying times. Big hearing for justice tomorrow in Alexandria, Virginia. uh judge curry who sits in south carolina normally she's handling just one matter but it's a big matter in the letitia james and james comey prosecutions that is uh the uh judges have assigned to her the the role of the consolidated motions to uh strike or to disqualify if you will Lindsay Halligan, as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. And then if she does that, we'll talk about that, then what does she do with the indictments? And this is the judge that does not refer to Lindsay Halligan by name.

39:30She refers to Lindsay Halligan as the indictment signer. Never a good sign. And then was not happy when she wanted to see the grand jury documents and transcripts and audio in order to make your decision. Now, the rest of us were like, well, there's a statute. There's 10 USC, 28 USC 546, which deals with when you have a vacancy and how many times a president or attorney general can fill that vacancy before it gets turned back to the district judges to fill the vacancy for U.S. attorney. And any reasonable interpretation of 546 is that the president, whoever it is, gets one shot at an interim U.S.

40:17attorney. And then that's it. And then if they don't get a confirmed U.S. attorney at the Senate level, then the district judges hold the ring by placing somebody of their choice in as U.S. attorney. And we go from there. Now, look, whether that's a violation of separation of powers, because U.S. attorney is an executive branch office and the district judges are Article 3. That's for another day. I'm just telling you what the statute says. And that's the way the statute reads. Trump doesn't like the statute because he wants to continue to put another person in and re-up them every 120 days and avoid having anybody confirmed at the Senate.

40:58But that doesn't end rund around the Constitution and the statute. But so to interpret that, you just need the facts. There was a U.S. attorney on Inauguration Day. She quit. They put in another one that they named before he was confirmed. His name was Eric Siebert. He was a Republican. He refused to indict Letitia James and James Comey, he got canned. That's it. He doesn't get another pick. It goes to the district judges. But Donald Trump put in Lindsey Halligan. So why does she need the grand jury material, Judge Curry, for the hearing tomorrow? It must go to remedy. Like if she finds that she's going to bounce Halligan as being improperly appointed, then what does she do with the indictment?

41:49So Karen, pick up from there. You got Comey's lawyers arguing. You've got Letitia James's art. You've got Pat Fitzgerald representing James Comey, former U.S. attorney for Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. You've got – Abby Lowell. Abby Lowell, right. Thank you. I was going to do Lanny Brewer. Abby Lowell representing Letitia James. They get to argue. You've got a whole bunch of briefs that have been filed by former federal judges and former prosecutors all supporting Letitia or James. and you've got the judge who's got the jury, the grand jury transcripts. We don't know what they say, but she does about what, what in hell Lindsay Halligan said to the grand jury to even get these indictments.

42:35So walk, walk us through there. You've gotten true bills of indictment. You've been a federal, you've been a state prosecutor for a number of years. Talk about this and what do you, where do you think Curry's going to go with this motion tomorrow? Look, there have been multiple judges across the country who have ruled that this type of appointment in different districts is not proper and have disqualified the appointment of U.S. attorneys in this way, the way you described, the way Trump did Lindsay Halligan. This one feels different. So those other ones in those other jurisdictions where they've disqualified those U.S.

43:15attorneys appointed this way, the judges have not dismissed the underlying indictments that were signed or that were indicted under those illegally or just inappropriately appointed United States attorneys. They did not invalidate the indictments even if they invalidated the United States attorneys. So what will they do here? In those cases, they also didn't ask to see the grand jury minutes. They just ruled on the appointment. So I think because that's already what federal judges are doing, and because, as you said, the statute clearly says that, I think that it's going to be very clear that Lindsay Halligan was unlawfully and just can't be the U.S.

43:59attorney in the way that they did it. On top of that, I think the reason they want to see the grand jury minutes is the reporting is that Lindsey Halligan, the only United States attorney that was inside the grand jury at the time that James Comey and Letitia James were indicted. There were no line prosecutors in there. So this was all her doing. In the other instances, yes, they were the U.S. attorney, but the line prosecutors were the ones who indicted the cases, which is what's more common. The United States attorney for a particular district doesn't usually go into the grand jury and indict the case themselves and be the only person in the grand jury.

44:39Maybe they're going and supervise while someone else does it. But this is highly unusual that she was the only one who went in. First of all, it was her first and second time ever presenting a case to the grand jury. She has zero experience in presenting cases to the grand jury. and the fact that not a single line prosecutor at the Eastern District of Virginia would go into the grand jury with her and help her and tell her what to do, tell her where to stand, what to say, what questions to ask, how to deal with any questions that come up, what do you have to elicit as testimony, et cetera. None of that was done in these cases.

45:16So I think in these cases, if those facts that I just said that have been widely reported turn out to be borne out by the actual grand jury minutes, because of course I haven't seen them, this is because grand jury material is secret by statute. So if it turns out that all those things are true that I just said, I think the judge is going to dismiss these indictments. I mean, these indictments are just so unusual in so many ways, in addition to that fact that Lindsay Halligan was flown in just to indict these cases after Donald Trump tweeted to Pam Bondi that accidental, he thought it was going to just be a direct message to her.

45:59And he said, Pam, you have to indict these cases. And Lindsay Halligan, she really likes you, you know, whatever. That kind of shows exactly what was happening. The fact that it happened, especially with Jim Comey, right before the statute of limitations was going to run in that case the day before. The fact that people resigned in protest over these indictments, the fact that there are prosecution memos saying there is no probable cause here, there's no case here in either of these cases. It, this is, this, these indictments are so highly irregular and I think passed the test of vindictive prosecution that I think in addition to disqualifying Lindsey Halligan as the United States Attorney, I predict that Judge Curry is also going to dismiss with prejudice these indictments, which means they cannot be brought again and the cases will be over.

46:53So if Judge Curry doesn't rule on it that way, or only rules on the appointment of Judge Halligan, of Lindsey Halligan's appointment, it might not dismiss the indictments. I could also see Curry saying, I will leave that to the magistrate judges handling the cases who will develop the record of vindictive prosecution and let them be the ones to dismiss them as vindictive, just to be able to make that point. But I think that here, because she's the one who presented the cases to the grand jury herself, I think the indictments have to fail. Yeah, so your view is just, because I think I agree with both ends of it, that Curry will dismiss or recuse or disqualify Halligan as being improperly appointed.

47:44But as to the remedy on the indictment, kick, she's not going to find that that, even though she's the only indictment signer, is not enough to also dismiss the criminal case, leaving it to, you know, the magistrate judge or the two judges in the case to decide whether vindictive prosecution or selective prosecution has been proven. Is that, is that it? Sort of. My, my opinion, what I, yes, it's either going to be what you just said, or Judge Curry will dismiss it. Because I don't know how you get around the fact that Lindsay Halligan, not just that she signed the indictments, she's the only person who went into the grand jury.

48:24She presented the cases. So if she was inappropriate, it would be like me going into the grand jury. I have no power. I have no authority. I'm nobody. It would be like me going walking into a grand jury and saying, you know, presenting evidence to indict someone. Unless you're properly appointed as law enforcement, as somebody who has the authority to present a case to the grand jury, I don't know how you get around that. So I think Judge Curry might rule that the indictments get dismissed, but we'll see. But that's another alternative that I think could happen because there was no one else in there.

48:57No one else presented the case. I agree with you. I think there's probably enough to, if she kicks Halligan, the indictment signer, and finds that nobody else was in the room with her, the question is, will the attempt to backdate her appointment and make her a special attorney in case the U.S. attorney thing fails, which Pam Bondi filed with a backdate on it two weeks ago, whether that salvages the indictment? I don't know. It's going to be a hard call. She's a senior status judge. I think she was a Clinton appointee, if you can believe they exist in South Carolina, of all things. But she's not to be trifled with.

49:43She's super bright. I think she's going to run a very fair hearing tomorrow. We're going to know from the reporting, including hopefully Adam Klassfeld with Legal AF, where her mind is at. But you're right. I think it could go either way. I think either way Halligan gets bounced. What is the remedy from that? Is she going to make the tough call to bounce the indictment to and then have that fight at the Fourth Circuit about whether that was proper or not, or just say, let me leave it to the judges to decide on vindictive prosecution. We'll know. We'll know more tomorrow, right? Exactly. Yeah. So that, and that applies to both Comey and Letitia James.

50:24Both sets of lawyers will be arguing. All the briefs are in. I don't believe she's going to rule for the bench, but we will get how hot the bench is will indicate to us sort of which side she's going. I don't expect her to rule from the bench. Do you? In this case, I don't think so. I mean, because she's also thinking about other cases and other U.S. attorneys' offices and other illegal appointments. She's not just thinking of these cases, right? If she sets a precedent, she's going to be careful. I think she's going to issue a written decision, and I don't think it'll be from the bench. I agree with you.

50:58But things are going to go fast, as we've told people. We are less than less than two months away from James Covey's trial. We are less than two and a half months away from Letitia James's trial, not hearing trial. And so all of these things are moving at such a velocity. Like just in the last 24 hours, the magistrate judge, Fitzpatrick, as we like to be confused, for James Comey, he ordered that the grand jury, same materials that Judge Curry has, all of that grand jury material get turned over to him for an in-camera review to decide whether he's going to turn it over to the defense. Let me do a spoiler alert.

51:47He's going to give the grand jury materials to the defense so that they can make an argument as part of vindictive prosecution or some deficiency in the process. I don't see any other way. I mean, he's only doing this extra step because Judge Nakmanoff, who is the Article III judge who sits above him, told him to go back to the drawing board and make findings. So he wants to look for himself. But this is all coming out. It's not yet going to be public. One day we, that's the good thing. We may not see it now, but one day we will see the grand jury transcripts for ourselves, maybe several months from now, maybe after the trial is over.

52:24But at some point, a judge is going to rule that it's now proper for the public to know about it. And of course, we will report on it at or about that time. When we come back, we're going to talk about the Southern District of Florida. Looks like that's going to do the dirty work for Donald Trump and its U.S. attorney there, Jason Redding Quinones. There he is. We'll talk about him in a minute. did not have an illustrious career as a prosecutor like you did, Karen. In fact, he was written up for being incompetent, according to the Miami Herald reporting, and was going to sue the Department of Justice for race discrimination.

53:07He's Cuban-American and white. We'll leave it at that. But no, in Trump's world, incompetence is a badge of honor, and you get promoted to be the head of the office if you are incompetent. And we'll talk about what he's doing, what Aileen Cannon should be doing. That means recusing herself from the appearance of impropriety, of presiding over this grand conspiracy investigation that could lead to Barack Obama being indicted. Talk about vindictiveness by this Trump administration. And then we'll wrap it up with what's going on in the world of SNAP anti-hunger payments and what the Supreme Court did to not protect hungry Americans.

53:50But let's have one more break. Again, the way to support what we do here, Legal AF, the YouTube channel. I think we're at 940 ,000 subscribers. We're going to get to a million with your help. And that gives us the street cred. It's not ego. Like, I don't care about numbers that way. It's the street cred that we get the Attorney's General to come on. I just interviewed Matt Platkin from New Jersey's Attorney General that will be up tomorrow. And I'm coming, I'm going out to Arizona at the end of next week to interview 11 Democratic attorneys general in two different panels and to get, you know, Michael Wolff on and to get the Mark Wolff, the judge who just resigned in Massachusetts, is coming on by way of court accountability action.

54:40And that's what gives us the power, the credibility to bring on newsmakers that you want to hear from. We're working with getting the ACLU to be on regularly with a playlist on Legal AF YouTube channel. So hit the subscribe button there, check to see if you are or you're not, and help us there. And then, of course, we've got Legal AF Substack where you can read all of the orders and the Supreme Court decisions and the filings all there. But now we've got another word from our sponsors before we hit the homestretch.

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57:55Welcome back to Legal AF at the Midweek. Karen Freeman-Nifolo and Michael Popok. There's a big scandal, Karen, brewing down in the Southern District of Florida, my neck of the woods, the U.S. attorney there, handpicked by Donald Trump apparently with the advice of a guy named Mike Davis, which I'm going to remind people with a clip in a moment. Jason Redding Quinones, who had been a state court judge for about a year, placed there by DeSantis, then got made the U.S. attorney, had been in the Air Force before and had worked in this particular office. Now it looks like Mike Davis has, who's like the Laura Loomer in this story, finagled away to have and has recommended to the Trump administration that this attempt to go after Barack Obama and William Brennan, the former intelligence director, CIA, and Clapper in the intelligence community and others, FBI people and others, that should be placed in the U.S.

59:02Attorney's Office in Miami. And then you should try to use, and you should use Aileen Cannon, who's 80 miles north at the farthest reaches of the Southern District in Fort Pierce, where she sits alone to do the grand jury work and to preside over the cases, including potentially the indictment of Barack Obama. It is unholy. It is disgusting. It is unethical. And of course, we're going to cover it here on Legal AF. So, Karen, former prosecutor, I want you to weigh in on this. Two career prosecutors quit because they refused to participate in the grand conspiracy, which is effectively being directed by our chief legal officer in America, Donald Trump, and his Department of Justice, Maine Justice, who's cutting out career prosecutors who won't do it and is using instead senior executive level people.

59:57It would be like you as the number two in the Manhattan DA signing subpoenas for a case that you're not prosecuting. I mean, they found this guy, Manuelo Reboso, who's the number three in the office, the executive assistant U.S. attorney in Miami, to sign 30 subpoenas to go out. And of course, we've got the link with Mike Davis. Now, Mike Davis is this former Senate aide who's decided he's going to be, I was afraid they were going to pick him to be Attorney General, actually. I'd see some disgusting clips with him. but they use him to run interference and to pick out who and where they should start these investigations.

1:00:38Let me just remind everybody who Mike Davis is and then I'm gonna show you a photo of a smiling Mike Davis with Jason Quinones, the US Attorney of Miami. Let's play the clip. Biggest threat to democracy and to put a bullseye on Trump. So as I've promised and as I will deliver, justice is definitely coming. So lawyer up because justice is definitely coming. He's talking about the political critics of Donald Trump there. That was like before Donald Trump got back into office. I mean, that was during after he'd been elected. And here is, and then he posts on social media, a photo of himself with a smiling Jason Quinones on the right.

1:01:21Right. I'm not sure who's in the middle with justice is coming with his make with his MAGA hat. I mean, first of all, what's your opinion? You've been a prosecutor. Should can Yonis be posing in a photo with Mike Davis? Like the whole thing is just disgusting. I hate to say it. It's justice is supposed to be blind. It's not supposed to only apply to your political enemies. And every other department of justice prior to this one has gone after Democrats and Republicans alike. If there's corruption, if there's anything that anyone did wrong, and don't ever go after political opponents. This is the very first time I've ever seen anything like this as a prosecutor.

1:02:02And I think a lot of people would agree with that. This whole thing is, first of all, I just have one foundational question. How can they issue subpoenas for crimes that the statute of limitations would have run already? You just count five years, right? Because the statute of limitations runs after five years unless it's a continuing crime, obviously unless there's murder or something that has no statute of limitations, but I assume here this is not anything like that. And so what crime could have continued. I mean, Donald Trump was president, right? He beat Hillary Clinton. And so I don't quite understand.

1:02:41And then he was president for four years, and we had Joe Biden for four years, and now we're like nine years out from Barack Obama. So I think the statute of limitations has run, number one. Number two, the fact that there's more line prosecutors who are resigning in protest is just, again, crazy. I mean, you have to understand, prosecutors, by their very nature, care about crime. And so they can be a little more conservative, right? Because they care about crime, they care about victims, et cetera. These are people who are resigning in protest because of all across the country, which is such a, it's great for them in the sense that, you know, I'm proud to say that rather than doing something lawless and unjust, you would resign your position.

1:03:26But at the same time, who's left there? Who is left at the Department of Justice? There's this giant brain drain, experience drain, and morality drain from the Department of Justice. These are prosecutors who are willing to go after Donald Trump's political enemies, even where there is no crime, even when the statute of limitations has passed. And so I just can't, you know, I just can't believe that this is happening again, although I should because it's like a dog who barks, right? You can't get mad at them. This keeps happening over and over and over and over again. They don't even try to hide it.

1:04:04And the fact that they're forum shopping and going to Judge Aileen Cannon is, again, another playbook of MAGA, right? Like they did with trying to get the abortion pill, Mythoprestone, you know, the nationwide injunction. They went to that one district that, you know, Judge Kazmarek, who's like one judge sitting in one area, and he's very MAGA. And they're doing it again with Judge Cannon because Judge Cannon is willing to make rulings that no other judge is willing to do that all support Donald Trump, as we saw from the Mar-a-Lago documents case. So I don't see how this is going anywhere. This to me seems just like they're trying to hassle Obama, make some news and make them hire lawyers and make them turn over documents and et cetera.

1:04:53But I don't know how you're going to get a judge to order any of these things to be done if the statute of limitations is passed. So I don't get this one at all. I mean, look, we got, as we're on the air, MSNBC is reporting that a source close to former CIA Director John Brennan confirms he's received a subpoena. Another source says all the subpoenas relate to the preparation for the 2016. I don't know, last time people looked. This is 2025. It's nine years ago. There's only one statute, crime statute that I'm aware of that doesn't have a expiration date, and that is treason. So unless they're going for treason, everything else has a five-year statute of limitations.

1:05:39I mean, could they get a grand jury under alien canon to come back with treason? Because let's just say it out loud. There's been speculation within the intelligence community for years that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. There was speculation within the intelligence community for years that Tulsi Gabbard, who's the head of our national intelligence community. now is or was a Russian agent. The former FBI Assistant Deputy Director Andy McCabe believes in his heart that Donald Trump was a Russian agent. And Donald Trump himself called on the Russians to release the Hillary Clinton emails to help him during the campaign.

1:06:26And this conflation of terms, Barack Obama and the intelligence community did not reach a conclusion that the Russians interfered with votes and flipped votes at machines or software level. But they did reach a conclusion that the Russians, along with other trolls in other countries like North Korea and China, were trying to brainwash and influence Americans through social media to pick one candidate over another. You see it every day. You just don't know you're watching it every day. And now with AI on top of it, you're watching AI generated, you know, Hillary Clinton saying crazy shit out loud or Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries.

1:07:17I mean, you're talking 2016 when AI was in its infancy. Can you imagine what's going on now on Facebook and the dark web? Not even on the dark web, just on Facebook around election time. All sorts of crazy Russian trolls and others working overtime to try to get whoever Putin wants to get elected. Now, you need to recognize that, have a cybersecurity system and infrastructure around our elections to protect it from that. But Donald Trump says, oh, they think that I was in collusion with the Russians. No, but you were doing things in parallel. The Russians wanted you elected and you wanted you elected.

1:07:57And so there were things that you were doing in parallel. That doesn't mean that there was evidence to suggest that Donald Trump colluded like he was on a red hotline with the Kremlin, like, hey, you know, you can help me today. Go do this. That's not what the case was about or the investigations were about. John Durham went three and a half years and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and found nothing to it, nor anyone else to indict at the highest level. So did the inspector general for the Department of Justice and the FBI. So this is all. Didn't they indict, I think, eight Russian people?

1:08:31I think they did indict. They indicted people here and there, like, you know, Lev Parnas got indicted and Igor Frum got indicted for other reasons. A couple of guys got indicted with the Durham investigation. You know, Mueller never, never indicted anybody. He just made recommendations, you know, for people to follow. So, but it just, it's scary. And Aileen Cannon, who took an oath, there is enough appearance of impropriety around her. She was, let's just go through it. She was shortlisted and listed to be the Attorney General for Donald Trump during his transition. It leaked. It was never denied by the Trump administration.

1:09:17And so she knew about it. Yet she stayed on his cases, including Mar-a-Lago. She stayed on his cases, including the assassination attempt, the guy that was convicted ultimately by a jury. That's one. Two, she's the first federal judge in 200 years against Supreme Court precedent to find that a special counsel or prosecutor was illegally appointed by the attorney general, killing the Mar-a-Lago indictment and prosecution. If that's not a solid for your patron Donald Trump, I don't know what is. Even if you think she was just doing her job, the appearance of impropriety in the public's mind that she can be independent and be neutral doesn't exist.

1:10:00So the fact that there's now reporting in New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and Legal AF that there is a there is a conspiracy afoot to use to use the U.S. attorney in Miami as a as a tool, as a cudgel combined with her to go after Donald Trump's political enemies. That alone should lead her to say, you know what? I'm going to recuse myself. And then that case, whatever it is, gets reassigned to another judge of the Southern District. And there's dozens of very fine judges in the Southern District of Florida. And even up there, Judge Rosenberg, Judge Middlebrooks up in West Palm Beach. That's what she should do.

1:10:44That's what I call on her to do here on Legal AF. putting aside Jason Quinones and the oaths that he took by the Florida Bar, by the Constitution to get sworn in, by the Department of Justice manual, by the principles of federal prosecution, which all have gone out the window while he smiles with his thumbs up or whatever with Mike Davis, who's calling the shots here apparently about all of that. Oh, thank you for putting it back up. Disgusting. So, yeah, that's it. We need to just drill down and focus on it and put pressure. That's where crowds and courage come in. Put pressure on people like the U.S.

1:11:32attorney and Judge Cannon to protect our democracy. And if they won't, then we're going to continue to call them out here on Legal AF. Right, Karen? Exactly. Absolutely. It has to be done. Yeah. So let's end the show on Snap. I'll be frank. And as much pride as I take in knowing about people whose shoes I've never walked in in America, and I've always known about assistance programs, whether they be Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid or disability or hundreds and thousands of other programs, most of which Donald Trump has gutted. And I knew about the food stamp slash SNAP program. And I've seen people use it in front of me in line at the supermarket.

1:12:25I'm aware, you know, and I'm empathetic because listen, my mother was a single mother who struggled to make ends meet on what very little, frankly, my father gave her. And she was not, she stayed home. And I saw my mother struggle. And so I'm sensitive to people who don't come from money. And what it means to have to worry about paying an electric bill or feeding your family or your loved ones or skipping meals yourself to feed your children or the seniors in your life or the disabled or the veterans. But I did not know, Karen, maybe you did, that 42 million Americans, one out of eight, rely on this type of assistance when it comes to food security.

1:13:11I did not know the numbers were that large. It's actually an indictment of our constitutional republic, our way of capitalism, that in the richest country in the world, one in eight worry about their food. And Donald Trump made it worse. he has used them and continues to use them and undermine them psychologically emotionally uh in physical injury uh by denying them the basic dignity and right to not worry about where their next meal comes from and then the supreme court ultimately once again ended up backing him in their own perverse way why don't you continue with the story i mean popock you have said it perfectly.

1:13:59If there was ever an indictment of Trump's economy, it's that one in eight Americans have to be on food stamps or SNAP, right? Especially food assistance. It just, that is not a healthy, successful economy, right? You can look at the stock market. You can look at whatever he, whatever measures he wants you to look at. Everybody feels it in their wallets. People know that this economy isn't doing anything for them. Prices aren't coming down, unless you're a billionaire, of course, then things are great. But this in and of itself, as you said, one in eight people, many of which are children, is just such an indictment on his economic policy.

1:14:41And the fact that of all things, right, it's housing, medical, I mean, you know, they shut down the government over healthcare, they don't want people to have healthcare. But of all things, food, that's the one thing, right? Two things people, every single human absolutely needs, food and sleep. And that he would take food away from people is just appalling and atrocious. And at the same time, throwing great Gatsby parties at Mar-a-Lago in the biggest sort of F you to the rest of the country. Look how I'm living. Look what I'm doing in excess, tearing down the East Wing of the White House and putting up his gold ballroom while people are hungry and starving.

1:15:25And really spending resources to go to the Supreme Court to get them to not allow this to go forward. It's just disgraceful. And pick your battles. The fact that they would pick this battle, I think just shows not only are they cruel and inhumane, but also this is, I don't know anyone gets behind this party and this administration at this point. So, you know, they had John Sauer, who was Trump's personal attorney, was the solicitor general who took the time to write an order to the Supreme Court, basically telling them not to do this. He basically said that the irreparable harm to the government having to transfer this money to fund this program is worse than the irreparable harm of starvation, of going hungry.

1:16:19How do you tap that out on a keyboard? Yeah, I agree. I just don't get it. I don't get it at all. And what they're trying to accomplish politically, I don't get. Even if you want to make this a crass political calculus, I don't get the politics of this. Trolling poor people on election night, on election day. I am not going to comply with orders. I am not going to open up SNAP funding unless the Democrats, blah, blah, blah. I mean, Trump probably thinks poor people are losers the way he thinks, you know, I mean, that's how he views things, right? He'll view people who, you know, soldiers who get injured or captured in battle are losers, right?

1:17:01And I think that's how he'd use it. Well, he just got into hot water yesterday by giving an interview where he said Americans aren't smart enough to take certain jobs. That's why we have to let we have to let them into the country. And the people are like, what did he just say? He doesn't he just doesn't care about people. He just doesn't care about people. He's heartless. He cares about people. All he cares about is people who just blindly follow him. That's what it's all about that. You know, whether he pardons the fake elector scheme people, the 70 people, whether he pardons George Santos, you know, Jan Sixers.

1:17:36There's no sort of looking at the substance of what they did. It's, are you loyal to me? That's it. That's all he cares about. Well, that's what people hopefully will see, and they are starting to see it in the polling. Polling has been atrocious for Donald Trump. That, you know, Donald Trump's personal checklist, if he left office, having not made one life better, but millions of lives worse, including dying because of his policies, including economic and health. But he was able to generate a couple of billion dollars for Trump Incorporated in his family, avoid prosecution, and get the Epstein files buried.

1:18:15He would die a happy man. And that's saying something for the occupant of the Oval Office, who we voted in, not me, but others, voted in to do honest service as the leader of the free world, as the president of all people. He's admitted he's not the president of all people. He doesn't care about 52%, 53 % of America. And I think people are finally starting to wake up when you have tens of millions of people hit the streets for the various marches that have taken place. When you have election nights that go totally a wipeout for the Republicans. When you have Donald Trump still fighting to hide the sex trafficking files that he's obviously involved with in one way or another from the American people and decides that that's where he needs to expend his political capital.

1:19:08He doesn't have really political capital any longer. And he refuses to acknowledge the results of any polling that tells him to stop, that tells him to reverse course, that tells him to help the American people. He's close to losing at the United States Supreme Court on his signature policy of tariffs. And then he's going to have to scramble to figure out how to pay back several hundred billion dollars. I guess we'll finally get those checks for two and five thousand dollars he's been promising us since he got in dangling in front of us. These phony checks he's never paid us. But I guess I'll have to do it then when he loses there.

1:19:42And at the same time, Karen, that he's running to court to get permission to starve the starving. He runs at the same time to the Seventh Circuit to try to get permission to beat veterans and First Amendment protesters. and members of the clergy and the media in the streets opposing Judge Ellis's order to just comply with the Constitution. Just comply and use reasonable force when you're dealing. Don't fire pepper balls into the face of the media. Don't gang tackle them. Don't abuse them. And there's a briefing tonight. We're going to get a Seventh Circuit decision soon. He actually ran to court.

1:20:27He's now starving veterans who are part of the SNAP program. And now he wants to beat them in the streets. You and I could never bring ourselves to take those positions. You as a lifelong public servant, now in private practice, me as just a human being with compassion, I could never, ever get behind the things that the Republican Party and MAGA are doing. And I'd be one of those people resigning in protests, like all the courageous men and women resigning from the Department of Justice because they will not they will take a stand against this this disgraceful administration. And you know where the silent protest is also happening, as we expected?

1:21:07You know who's listening to the Ketanji Brown Jacksons of the world talk about the arc of history? Law students. Law students are running away from the Department of Justice and what used to be plumb jobs as assistant U.S. attorneys. They don't want them. They can't recruit them. They're like, I mean, what did Donald Trump expect? He attacked universities. He attacked law schools. He attacked law firms. He attacked First Amendment speech on college campuses. He has a depraved weaponization of the Department of Justice. You can't draft them. You can't conscript them. It has to be voluntary. think about what the department of justice is going to be like in 2028 when the democrats take over and how much they're going to have to fill the tens of thousands of jobs they're going to have to fill you know because there's just going to be this gap in everybody's resume who's in our field you're in my field who are just like nope hopefully they're running to the manhattan da's office and other places places like that or or going into private practice and then they'd be willing to come back.

1:22:08That's revolving door or run the other way. Yeah. Yeah. That too. That's my hope. Yeah, mine too. Well, I'm glad we were able to talk about these things, honestly, with our audience. We are so appreciative of our audience. We always have been from day one, from when we had 5 ,000 people watching or viewing to when we have 300 ,000 people watching and viewing. It hasn't changed for us, but we've been so honored and respectful of, you know, it takes a commitment to want to learn in an honest format about law and politics. And our audience has certainly earned, has earned every bit of being legal AF, law school graduates.

1:22:52You know, many have been with us for the entirety of our five plus years on the air. So I always like to leave you the final word, put everything we've seen so far in context, what do you got for our audience? Look, yesterday was Veterans Day. And the fact that, as you said, there are veterans who are on the SNAP program. It's just so shameful to me, this country, how that we have so many people who rely on these types of benefits and that some of them are veterans. And so on this day after Veterans Day, I want to thank all the men and women who have served this country, thank them for their service.

1:23:32And I hope this thing going on with the Navy SEAL woman who was in line to be the head of the Navy SEALs was passed over by Pete Hegseth because she's a woman. I hope she gets, she's a badass too. So I hope she gets, I hope she holds their feet to the fire on this one. So, you know, the veterans of this country are unbelievable and the military. Absolutely. Thank you for saying that. And thank you for joining us here on Legal AF at the Midweek. Join us on Saturday where I'll be joined by Ben Mycelis. And then we do, I do about 40 videos a week at the intersection of law and politics for Legal AF here on the Midas Touch Network over on Legal AF, the YouTube channel as well, along with our other contributors.

1:24:16Thanks for being such great supporters. Shout out to the Legal AF-ers and the Midas Mighty. Great to see you, Popok. You too.

1:24:29This episode is brought to you by Google Health. Stop chasing someone else's definition of health. What matters is what's healthy for you. Google Health offers a new kind of coach built with Gemini for effortless tracking, sleep insights, and holistic coaching tailored to you. Visit GoogleStore.com to learn more and start a new relationship with your health. Requires Google account, Google Health app, internet, and Google Health premium subscription. Features subject to change. Availability and results vary. Not intended for medical purposes. Works independently of Gemini apps. Check responses for accuracy.

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