Legal AF Full Episode - 11/5/2025

26:13Michael Popok:Well, Katzi all said you can make it prospective because I think he wants to give them an out. Exactly. But the states don't want that. The states believe that the businesses have been harmed. People have been harmed. That this is a tax that has been passed through to the American consumer and there should be refunded. It should, it should put a chill down the spine of the, of the part of the Trump administration. because Amy Coney Barrett said almost like, okay, I'm more, if I've decided already that he can't do this, well, how do we handle refunds? I mean, I've been in situations where judges go there that quickly and you're like, they're already at the remedy because they've already made up their mind that you're, that you've done something wrong, you know, in that case.

26:54Michael Popok:So let's, I know, I know we say this a lot, but I really mean it here. Trump is panicking about this because this is truly And you can tell he's panicking by the things he's saying. This is truly at the centerpiece of his entire plan. And I think he realizes that he's going to be slapped back by the Supreme Court, at least potentially. And if that were to happen, you know, listen, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. You know, he put all of his eggs in that basket domestically and foreign policy economically. It's been rejected by the American people because it's making them suffer. And if it gets rejected now by the United States Supreme Court, his signature, his signature policy.

27:37Michael Popok:And right before, let's say, let's say he comes out in May or June, you know, just a few months before the midterms. He's just they're just a world of apocalyptic bad things that they're envisioning in the in the White House. That's why they're leaning on it. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, was there doing interviews afterwards, you know, trying to lobby, lobby, trying to work the refs, as we say, in sport. And we'll see what happens. But when I do want to cover now we're post tariffs in the election day. We want to get to what happened in the James Comey hearing before the magistrate judge Fitzpatrick today, because it was really eye-popping.

28:15Michael Popok:Lindsay Halligan's on life support. In terms of her title, her holding her job, a couple of judges are not happy with her, and they're getting to the bottom of what happened in that grand jury. Judge McConnell and Judge Talwani issued orders about restarting payments to human beings that need to eat. Hunger. We're not talking about, oh, this is an incidental they need. No, people have already spent their SNAP payments to 42 million Americans last month. We're talking about replenishing it so they can go to a supermarket and buy food for their loved ones themselves, their children, their babies.

28:56Michael Popok:disabled at home, elderly, veterans, and the rest. And Donald Trump's still playing games. I think it's political suicide. I think yesterday demonstrates that it was. He was even trolling America on election day about cutting off the food supply to Americans. And he thinks this works. But we'll talk about what's happening there. And then we'll end the show on the National Guard and a new ruling that came out in advance of a Friday ruling that we're expecting from Judge Immigot in Portland, which will then back up to the United States Supreme Court. Legal AF is five years in the making. Some of you are new to our audience.

29:39Michael Popok:Some of you have been with us from the very, very beginning. And we're the number one law and politics podcast on YouTube in weekly ratings. We're usually in the top 20. And that has a lot to do with our, mostly to do with our audience. We're doing our part here, but of course, we need your commitment here. On audio, another way to support us, we could use a few more listens and likes and comments and reviews on Apple and on Spotify. And then we've got the ecosystem around Legal AF that keeps all the rest of our contributors and other podcasts that you enjoy like unprecedented about the United States Supreme Court, the way to vote for that, we're talking about voting, come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel.

30:22Michael Popok:We're at 910 ,000 subscribers. We're going to hit that million if it kills us, it kills me before, hopefully before Thanksgiving, by Thanksgiving. And we've had our best two weeks. We've had our best three days in the history of the channel in terms of viewership into the four and five million range. And that's all because of you. It's free. There's no paywall. We have no corporate parent or investor. And this is the way the show stays on the air. Then slide over to Legal AF Substack, where we put together 10 or 12 posts a day, including the actual legal documents out of courtrooms and courthouses that we post under filings AF.

31:05Michael Popok:We also have videos and commercial-free versions of things and other commentary and lives, live streaming on the Legal AF sub stack. And then we got this, and I was just talking to Jordi today about this amazing group of sponsors who know what we're about, who know what our audience is about and wants to be here keeping us on the air, protecting our First Amendment right and those of our audience. Some of them have been with us from the very beginning and some of them are new as well. And we're going to take a break now so you can hear from our sponsors. Do you hate wearing bras? It's the first thing you do when you get home, take your bra off like me.

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35:14Michael Popok:Welcome back. And thank you to our sponsors. We need them now more than ever, along with our audience, to support us as the First Amendment continues to be under attack by this administration. We got a courtroom today. This is a bad day for Donald Trump. I mean, that's why I'm so giddy. Bad day electorally yesterday. You can't make lemonade out of those lemons that were dealt to Donald Trump in any way, shape, or form. And then he's got a couple of major court hearings. He's had a bad week already. You've got temporary restraining orders issued by Judge McConnell related to the SNAP payments,$42 million,$42 billion.

35:54Michael Popok:Sorry, 42 million people,$8 billion of food stamp payments. You got Judge McConnell, same guy, Rhode Island, issuing a permanent injunction about the transportation department trying to deny cities and states money for infrastructure like, you know, bridges and tunnels and roads, things that you can die at a high speed if they're not repaired in order to try to get blue cities and blue states to give up their sanctuary status and help chase down human beings for immigration policy. And Judge McConnell, same judge in Rhode Island, said, no, you're not doing that either. Permanent injunction. That was all within the last 24 hours.

36:33Michael Popok:Judge Immergut, who issues her preliminary injunction, soon to be a permanent injunction, about the use of the National Guard. Loss, loss, loss. And then you show up at the United States Supreme Court and things do not go according to plan for Donald Trump at the United States Supreme Court, even among the justices that he chose. And then you move to Lindsay Halligan and her crack team of prosecutors, wherever she can find them, to go into the Eastern District of Virginia and appear before Judge Fitzpatrick, who used to be a prosecutor in her own office, about all things related to Brady material, which is the documents and information the government has to provide to the defense in order for them to put on a defense.

37:19Michael Popok:And this trial, just to remind everybody, of James Comey, the former FBI director, is two months from today. And they should already have all these documents. And so we have the Article III judge who sits over the whole case, then delegates to the magistrate judge. And the magistrate judges in criminal and federal court have a lot of power. They're the ones that are handling the day-to-day arraignments and bond hearings and bail hearings and subpoenas and search warrants. And a lot of motions that are referred by the judge go down and issues about documents end up with the magistrate judge. And they have a lot of power, even though they're not Article III lifetime appointed judges.

38:00Michael Popok:And this judge was not happy, even though they were there on a Trump motion, a DOJ motion, about setting up a filter protocol for documents. And he had a great line today. I don't know if you caught it, Karen. He turned to the prosecutors and he said, this indict first and investigate second doesn't work for me. So the fact that you don't have your documents ready to turn over and you've been withholding them ends today. And then talked about the grand jury materials that he wants turned over as well. Big win for James Comey and for justice. You've been a prosecutor. Talk about that kind of hearing.

38:41Michael Popok:and how you read Judge Fitzpatrick. Yeah, it's so confusing because you've got Pat Fitzgerald. Patrick Fitzgerald is representing Jim Comey in front of William Fitzpatrick. But yeah, Judge Fitzpatrick was not happy at all with the government at all. I mean, and it's just very clear. Anytime you have a federal judge say something like that to the prosecutor, federal judges often speak colorfully, sharply to defense attorneys, partly because defense attorneys, look, you're trying to make arguments out of things that aren't always there. But as a prosecutor, you have to have all your ducks in a row.

39:24And the prosecutors are typically given what's called the presumption of regularity, which means you assume they're doing everything right and they're doing everything above board and you give them the benefit of the doubt because the Department of Justice is honorable. You know, prosecutors, a lot of people think of prosecution and defense as adversaries, and they sort of are. But prosecutors, it's not like a plaintiff and a defense attorney in a civil case where they're true adversaries. There's one side versus the other. Prosecutors sit kind of on top because they have to do justice. They can't do things just as an adversary.

40:01Like, you can't just push a position. If you have evidence, for example, that helps the defense, you're obligated to turn that over. They have to know about that. And so prosecutors have this added duty of sort of doing the right thing and justice. And so when you see a federal magistrate like Judge Fitzpatrick really attacking the prosecution like they are in the Comey case, it is not looking good for the prosecution, which is a good thing because this is a sham prosecution. And essentially what he said was, look, I want to see these grand jury materials. I want to see the transcripts related to the indictment.

40:36I want to see everything, including the instruction. This is all highly unusual. Judges don't typically give that over or even look at that in detail like that. They also, he also ordered the prosecutors, and this is by tomorrow. Okay, this is a short, tight deadline because this trial is going in early January. Is any evidence that was seized in prior investigations material that Jim Comey claims may include some attorney-client privilege material? because Dan Richman, who's the individual in the indictment, person number one, I think they called him, or person number three, I can't remember which one he was, that he is the individual in the indictment that supposedly they're alleging Comey lied about, this authorizing him to leak or using him to leak.

41:24We don't really know exactly what the facts are because the indictment is so spare and so complicated. Like, it's just so confusing, and it's not really clear what they're referring to. But if it's Dan Richman, they have clarified. And we don't even know the time period that they're talking about. We don't even know which statement they're talking about exactly. You can sort of glean it and guess. But he basically, at a certain point, Dan Richman was actually Comey's attorney. And so during a particular time in question. And so any communications between them would be privileged. And so the way that normally works is prosecutors have to, when you get material that might be privileged, you have to set up a taint team.

42:05And so it's like a separate team, a filter team that comes in and looks at the materials and filters out all the privileged stuff because the prosecution team, they're not allowed to see privileged material. So this judge was basically like, not my problem, as you said, indict first, investigate later, not my problem that you haven't done all this filtering and done all this. If you've looked at attorney-client privilege material and use that for your prosecution, that's at your own peril. That could actually imperil the entire prosecution. There's so many reasons why this prosecution is flawed.

42:39This is just one more reason that might be built on attorney-client privilege material, which prosecution cannot use unless there's certain exceptions, but they can't just use it willy-nilly like it seems like they did here. In addition to the vindictive and selective prosecution claim, in addition to the fact that Lindsay Halligan, we're going to talk about, I know, is invalidly appointed as the United States attorney. There's so many reasons why this indictment is flawed and this prosecution is flawed. So this is just yet one more reason the judge is looking at to try to glean from this mess, because it's a complete mess.

43:20What exactly do we have here? And so the evidence today, or the hearing today focused on the legitimacy of the evidence collection and the prosecutorial process. And it's about these materials that were seized under a separate FBI investigation called Arctic Haze. And that was a leak probe, et cetera, to see about what was used in this indictment. So it's at their own peril that they use this material. But the judge is looking at scrutinizing this indictment very, very closely. And I don't think it looks very good for the prosecution.

43:56Michael Popok:Then you have, then you have judge Curry in South Carolina, who's presiding over one discreet issue, but it's a major issue in Letitia James and James Comey's prosecution, which is whether Lindsay Halligan was illegally appointed or not. And that got referred to her by the fourth circuit court of appeals, because if Hallig, if Comey and Letitia James are right and Lindsay Halligan was improperly properly appointed. And the next pick to replace her comes from the judges of the Eastern District of Virginia. So they took that conflict away, sent it off to Judge Curry, a senior status judge, Clinton appointee in South Carolina.

44:34Michael Popok:And she's getting to the bottom of what happened in the grand jury, even though that doesn't necessarily go to her analysis as to whether the statute has been violated. You don't need to know what she did in the room, but it certainly would go to remedy because the more crazy crappy things that Lindsay Halligan did within that grand jury, like what did she say to the grand jury? What cardinal rules did she breach? What attorney client privilege of either of them with material in her hands that she breached? Did she use all the right magic words? Did she hold the grand jury hostage? Did she violate rules and nobody would know it until they looked at the transcript.

45:15Michael Popok:So today, on our recording, on our live, was the day for Halligan to fix a mess, because the judge ordered that on Monday, and she meant all of the grand jury material information and documents in and around the grand jury process be delivered to her with a red ribbon for a review in chamber. And it didn't happen. The Trump administration tried to spoon feed her, trying to hide documents again. They love hiding documents. And they sent her like half the transcript. She's like, no, I want, here's, okay, we try it again. All documents about the grand jury process, including the transcripts, including any audio recording of it.

46:02Michael Popok:I'll give you one more shot. Wednesday, 5 p.m. I haven't checked the docket, but we won't probably know until tomorrow morning. But that's not good. So now you've got, Comey's side's got the grand jury transcripts for their purposes, because they've already said we need them, because if there was infirmities and violations of constitutional law or otherwise and rights in the grand jury process, we want to make a motion about it, but we need the docs in order to do that. But on the other hand, Judge Curry's like, yeah, I want to take a look to what was said in that grand jury by the incompetent or the novice prosecutor.

46:43Michael Popok:And I just find it I find it very rewarding that no judge will refer to Lindsay Halligan as a U.S. attorney. She signs her name to all the papers that are filed. But Judge Walker for Letitia James calls her government counsel. Judge Curry on the motion to disqualify calls her the indictment signer. The indictment signer. The indictment signer. They will not call her by her name. And even when Walker said, I'm just letting you know, because of this issue about your position, I'm just going to call you the government counsel. So they've already knocked her down a peg. I think it's clear they're going to.

47:24She's not. I mean, because they've already ruled in different jurisdictions. It's clear she's not going to be validly appointed. The more interesting question is what will happen to the indictments because in the other jurisdictions, they did not dismiss the indictments. And I think it's because they were actually indicted by validly appointed assistant United States attorneys and people who knew what they were doing, etc. etc. This is a tricky one because she herself went in the grand jury. She was the assistant United States attorney, if you will, who went into the grand jury and there was no U.S.

47:58attorney. I don't know. I can't think of any other reason why the judge wants to see the grand jury minutes.

48:03Michael Popok:I think it's remedy. I think it's remedy and abuse. Maybe she'll make a referral about something she saw that was bad. And then, you know, you've got Pam Bondi who knows that she's in deep crap with this judge and tried to file a backdated document retroactively ratifying everything that Lindsay Halligan has done since she's been in the office with this order and filed it, just like, and that was their final argument. Well, even if you fine, and even if you fine, and even if you fine, don't get rid of the indictment, I adopt it. That's not how that works. And we're going to have to see, as you said, what the remedy is going to be related to that.

48:43Michael Popok:Let's move to Judge. Let's move to Rhode Island and to Massachusetts. So shutdown is now entered day. What are we up to? Day thousand? What are we up to? He's torn down the White House. He's torn down the government. He's put the government out of business, you know, controlling all three branches of government. Well, Congress is basically on vacation. The House is on vacation. He won't even call them into session. I mean, it's just atrocious to me that they won't even come to the table and negotiate and try to compromise or have a conversation. They are on vacation. And two months of Donald Trump trying to blame the Democrats has backfired.

49:24Michael Popok:That's why now he's switching gears and trying to blame everybody but himself. He's trying to blame Congress, but Congress is doing this for him. Well, exactly. I interviewed Representative Grijalva the other day, and she's just waiting to get sworn in so she can sign the discharge petition to get the Epstein files and to represent her district of 800 ,000 people and Mexican-Americans and Latino women around the country. You can't even get that done, you know, because they are willing to keep the government shut in order to satisfy Donald Trump. If he said reopen the government, Maga Mike would say, how high?

49:59Michael Popok:I mean, he does whatever Trump tells him to do. So didn't Rahalvis file a lawsuit, though? Yeah. Still waiting. Still waiting. She hasn't been sworn in and she's getting upset and I don't blame her. Although she said there is one silver lining, is that she's gotten more publicity and people rallying around her than she ever would have, even though she followed her father's footsteps as a junior congressperson, you know, from the 7th District in Arizona. She's great, by the way. Talk about fresh leadership. You haven't heard the last of Adelina Krijalva. And that's where Mikey Sherrill and Amy Spanberger came out of.

50:40Michael Popok:They came out of the House. They were jokingly referred to as the mod squad in contrast to AOC and Tlaib and the rest. But these are our future leaders. They're in their 30s and 40s. And they are going to lead us to the promised land, hopefully, of a return to the White House and a return to normalcy. And as you said, you know, the assumption of regularity, I like to return that to government, but that's not happening. Let's talk about McConnell and SNAP and Talwani. So two judges, two different groups run into court in order to make sure that 42 million Americans, 20 million households have a way to eat during the shutdown, just like it's happened in every shutdown.

51:32Michael Popok:Because until Donald Trump, they'd never been made. Other Americans who are the most fragile group, underprivileged group, below the poverty line, elderly, disabled, babies, children, and the rest, never been made political pawns to make cheap political points and make them suffer. But Donald Trump's entire ethos seems to be to make Americans suffer. I guess that doesn't fit on a red hat. Make America suffer again? I mean, that's where we are right now. And so two different groups, one led by Democracy Forward, Sky Perry, which is going to be on with me tomorrow for an interview leading about 10 different organizations, including church groups who filed in Rhode Island with Judge McConnell, the chief judge, and 23 attorneys general led by Rob Bonta and the Massachusetts attorney general ran into court in Massachusetts.

52:26Michael Popok:and got Judge Talwani. And within hours of each other, they issued, I would say competing orders, but different orders. Judge Talwani and the attorneys general, what they got was not an order compelling the payment by this week. She issued an order that they, with her guidance, issue agency action in order to do the funding. It was sort of like, but she held the TRO in abeyance on ICE, not Judge McConnell. Judge McConnell said, And you are ordered, and here's your written order that you've asked for on Halloween on the 1st of November. You are ordered by Monday, no later than Wednesday, to start making payments.

53:05Michael Popok:So Monday they were supposed to make full payment. Wednesday they were supposed to make partial payment. If they weren't going to make full payment and tell the court and the public why they weren't making full payment, but payments had to be made by no later than Wednesday. Well, that's not what they filed. They filed on Monday, this past Monday, a piece of paper from a guy who's undersecretary of something within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is the regulatory agency, in which they said, well, we're going to do partial payments. Here's why. It's only going to be$4.65 billion out of$8 billion.

53:43Michael Popok:And it's not going to be Wednesday. It could be weeks or months. We don't know. Talk to the states. We'll give them a table. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't work. And Democracy Forward was like, are you effing kidding me? And they immediately filed another emergency motion. And Judge McConnell has scheduled tomorrow, I think at 12 o 'clock or 11 o 'clock, another emergency hearing as to why they're violating his order and what they should do and what we should do about it. In the meantime, on Election Day, I don't know if you caught this, Karen, Donald Trump trolls the poor and says, we don't care.

54:15Michael Popok:I don't care what a federal judge says until the the radical left reopens the government. We're not making the payments. What do you make about all this? And what do you think is going to happen tomorrow at the hearing? I mean, it's atrocious, right? It's for all the reasons you said, it's absolutely atrocious that he's withholding this money from the poorest people in this country. Meanwhile, he is suing the Department of Justice for$230 million. Of course, the Department of Justice is going to settle with him because he controls them, because those are his legal fees that he wants to pay his lawyers back.

54:52And let's think about, I know I'm totally changing subject, but this is what appalls me when I think about how he's taking money out of the mouths of the people who, food out of the mouths of the people who need it the most. Okay, who were his lawyers? Because what he's saying is, I paid$230 million in legal fees. I want to be paid back for those cases. Who were his lawyers? His lawyers were familiar names. Todd Blanche, who's currently the number two at the Department of Justice. Emile Beauvais, who he appointed to the federal appeals court. Lindsey Halligan was one of his lawyers. I mean, I'm a criminal defense attorney.

55:32$230 million, that's a shit ton of money, okay? That is a lot of money. And that is taxpayer money that he is going to take from the Department of Justice and line his pockets with that. that apparently he already paid his very now wealthy attorneys that he's now appointing to all these government jobs. That is money that should be spent on things like the SNAP program. And it is just atrocious how much money he is just grifting off our tax dollars and not giving it to the people who need it the most. So look, the reason he has to pay this money is because although he can, it's because there is some money in reserve, but it's not enough.

56:14I think they need 8 billion and there's 5 billion. So it'll get at least 5 billion to people who need it in the month of November. Let's see what happens in December. But this is one of the most more appalling things he's done. And I think he has to be called out for it, especially when you see what else he's doing with money, like renovating his ballroom at the White House. I mean, it's just while he's flying around and people are, you know, you've got Kash Patel using a private jet to go see his girlfriend, right? The country music singer. And, you know, those are all tax dollars. Every time Donald Trump plays golf, you know, and his secret service detail.

56:53I mean, every time they're all running around doing things, it's all taxpayer dollars while they're living the life. And the poorest Americans are not eating. It's just appalling and atrocious.

57:03Michael Popok:What I think Donald Trump has missed is that there's been a turn in the American sentiment. and what was once sort of Trump being Trump. And boy, that's funny. And I like golden showers. I like golden faucets and toilet seats like the next person. And isn't he great to watch? There's been a turn in America because of his policies have caused such great suffering and such great introspection about who we are as Americans. And he's still playing from the 2024 playbook of what got him elected. and, you know, the more outrageous he was and the more bullets that flew towards him and all of that, the more he thought the American people rallied around him.

57:48Michael Popok:And that was the message he took out of the election. Things have changed. Just as Joe Biden was once on top of his game when he was saving American economy after COVID, having inherited Donald Trump's failures, he soon found that that didn't last. And as he moved into year two and year three, and as American suffering increased, no amount of saying, hey, look at the numbers, you guys are doing great, was going to work when people didn't feel that way around a kitchen table. Donald Trump has missed the fact that America has moved on from all of his braggadocia and grifting and isn't it funny that he's making billions and billions of dollars for his family?

58:35Michael Popok:They're beyond that now. That may have been good enough for him to avoid being jailed and to get elected and beat a relatively weak candidate at a weak moment in time for the Democrats. But that's not what's happening now. It always is about people's dignity. It's about their ability to pay for basic necessities. It's their ability to sleep at night, knowing that they wake up in the morning and they can look their loved ones in the eye and say that they can pay for medicine and health care and school supplies and food and all of that. And they look at a president who seems callously indifferent to all of it.

59:20Michael Popok:And so when we come back from our ad break, we'll do the National Guard and wrap this up. But thanks for being here. There's so many ways to support what we do on Legal AF. One is the audio and video versions of it. Keep us in the top of the ranks of the YouTube weekly charts where we've been, both because of this show and hot takes and things that I do around Legal AF. That's very much appreciated. come over to the audio versions, which are up on the Spotify and Apple platforms, and go back and forth between the two and send these off and help continue to grow our audience. And then we've got Legal AF Substack.

1:00:02Michael Popok:People are like, how can we help keep you guys on the air? Substack, definitely a way to do that. It just puts the ecosystem in the right place. And we put new material there and exclusive material there you can't find anywhere else. and then help us towards our march towards 1 million. It's not about numbers for the subscriber base. The bigger Legal AF becomes, it is. The more street credit has, the more content makers we can bring on, the more collaborators, the more newsmakers, the more lawyers who are in the courtrooms, the more attorneys, generals and senators and elected officials we can bring on to brief our audience.

1:00:39Michael Popok:And that's, I'm not saying it's out of my hands or out of our hands, but we need that support. And so we've just had a meteoric growth in Legal AF. And I really want to thank the audience for doing that. And in the meantime, here's a word from our sponsors. You ever notice the signs of getting older, creeping in? Poor sleep, low energy, maybe a little brain fog or stiffness that didn't used to be there. Same here. And healthy aging is something I've been thinking about more than ever. That's why I'm so excited to share with you guys C15 from Fatty15, the first emerging essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years.

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1:04:12Michael Popok:Welcome back to the midweek edition of Legal AF. Kara, why don't you pick up with what's going on with the National Guard? We got Judge Immergut who issued an order. We got another order from Judge Immergut. Seventh Circuit, Supreme Court. Why don't you see if you can stitch that together, and I'll do some kibitzing along the way. So Judge Emergett issued a preliminary injunction in a case challenging the federal deployment of the National Guard in Oregon, in Portland in particular. And she issued this preliminary injunction blocking the federal government from deploying the National Guards until November 7th.

1:04:47So it's two days away. So the order followed a three-day trial. There was 100, almost 100 exhibits, many, many witnesses, and the court found that Oregon was likely to succeed on the merits of their claim, and that the federalization and deployment violated Section 12406 and the 10th Amendment, and specifically found that evidence showed that the protests outside of the ICE facility in Portland were generally uneventful. I thought that was a great, you know, a great quote. And basically called them out and said, it's not a rebellion, it's not an insurrection, and it doesn't justify federalizing under 12406.

1:05:26So, you know, look, 12406 is a statute that basically says the president can federalize the National Guard when the president determines that the state has failed to comply with obligations under the Constitution or laws of the U.S. and the situation is a rebellion or insurrection. and basically the court said look there's no not only do i drive to work every day and see that there's no rebellion or insurrection but no evidence despite the almost a thousand exhibits that were presented in the many witnesses it doesn't exist and so the evidence doesn't support this and states have the 10th amendment gives state sovereignty you know that basically federal governments can't do this.

1:06:06So I think it's clear that, you know, but you can't do this in Oregon. But, you know, meanwhile, well, go ahead, you stitch everything together and then I'll give some commentary.

1:06:19Michael Popok:Meanwhile, I leaned in like, meanwhile. I know, because you're very good at that. So let's see. You're very good at it, too. So the Seventh Circuit, it had issued an order grounding the troops, if you will, in Chicago. That got appealed to the United States Supreme Court. We're all kind of bargaining in the shadow of the Supreme Court here, as we like to say. Supreme Court asked for additional briefing about one issue, which I don't think bodes well for the Trump administration. That seems to be a theme tonight on legal AF. Things are not going well for the Trump administration in courtrooms because their legal arguments are nonsense.

1:06:51Michael Popok:and their factual record is a lie, and federal judges are on to them. And so the Supreme Court said, when you look at 12406, there's a phrase about when a president can't execute laws using regular forces. That also gives rise to bring it in the National Guard. What are regular forces? You and I talked about this last week. The historical precedent, going back to like the Militia Act of 1795, is that regular forces are the regular armed forces. And it's the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, you know, the Space Force. And maybe you could add on there local law enforcement. And then only if that group and federal officers can't do the job, then you call for the backup of the National Guard.

1:07:56Michael Popok:And if that's the case, then Donald Trump's got a problem because he didn't send in the troops. He federalized the national state militia, National Guard, which has a weird name, right? We hear National Guard. You think, oh, that's like the president commands that. No, this is the state militia, which has dual commission. They're also federalized under certain limited circumstances. And so there's no doubt in the record that if that's a precondition in any of these places, he did not roll through with tanks in order to stop, you know, chicken-suited protesters from stopping or slowing down some people getting processed at an ICE detention center.

1:08:38Michael Popok:So he'd be screwed if that's the requirement. Now, of course, the flip side of that is he goes, oh, is that what you want? And he just rolls in the troops there. But listen, the record is sort of where it is. It's sort of a flat record at this point, a dry record. And I think he's going to lose the United States Supreme Court after this last round of briefing. In the meantime, judges, just to answer questions that often come up in the chat, until the Supreme Court makes a definitive ruling or blocks a certain order, federal judges at the lower level, whether appellate or district court, they just continue chopping wood and stacking it up.

1:09:20Michael Popok:They just do their job. That's why Judge Immergut, whose temporary restraining orders, or one of them at least, was initially blocked by a three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That blocking got vacated by a vote of 29 judges at the Ninth Circuit. They were like, yeah, we don't think that was decided right against Immergut, and said, we're going to have our own briefing schedule. We'll try this over again. In the meantime, you do you, federal judge immigrant, with your temporary restraining orders. She's already moved ahead. We're now, as the Trump administration, as I thought they would, has told the appellate court, the appeal is moot because we move beyond temporary restraining order.

1:10:03Michael Popok:This is why you don't bring an appeal on a temporary restraining order. Why judges don't like it, appellate judges don't like it. You wait until there's at least a preliminary injunction, the next step up, because they get replaced. So now there's a preliminary injunction, which is in place only until Friday, only until this Friday, when she's going to enter her permanent injunction. That's what they should be appealing from, the permanent injunction. And then that'll go back to the Ninth Circuit, maybe with a new three-judge panel. See, Trump wants to dismiss the appeal because he figured out that the majority of the 29 are not on his side.

1:10:41Michael Popok:So he wants to restart. It's like the kid that throws over the game board or turns off the video game because he doesn't like how it's going for him. Oh, we'll just – it's moot. We'll wait for the new order. And then we'll take an appeal and try to get a three-judge panel again. One third of the Ninth Circuit, which is hard to believe, that sits in San Francisco, is comprised of Trump appointees from the first term. So he could get another couple of – it only takes two Trump judges to side with him. We see it time and time again in various courts. But that's what's happening there. I'll report on it on Legal AF YouTube and on Legal AF Substack Live when Friday rolls around.

1:11:22Michael Popok:So much, not loose ends, but just things that we need to follow off of today's show. We'll pick up some of it on Saturday with Ben Micellis and me when we pick up with the Saturday edition to kind of grab whatever hasn't been. But there's so much going on. That's why we are so dedicated to the YouTube channel and the ability in real time. We have 10 videos a day now up on the Legal AF YouTube channel. The American Civil Liberties Union is about to join us as a regular playlist. We have Democracy Forward there as a regular playlist. Court of History, which is Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz as a regular playlist.

1:11:58Michael Popok:They do six or eight videos a week. Adam Klassfeld, All Rise News, regular playlist. The Pragmatic Optimists, which are Gen Z or Gen Alpha lawyers and elected officials. Tiara Mack is a state senator from Rhode Island. I think you'll find her fascinating on a regular playlist with Rachel Cohen. And then we've got, for the things that happen in real time in real life, we have the Legal AF sub stack and the lives. I'm able to pull it together. I try to do one a day just to catch the news that's out there because it's so important that people are educated and know what they're talking about when they're having these debates around their kitchen table.

1:12:42Michael Popok:as we move forward now with a springboard trampoline from this election cycle to the special elections between now and the midterm, which are all been running in favor of the Democrats, and then the midterms where we can send the definitive message loud and clear once and for all that we're going to run the bastards out on a rail and we're going to do it with the return of the House and the Senate to sane people, to adults named Democrats with these next to their name and those that will caucus with the Democrats and return checks and balance and co-equal branches of government back to this nation and make Donald Trump the lamest of lame ducks.

1:13:21Michael Popok:The court system and the lawsuits are effective in getting billions of dollars of aid to people in America. 50 lawsuits by the attorneys general. They're winning at 90 percent. 100 lawsuits by Democracy Forward and other groups. and that's important to also slow down Donald Trump and tie him up in court as the clock continues to run. We're doing that as well. That's going well. The crowds in the street, amazing. 20, 30 million people total have hit the streets to protest the Trump administration. And more importantly, they're showing up, as Karen, you said, they're showing up in tremendously huge numbers that we haven't seen, sometimes back to the 1960s, in terms of turnout in an off presidential year.

1:14:03Michael Popok:It just shows you the pent up demand to be heard by those that are not MAGA. The silent majority is silent no longer. Donald Trump has awakened a beast, released the Kraken. Karen, you're in New York. There's a lot of jubilation all around. Why don't you end this on a good note for us today? Well, can I end it on this episode of Trump's bizarro world? And then I'll end it on a good note. I just have to talk about this because it's just, I can't believe it. So there is a trial going on in Washington, D.C. right now being prosecuted by Trump's Justice Department in federal court. And it's the guy who threw a sandwich at an ICE agent.

1:14:48OK, literally, that's what he did. He threw a sandwich. The testimony that this is what our taxpayer dollars are going towards. Not, you know, of course, the insurrection of January 6th, people dying, people getting assaulted. a note. That was okay. But a guy throws a sandwich at an agent and is being prosecuted. And the testimony was literally, I had mustard all over my uniform. Okay. That's what he says. He said, it smelled of onions and mustard. This is what he is spending our taxpayer dollars on. So I'll end in a high note that New York is absolutely jubilant right now and thrilled because we are sending a big message to Donald Trump and everyone like him.

1:15:32We don't want that. We don't want spending money on your priorities. We care about other things like affordability, homelessness, and affordable housing, food, health care, all of those issues. So I just, people need to know what is happening and what Trump is doing because it's appalling to me that that case is being prosecuted, but he pardoned all the Jan 6 people.

1:15:56Michael Popok:I think I got four different videos on Legal AF YouTube about the sandwich guy. Everybody wanted to hit that one. Because it really, I mean, when I first saw that, I thought it was an article in The Onion, you know, or I couldn't believe that this was actually what, and again, as a former prosecutor, as you have scarce resources, a federal trial, you have 12 jurors plus alternates who are taking time out of their day to sit there and listen to this case. You've got ICE agents who, instead of doing whatever they're doing, they're testifying. I mean, it is just, it's atrocious and appalling. A federal judge who's spending their time doing that, it's just, I can't believe that a guy who threw a sandwich is being prosecuted in federal court.

1:16:41Michael Popok:Legal AF, we will never throw a sandwich at you. Thank you for being here. The Midweek Edition, Karen Freeman, Igniflo, Michael Popak. Catch us on Saturday with Ben Misalas and me. And if you're jonesing for more law and politics and nerding out where a TED Talk meets a law school class, come over to Legal AF YouTube channel and register your vote and your support for First Amendment rights and hit the free subscribe button there and come over to Legal AF Substack and do the exact same thing. So until our next reporting, Karen Freeman-Nicnifolo and Michael Popok, shout out to the Legal AFers and the Midas Mighty.

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