Legal AF Full Episode 12/10/2025

26:18Michael Popok:Let's dive in to Judge Charles Breyer, Breyer the lesser known, who sits in San Francisco, senior status, probably on the edge of retirement. I think he's 81, but he's been cranking out some orders. It's the revenge of the senior status judges, as I like to joke, protecting our democracy, protecting our rule of law. He was the first one that ruled that Donald Trump had unconstitutionally and illegally under a narrow delegation statute from Congress who has the power to the president under unique circumstances to take over the National Guard. It's a congressional power. It's a war power. It's not a war power under the commander-in-chief.

27:02Michael Popok:It's a power of Congress delegated to the president by a statute we call 12406. And they have to be certain circumstances. Rebellion, invasion, and I can't execute the laws like that. And by the I can't execute the laws, that means I'm trying my hardest to execute the laws Congress has created. Because remember, Congress creates laws. But I can't do it using regular forces. Now, we can have a debate about regular forces. What are they? Are they the local security forces? Are they law enforcement? Are they both? Are they the armed forces? We're going to get all that resolved soon with the Supreme Court.

27:39Michael Popok:But he was the first judge that said you can't take over the state militia, cut out the governor and start roaming around with a national standing army in blue states. And you can't keep re-upping it and reauthorizing it because our fear, and I think it's legitimate, is that Trump's going to keep troops on the ground in blue states through the midterms to scare the crap out of voters. Not that that's working very well for him. We flipped a seat in Georgia yesterday. We have the first female and the first Democrat mayor of the city of Miami, my hometown now, Eileen Higgins. we're flipping you know we flipped 20 seats three weeks ago we're going to flip another 12 seats yesterday this is not working for him and no matter how many rallies in casinos in Pennsylvania he has when when he's supposed to be talking about affordability and Trump starts talking about transgender people again and Somalis and I guess transgender Somalis that are taking over the world.

28:46Michael Popok:And why don't we let more Swedish and Norwegian people in instead of black people? I mean, he just says such crazy shit out loud that if your grandfather did that, he'd be kicked out of the home. He'd be like, I just got a call from the assisted living facility, dad. You're going to have to come live with us because you're saying crazy shit. And yet, he's the president of the United States. So Breyer was the first one. He had one of his order is reversed on appeal by the Ninth Circuit, one that hasn't been. And now he's issued another preliminary injunction to kick out the National Guard under Donald Trump's control.

29:24Michael Popok:Shout out to Gavin Newsom, governor of California. Shout out to A.G. Rob Bonta, the attorney general. I'm going to be interviewing him on Friday about this case. Karen, what did you, you got a chance to look at the order, hit the shock that he has, the quotations, citations to James Madison and the Federalist Papers. What did you make of this order and what he's trying to accomplish? Well, I have to say, Popak, when you suggested this topic as something we could talk about today, my first reaction was, what? They still have the National Guard in California? Nothing's going on in California. I mean, it's ridiculous.

29:59I mean, the fact that this is still an issue, that Trump still wants to have them, not that it was ever justified because it wasn't, but if it ever was justified, it's certainly not justified now. Nothing is happening. Nothing. And so this is just a big power play. Trump just wants to know that he's going to appeal this order because he just wants to say, I can do it. I can do it if I want to. And I want to have this up my sleeve, whether he keeps them on the ground now or not. He wants to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court so that the Supreme Court can say, President can call up the National Guards and federalize it whenever he sees fit, whenever he thinks he needs it.

30:38And you're not allowed to question his judgment. If he says he needs it, then he needs it. And that's what this is about. This is a giant power play. But, you know, it can't be that way. You can't just say, oh, I absolutely, you know, just because I say I want it, then I get to have it. You know, it's like he wants to, you know, they're my toys. I get to keep them. And it's just interesting because what Judge Breyer basically said was, look, no crisis lasts forever. And so even if it were justified at the time, not saying it was, you no longer can do that. You no longer have the authority. But this is going to be this is a big power play that's going to play out on who gets to do this and when and whether Trump can actually continue to keep them federalized for as long as he wants.

31:32and that only he gets to say when the crisis is over. But it's just the judges who live in these, I mean, Trump doesn't live in California, obviously, and he doesn't go to California hardly. The judges do. They drive to work every day. They drive to court. They know, they can see with their own eyes what's happening. And they also see the record that's in front of them. They can't show any proof or any justification for this. So it'll just be interesting to see where the appellate courts is heading in this. But it's great to see judges like Judge Breyer really call out. And I think as they get older, they get a little less, they don't hold their words back.

32:18And so they say how they feel and they make it very clear exactly how they feel. And so this decision didn't disappoint for sure. Yeah.

32:27Michael Popok:In fact, let me read from a certain aspect of the order is really powerful and eloquent. Here's how it starts. First page. The founders designed our government to be a system of checks and balances. Defendants, however, make clear that the only check they want is a blank one. Six months after they first federalized, the California National Guard defendants still retain control of approximately 300 guardsmen, despite no evidence that execution of federal law is impeded in any way, let alone significantly. What's more, defendants have sent California guardsmen into other states, creating a national police force made up of state troops.

33:05Michael Popok:In response to plaintiffs' motion to enjoin this conduct, defendants take the position that, after a valid initial federalization, All subsequent refederalizations are completely and forever unreviewable by the courts. It's contrary to the law, and therefore the court enjoins the federalization of the California National Guard troops. He cites in the first footnote James Madison in the Federalist Paper number 51 talking about how our system of government reflected in the Constitution creates three co-equal branches of government that are supposed to grind against each other to ensure that we have the checks and balances that are required.

33:50On page 10, he lays it straight out, talking truth.

33:56Michael Popok:Here's what Judge Breyer says. He says,

34:28Michael Popok:of orders of the federalization orders are utterly unreviewable forever. And the judge says that is shocking. Adopting defendant's interpretation of section 12406 would permit a president to create a perpetual police force comprised of state troops so long as they were first federalized lawfully. Such a scenario would validate the founders, quote, widespread fear of a national standing army, which they believed, quote, posed an intolerable threat to individual liberty and to the sovereignty of the separate states, citing a United States Supreme Court decision, Perpich versus Department of Defense from 1990.

35:12Michael Popok:And he's used that language before, Karen, in his first order and in his order about martial law, about calling out and ripping the mask off of what Donald Trump is trying to do, which is to have at his beck and call a national standing army. I mean, was there any doubt when he addressed the troops, the military brass that they pulled together at Quantico, when he walked around on the stage like he was some sort of demented George C. Scott in a remake of Patton and telling them, here's a good idea, you can go practice your craft and go practice on U.S. citizens when you go into these asshole cities like Detroit and Illinois and blah, blah, blah.

35:55Michael Popok:It's just mind-boggling. So what's going to happen? Judge said, I'm going to stay my order on my own initiative until Monday. Get to the Ninth Circuit. I'll have Rob Bonta on on Friday, the Attorney General of California, to talk about some of what he can reveal about their strategy and tactics. They're going to have to wait to see who the three-judge panel is that's going to be assigned. One-third of the Ninth Circuit is comprised of Trump appointees. And, you know, my old joke, how many Trump appointees on an appellate panel does it take to screw up the Constitution, too? And, you know, we just had, in the last 24 hours, they got the band back together again.

36:36Michael Popok:And Judge Katzis and Judge Rayo on the D.C. Circuit Court, two Trumpers got together and said, no, we think it's OK with Pete Hexet to drum out of the Corps and all of the military transgender soldiers and chastise the federal judge who had blocked it after finding bias and animus in the decision making. That would have not been the case had there been two, you know, normal judges having been appointed. But this is what we're up against. Now we've got to sit around and wait to see what judges come in and then whether the Ninth Circuit en banc, the entirety of the Ninth Circuit, well, at least the 11 people that make up the en banc panel, what they're going to do about it as we wait for the United States Supreme Court to get off their ass or whatever they sit on and generate their final order about this particular provision.

37:26Michael Popok:We're still waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on something that came out of the Illinois court a couple of months ago. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, you know, just judges. But but this just shows you that federal judges and appellate judges just have to chop wood and do their job. They can't wait around like, well, we'd love to get guidance from the Supreme Court on this issue. And we know there's a case there. But no, they have to do their job. And if they have to change it and modify it after the Supreme Court rules. OK, so be it. Some people might be wondering, why should we care about this?

37:54There's only 100 National Guards left in California, or they're drawing them down to 100, right? But still, even so, it's not that many. Some people might say, who cares? Nothing's going on. So there's soldiers there. It matters. And it matters for the reasons you said earlier, Popak. It matters because if he has the ability to federalize them and keep them federalized, he can call them up any time. And as you said, for the midterm elections, they can do it for election security and scare people off from the ballots, from the voting booths. I mean, it's really, there are so many reasons why this is such an important battle to fight at this time, even if they draw it down to 100, even if they draw it down to zero.

38:39The fact of the matter is he shouldn't be allowed to do this whenever he wants and keep it for as long as he wants, because then he can call anything an emergency or he can call anything something that he needs to be done and have this military, frankly, that he can then turn on U.S. citizens. So it's a really important issue. It's a great fight. And I'm glad that California is fighting it. And, you know, I just I can't help but think that don't you wish that Trump's cabinet was actually focusing on things that the American people cared about and doing things that people cared about? I mean, when you look at Pete Hegseth, who is, you know, complaining about how people in the military are dressing, or you look at, you know, the guy in charge of the FAA, yeah, saying people shouldn't wear pajamas on airplanes.

39:29Or did you see that Marco Rubio wants to, spending time changing the typeface of letters going out because he doesn't like the typeface? You know, he wants to go back to Times New Roman. I mean, it's just the fact, the font, you know, like we're literally wasting time on fonts because he doesn't like the font. He thinks the font that was used, that they use, it was made more accessible for people who have dyslexia and things like that. It's just he doesn't like the font, so he's turning it back. And I'm just thinking they're not substantive. They're not substantive. They're not taking care of the American people.

40:07And they're not spending our tax dollars doing things that matter.

40:11Michael Popok:Yeah, it's like the last season of Succession, you know, where the patriarch looks at his kids and says, you're just not serious people. I could never turn over this company to you. Yeah, I love you, but you're not serious people. We have a whole series of not serious people that are in charge under this administration. And the electorate has woken up with a vengeance. I just read an article that there is Democratic groups that are going to try to flip 600 seats at statehouse races come the midterms and 2028. They're targeting. Now, people think that's a huge number. How are they ever going to do that?

40:50Michael Popok:The Democrats lost 800 seats in the last 15 or 20 years. No, last 15 years in statehouse races. This is just getting back what we lost and flipping the back. And they think it's worth it now because the momentum and advantage is so in favor of the Democrats. Every time there's a special election, a runoff election, an election night in America in the last month, two months, it's always gone in favor of the Democrats. Even if they don't win, they bring the gap down to single digits in districts or in states or in areas where Donald Trump won by double digits. You have Eileen Higgins, Commissioner Higgins, who's now the mayor-elect of the city of Miami.

41:34Michael Popok:It was a double-digit win for Donald Trump, first time ever in Miami-Dade County against Kamala Harris and in the city of Miami, and never had a woman mayor, let alone – and I thought it was very interesting because it shows you how diverse the Democratic Party is. Or as Jamie Raskin reminded an audience that I co-hosted, including Eileen Higgins a couple weeks ago, we've got to reclaim the brand of the Democratic Party. We've got to do what FDR used to call the Democratic Party. We've got to do what Andrew Jackson used to call the Democratic Party. It wasn't the Democratic Party. It was the democracy.

42:14Michael Popok:We were the democracy and they were the republic or the plutocrats. And instead of saying, well, the Democratic Party believes this, you would say instead, the democracy demands the following. And that meant the brand, the party and the democracy. Instead of letting the Republicans clip our name, clip the Democrats' name to say the Democrat Party. It's the Democrat. It's not the Democrat Party. It's the Democratic Party. Just like we don't call you the Republic Party. And I say skip all that. Let's go back to the vocabulary, as Jamie Raskin pointed out at this rally, of what we used to – of what the Democrats used to say.

42:53Michael Popok:It's like they, meaning the soon-to-be trillionaires like Elon Musk, they want this level of corruption and abuse. But the democracy demands. That's the vocabulary that we need to be using. Forget typefaces. Forget fonts. We have to grab that back, claw that back, and it shows. I mean, look at the flip-flip-flipping that's going on in these races because people have a pent-up demand to vote. You know, protesting in the street is great, all right, and getting a phone call or an internet, you know, tag about a polling, a poll that's going on, I guess is awesome. But there's nothing like showing up at a poll and pulling a lever, electronic or otherwise.

43:42Michael Popok:And Donald Trump, he's out, and where's the safest place I can go? Is there a casino in Pennsylvania? 3 ,000 people. Can I go there? And they wheel him out. And if they think the Republican Party thinks that's going to help campaigner in chief Donald Trump at midterms rambling on again, another version of Somalis and other black people from other countries eating pets is going to win the midterms as we focus on affordability. I mean, all Eileen Higgins talked about was public transportation and affordable housing and affordability. That was her entire campaign as a technocrat. She's really a technocrat.

44:24Michael Popok:She's not a democratic socialist. She's a proficient leader who can get things accomplished. And she didn't want to get sucked into the Trump by proxy debate, you know, that she's some sort of Democrat. She's taking on Donald Trump. Just wants to help the Miami people with affordability and with transportation, just like she did when she was a county commissioner. And so you have the Democratic Socialists in New York who won on affordability, affordability, affordability. You have the moderates in Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey, Governor-elect, and Governor-elect Spanberger in Virginia, who were part of the mod squad when they were in the House.

45:04Michael Popok:And then you've got, you know, taken back the city of Miami and a city that's 70 percent Hispanic. We just had a white woman. She's known as La Gringa affectionately in her community. She also speaks Spanish. but this is remarkable and then we just got to have the federal judges continue to hold the line you know like they're like the metro police at the capitol hold the line hold the line hold the line you know and most justice happens in the trial court level in the first level appeal level sure it burns our ass every time we watch something at the supreme court 80 % of the time go Donald Trump's way and they are important things that go Donald Trump's way but most justice that matters happens at the courts below the Supreme Court.

45:52Michael Popok:And we just have to keep supporting those people that run into the burning building of our democracy and the rule of law and our, and our, our the lawyers and the, and the trial judges and the appellate judges. And I will just leave it on this, Karen. I'll turn it back to you. The one thing that I picked up from doing interviews, like I did an interview today with Senator Whitehouse, did an interview with all the 11 attorneys general for the Democratic attorneys general, is that they have told me to express here that they appreciate and need the support of our audience, Midas Touch and Legal AF, because it's that crowdfunding and sourcing that they need.

46:37Michael Popok:They need the energy. They need the support. They need the momentum. them. They need the mandate that comes from people like our community, supporting them, focused on them, wanting to be debriefed by them. And they pulled me aside, or some of them said it on the air. They pulled me aside and said, what we're doing here on Midas and Legal AF is so important to what they're trying to accomplish in the courtrooms. Keep it up. Don't let up. And we're all gas, no brakes here on Legal AF for sure. Right, Karen? Yeah, no, it's very, very, very important work. And I think the American people are starting to fight back.

47:14You know, they're fighting back by voting and voting a counterweight to Donald Trump. I think that was a big part of why Mondami won in New York City, because people see how he's going way too far in the other direction, and he's a counterweight to Donald Trump. And I think it's all starting to matter and it's all starting to blow back on him, thankfully. And the more people continue to hit the streets and speak on podcasts like Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network and all the interviews you're doing, Popok, I think it's just a great thing. People have to stay informed and don't get discouraged.

47:56Don't get deflated and vote and vote for the right people because it's just it's not OK what's happening.

48:04Michael Popok:Absolutely. Let's do a brief one on Jeb Bosberg, who's been fighting hard against this administration, not because he wants to, but because these are the facts that have been laid at his feet, laid in his courtroom about an out-of-control, rogue, lawless, to paraphrase Ketanji Brown Jackson, Department of Justice and presidency. and so he's going to get to the bottom this is like a whodunit movie that just keeps going on and on we know who did it it's just now up to him to go through the process the due process that's required to figure out what he's going to do about the fact that Kristi Noem allowed and she put it in her own declaration and said yeah I don't care what the temporary restraining order was to ground the planes.

48:54Michael Popok:We're going to continue to fly the planes under the Alien Anemies Act because my lawyers told me to. Or based on privileged conversations with them, I'm not going to tell you about. So the judge, as expected, said, all right, let's do it. Let's do it your way. You want to send in affidavits which are written statements under oath? I'll read them. Maybe I'll get to the bottom of the facts here based on those, or maybe I won't. But let me take a look. So they sent in three, go F yourself. My paraphrase. F yourself affidavits. I made the decision, and I'm not going to tell you why. And the other one was like, I gave her the advice, but I'm not going to tell you why.

49:29Michael Popok:And the other one was like, and then they're all like the three main declarants, Christy Noem, Todd Blanche, number two in the Department of Justice, and Joe Mazzara, the acting general counsel, whatever, for the homeless, whatever his title is, for Homeland Security. They couldn't even get their facts straight, even though, you know, one guy typed it, one person typed it. And it was like, well, there was an oral, there was an oral pronouncement, but then there was an order. But then I only found out about the earlier afternoon in the evening. But then I'm like, are you effing kidding me? So what did the judge do?

50:03Michael Popok:Exactly what you and I said he was going to do. No, I don't like judges went like this metaphorically. Okay. I don't like any of that. So let's get live witnesses into my courtroom starting next week. Let's start with who I said I wanted to hear from. Erez Ruveni, who famously went on 60 Minutes and said and declared in a whistleblower statement that Emil Bovee, now on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, got a group of people together on the very - On the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, but then went to like a Trump rally yesterday or Trump like, I mean, judges are supposed to remain neutral. And he's showing up at Trump again.

50:41Michael Popok:Why did he have a political rally in Pennsylvania? Right? It's crazy. And who, by the way, I'm sure as we're on the air tonight, there's already a bar violation, a judicial ethics violation that's been filed against him. And it should be. Why do I want to look up and see a judge where justice is supposed to be blind at a raw partisan political rally? I mean, do you remember the shit that Donald Trump gave the judge that was overseeing his criminal trial? Do you remember? For the 50 bucks? 20 it was 20 bucks do you remember he donated yeah he donated 20 to some random yeah act blue exactly it wasn't even a person it was to um you know a political party you know act blue not even a party it's just a you know whatever it's a democratic fundraising yeah exactly yeah 20 he donated and do you remember the what we had to hear about he's he's political he's not he's partisan.

51:41He's unethical. He's, you know, biased, all that kind of stuff. And now we have a judge on the third circuit, Emile Bove, who that that is such a powerful position. And he is at a Trump rally.

51:54Michael Popok:I mean, why don't we just go around the room? And Trump should say, let me first introduce all the judges that are in my pocket. Stand up when I call your name. Emile Bove. Are you here? Marsh? How about John Roberts? Are you here? Kavanaugh? I mean, taking it to its extreme, Every time you watch the State of the Union, right, it happens in Congress. You've got the Democrats on one side. You've got the Republicans on another side. And then you've got the Supreme Court justices sitting there. And then some people applaud. Some people don't. Depending on who's speaking, the justices sit there and remain neutral.

52:32Michael Popok:Some don't go. Some have made a decision that it's too partisan and too political. Usually the Republican not confirmed ones when there's a Democratic president. And they go, oh, Alito, I feel I should stay home on this one. And then Bovee is fucking partying, pardon me, is legal AFing, partying in Pennsylvania at the casino. I mean, it's just – and on Air Force One. So if I'm Judge Boesberg, he said, look, I want to hear from Emil Bovee. I want to hear from Erez Riveni, who said that Emil Bovi told him that if the judges asked how to go F off, we're sending these people, which now explains why the planes continue to fly even after the oral temporary restraining order.

53:15Michael Popok:So Erez Riveni is coming in. OK, he now works for Democracy Forward. He's coming in to testify. He wants to hear from, and I've said this from the beginning, that Drew Ensign is in big trouble because Drew Ensign, the lawyer and the boss of Emil Arizraveni, lied, my opinion, to Judge Boseberg by telling him, I really don't know what's going on with the planes, your honor, but I did tell them about your order. and I think he never showed up again in front of Judge Bosberg's courtroom. They sent him out to Judge Zinnes' courtroom with Abrego Garcia. They sent him over here. He like never showed up again.

53:53Michael Popok:He lied. Eris Reveni said he lied on 60 Minutes in his whistleblower letter. And the judge is like, I want to hear from Drew Ensign, who was the head of the Immigration Litigation Division of the Department of Justice. That's the guy, if you remember, Karen, we reported on that the judge said, You know, you only have your reputation, you know, and your ethics. That's all you have. Don't sacrifice them by not, you know, not being candid with the tribunal. And he warned him early on. I think I was, whatever. Yeah, well, now he's going to be under oath. And the judge is going to go first. He said the parties can ask questions.

54:36Michael Popok:This is my exam about criminal contempt. So he's going to have those people. And then from there, he said in his order, and it should scare the shit out of Kristi Noem, but she's too stupid to realize it. He said, it's too early for me now to determine whether there should be a criminal referral or not. Not that it's not going to happen. I just haven't made the decision yet. And then some people might be thinking, well, who cares, Popock? It's in the comments. It'll just be the Department of Justice ignoring the criminal referral. Ah, ah, ah. You'll see Chief Judge Bosberg appoint his own special counsel because he'll find that the Justice Department is conflicted and they've indicated that there's no contempt here and they're not going to go after it.

55:19Michael Popok:And so now we're going to have a battle about whether Bozberg can appoint his own special prosecutor to go after people like Kristi Noem. I mean, seriously, people wonder why I say, help us get to 1 million subscribers on Legal Layoff before 2026. Look at all of this stuff happening in one generation. I used to sit as a person interested in history. I used to read about the days of Andrew Jackson, bloody, bloody Andrew Jackson. And then senators taking out canes and beating other senators on the floor of the Senate. I'm like, those were the days. We don't have that anymore. We do. We do. You know what?

56:01I would take those days of getting hit with canes compared to what we're doing, blowing up boats and indiscriminately and the stuff that's going on here, arresting U.S. citizens and deporting them and putting people in torturous prisons. I mean, I'll take that. I'll take the canes.

56:19Michael Popok:Here's a new one. Did you hear that your lovely transportation department, Sean Duffy, Department of Transportation, is making people who have green cards, who are here legally, who don't speak maybe English as well as on a snap test. They're pulling them out of trucks and grounding the trucks, which is part of our economy, and long-haul transportation. and they're from Eastern Europe, a lot of them. And like, nope, you don't speak English well enough. Sorry, buddy. And just the truck just stays there. The cargo just rots and the companies have to pay for it because Donald Trump is, there's no requirement under the constitution that you speak English properly to live in America or to drive a truck.

57:06Michael Popok:But this is what he's doing. This is, who voted for this? I said this literally out loud when I was in line to board a plane to come to New York yesterday out of Miami. And of course, we had the regular delay, which is, you know, equipment and your planes late. And then the other delay, which is who the fuck knows. And then the last delay is we got to wait for Border Patrol. Right. And the tattooed Border Patrol guy to come, you know, scare the shit out of everybody because he's checking IDs or whatever he's doing. And I literally said out loud, who voted for this? You ever see those movies where they're the futuristic movies and the people are kind of being led somewhere and there's like a TV screen with this creepy woman on the screen talking with like a fake smile.

57:54You are about to enter that, you know, those types of things. Last time I was at the airport, there was a TV screen and a creepy woman on there speaking like that. It was Kristi Noem. Of course. Insane. I thought, oh, my God, what are we in? I can't even think of one of the movies now.

58:14Michael Popok:Are you watching Pluribus on Apple TV? No. Is it good? I'll leave it at that. But, yes, it's right to your point. I'll just leave it at that. So, Boesburg, December 15th, contempt hearing, a whole bunch of witnesses starting on the 8th. Actually, no, not the 8th. Starting on the 12th and then a hearing on the 15th. And then he's going to issue another ruling. and at the rate he's going, I am telling you, I would be shocked if he doesn't find someone in the Trump administration in criminal contempt. And then we're often running about judges appointing special counsel. But isn't, isn't Christine Noam just going to say I was relying on advice of counsel and that's a defense.

58:56I'm just saying, will it get to the point of a criminal referral if she says I was relying on advice of counsel, which is a defense, right?

59:04Michael Popok:And then you can't jail the lawyers? I mean, you can't. I mean, they're allowed to give wrong legal advice. I mean, I wonder if that's the chance match they're playing. Yeah, that's definitely the long game that they're playing. But listen, Jeff Boesberg is a very smart judge. Let's see how he plays that out. When we come back, we're going to talk about whether James Comey is going to be reindicted or not and what's standing in the way. Right now, a judge named Judge Kolar-Katelli, senior judge, back to the revenge of the senior judges, folks, in the District of Columbia, standing in the way of a possible re-indictment.

59:42Michael Popok:It looks like that's all they got on James Comey, which is this bullshit. We're cursing a lot tonight. You're very salty today. I think it's the holidays. It's the holidays. Holiday at a glass of wine at lunch. That's what it is. That's probably it. So about whether they admitted, Karen, the Department of Justice, they got nothing else on James Comey other than a one line statement that he stood by in response to a question by Ted Cruz. I stand by my prior testimony. I stand by my prior testimony in September of 2020. That's it, folks. And in order to connect all those dots, they need what I call the Richmond files.

1:00:23Michael Popok:We're talking about the Epstein files. Daniel Richman, professor at Columbia, turned over lots of his material under a warrant having nothing to do with this case, having to do with Hillary Clinton and her emails. But it was a box sitting around on the shelf and the FBI, Lindsay Halligan, because, you know, she's very she's very talented and and experienced. And she said to the FBI, go rummage around that box. You don't need a warrant, which we call in the business a warrantless search under the Fourth Amendment and unconstitutional. I'll go rummage around the Richmond box, even if it has communication between his client and himself.

1:01:00Michael Popok:Just go use that and then go testify to the grand jury. Judge, we're going to talk about Judge Culler can tell you when we come back. But now it's another time to support what we do here with our sponsors, with supporting the podcast, as always, as you do. If you watch us, some people don't even know we're on YouTube. I have people say, I just found out you're on YouTube. We're on YouTube. and you can just send this clip off, you know, or when we're done, send it off to people in your life and ask them to join us there. Audio versions, leave a five-star review and comments, continue to grow that audience.

1:01:32Michael Popok:That all helps. And then you got Legal AF YouTube. Let's do it folks together. Let's get to the 1 million subscribers. We're about 18 ,000 short, which in our world, we should be able to get there in about two weeks before the holidays if we can do it together. And then Legal AF Substack as well. Now a word from our sponsors. Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. What do data brokers do? Your name, contact info, social security number, home address, even information about your family members could all be compiled by data brokers and sold online.

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1:04:18Michael Popok:All right, Karen, let's bring it home. We're in the home stretch. You've got, let's turn it over to you from the prosecutor perspective. You've got James Comey, former FBI director. his indictment gets tossed along with Lindsay Halligan by Judge Curry a couple of three weeks ago finding her to be illegally appointed of E. Lindsay Halligan there's a whole nother sub story which we'll do another time that I've done on hot takes about the government is refusing to acknowledge that Lindsay Halligan's been fired and she still signs pleadings as the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia Judge Curry's gonna have to do something about that The judges of the Eastern District of Virginia are going to have to do something about that.

1:05:01Michael Popok:But what's on the agenda right now is the indictment, a re-indictment process around James Comey. So there was a motion that was filed a day or so before Thanksgiving by Daniel Richman, who has been identified subsequently in the original indictment as somebody that they're using as evidence against his client, effectively, because he's a lawyer in Comey. But after Judge Fitzpatrick, the magistrate judge in the case, issued a scathing ruling about what he saw in the grand jury transcript and what he saw about the use of the documents and the warrantless search, basically inviting Daniel Richman to file a motion to vindicate his Fourth Amendment rights against warrantless search or search and seizure.

1:06:03Michael Popok:and to ask for the return of all of his documents and that they not be used by the government. And we have filings since then. Why don't you catch our audience up on it from your former prosecutor experience? Well, this is a major blow to the DOJ's effort to reindict Jim Comey because the judge blocked prosecutors from getting this evidence, right? This email accounts, the computer, all the stuff that they searched without a warrant. and granted a temporary restraining order. So the judge basically said the evidence has to be sequestered while she, pending her ruling, and she's going to decide whether the government illegally retained these emails and the other data.

1:06:48So, you know, look, the judge said the court concludes Richmond is likely to succeed on the merits of his claim that the government has violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures by retaining a complete copy of all files of his personal computer and searching it without a warrant. So it's a huge blow and it's kind of a big deal. Look, when you, as a prosecutor, if you execute a search warrant and you get someone's computer, if there's no case, you have to get rid of it or give it back, right? Or if you retain it for some reason, you're not allowed to just go back and search it in another unrelated case later without a warrant.

1:07:29It's not like you have it and therefore you can access it anytime you want. You have to go back in and you have to get a warrant. It can't be stale. You have to show probable cause as to why you believe a crime was committed and why you think the evidence of the crime would be located in that location, in this case, the computer. and they didn't do that. And on top of that, a lot of that information is going to be attorney client privileged because Richmond represented Comey during part of this. And so that's another layer of you have to put a filter team in place. If you do execute a search warrant and you do get that stuff, you get a separate team of prosecutors who go through that and separate out the attorney client privileged information from the non-privileged information.

1:08:16And you're not allowed to use the attorney-client privilege information. So this is kind of a big deal. And the fact that the judge ruled that they think that Richmond's likely to succeed on the merits, I think that just deals a huge blow to their effort to re-indict the case. And frankly, now putting on my defense attorney hat, if they do re-indict the case, if I were Abby Lowell, who's representing, not Abby Lowell, Pat Fitzgerald, who's representing Jim Comey, the first thing I would do is I would just add another line to my vindictive prosecution claim. Look how vindictive this is. They won't stop.

1:08:57They keep going, keep going. They'll stop at nothing. They're fighting the Richmond thing. They're re-indicting me. Hopefully, the grand jury will do what they did in the Tish James matter and not vote an indictment because grand jurors read the paper too and they see what's happening and hopefully they'll smack this down for what it is because he this is this is clear a clear case of

1:09:19Michael Popok:vindictive prosecution i like that grand juries read the paper too and um now they're standing up and voting against these types of things uh one update uh in a new filing it looks like the department of justice is going to try to block having jeb bosberg the judge take certain testimony next week arguing that it violates the oh now they love the separation of powers except when it's not in their favor. So they're going to try to block this evidentiary hearing from happening, and we'll follow up with that as well. But I agree with you. I think that Judge Colarchitelli is going to rule that the Fourth Amendment rights of Richmond were violated, and that the only remedy that she can come up with, if it's the appropriate one for that, is that the government has denied the ability to use the Richmond files against James Comey.

1:10:13Michael Popok:And if that's the case, their case is dead. Now, they're arguing that they can reindict, but they never said they can reindict without the Richmond files. In fact, they said they need the Richmond files in order to reindict. So this is where the battle, the rubber is beating the road. In addition to that, they've said that they're going to use a statute that gives them an additional six months to fix an infirmed indictment. but that statute's not for that and judge curry even pointed that out in her own order that in that statute is for a defective indictment technical defect in the indictment you act like they left they misparagraphed it they didn't sign it they left out an element of the crime by accident okay then you get six more months to fix your indictment that's not the defect the defect is Lindsay Halligan.

1:11:02Michael Popok:The defect is in the process of selecting the U.S. attorney. And Judge Curry ruled, and I think properly so, that if you have an illegal, this is based on Supreme Court precedent as well, if you have an improperly appointed officer, federal officer, everything that they've done after that is void ab initio. It is void as it's coming out of their pen. And if that's the case, then there is no indictment here. There is an imposter masquerading as a U.S. attorney in Lindsey Halligan who's writing counterfeit indictments. And counterfeit indictments, so to speak, can't be used to stop the clock. And that's not the defect that the statute they're trying to use is talking about.

1:11:49Michael Popok:I think Collar Catelli, I don't know if it's going to be Friday because she's already got the full briefing now. I think soon she's going to be making a ruling, and it could be devastating to the Department of Justice. It's of their own making. I'm not empathetic about any of this, but I think it's going to stop the re-indictment process in its tracks, require an appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals because that's where Judge Collar Catelli is. And then as they run around and try to get a grand jury eventually to indict maybe on some other grounds. But you can see the Trump administration and its Department of Justice either openly defy federal judges, tell them to go pound sand, don't file when they're supposed to file, file things to block hearings, hoping that they'll get a Trumper on their appellate court.

1:12:45Michael Popok:to help them out. This is what a lawless, rogue presidency and the most corrupt Department of Justice in history, headed by the chief law enforcement officer in America, Donald Trump, self-professed, and his meat puppet of attorney general in Pan Bondi. And that's what we can do, is what we're doing. Get together weekly, hourly at the intersection of law and politics and hold them accountable. Some people I see get frustrated in the comments. I read the comments. And they're like, oh, but who cares? Nothing will happen. You keep saying something's going to happen, Popak. You keep saying it's a collapse of something.

1:13:24Michael Popok:When is, when, when? It will. It has. Things have gone right under our system of justice. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of orders that we've detailed here on Legal AF that have not been overturned, that have not been defied, that have not been appealed. That's where we live. We live there. Sure, we can be upset. Sure, we can wring our hands about the handful of ones that didn't go our way, the Trump judges that went a different way, the Supreme Court ruling on a major, major issue. We'll talk about them more next week, that on fundamental constitutional issues that did not go our way.

1:14:05Michael Popok:And then we got to talk about what to do about that after from an electorate standpoint, from a court standpoint, and from a legislative standpoint. But so many things are going our way in the federal courts and even in the state courts that we talk about on a daily basis. Just hang in there. We are a line of defense. The federal courts are holding the line. We need them up on that wall. We want them up on that wall, and they are up on that wall. and we have to do our level best to understand what's going on. That's what we try to do on Legal AF, understand the complexity of these issues, talk truth to each other so we can be able to take it out to the streets and into the polls and beyond.

1:14:49Michael Popok:And things are working in the electorate standpoint. Crowds, courage, and courts. I used to attribute that to A.G. Bonta from California, but he told me during a panel discussion that it was really the Attorney General Chris Mays of Arizona who came up with that and he stole it and I stole it. So it's crowds, courts, and courage. And we're demonstrating all of those things right here on Legal AF. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad Karen Freeman Ignifolo is here, as she is religiously every Wednesday for the last five years. And you know how to support what we do. Legal AF YouTube, Legal AF Substack, Legal AF the podcast, and, of course, our pro-democracy sponsors.

1:15:34Michael Popok:Karen, last word as we roll into the holidays. Yeah, just adding, picking up to the really, really important message that you were just saying. It's all about staying informed. It's all about not putting your head in the sand and just saying, oh, it's too hard or it's too depressing. I don't want to know. You have to stay informed because if you stay informed, you'll fight back. And let us read the filings for you. Let us study the laws for you. And we can translate them and call them out and tell you the boat strikes are illegal. His justification because they're bringing drugs in means we're at war and therefore I can do it.

1:16:13we can tell you that that's BS. And how do we know that's BS? Because he's also pardoning the ex-president of Honduras, who has got 45 years in prison for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras to the US. So these are, he just is lying. He's making stuff up and he's saying he cares about something. And at the same time, in the same week, doing something different. So stay informed, know the facts over the holidays. Don't avoid having these conversations with your family members because it gets difficult. Know the facts and talk to people. Try to win over their hearts and minds so we can flip seats and bring this country back to something that we can all recognize and be proud of because it's worth fighting for.

1:17:01So those are my last words. I love our people and I love our community and we have to stay together.

1:17:08Michael Popok:Absolutely. Thank you for being here. Midweek edition of Legal AF. Hit the free subscribe button every place you can. Until our next report on Saturday with Ben Misalas and then hourly on Midas Touch or Legal AF. I'm Michael Popach, joined, of course, with our co-anchor, Karen Friedman-Nicdifolo. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.

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